WordPress Hosting

At A Glance:

RichWP.com is a commercial theme provider maintained by Felix Krusch. RichWP has a variety of theme styles available including magazine, photo blog, news, and business oriented designs. The theme I’m reviewing today is called Rich-Biz 1.3. Rich Biz is a business oriented design that contains a large space to promote the initial offering of a product or service with up to three widget containers below the main content. This theme is monochrome in color with gray and white being the primary two colors. The third color of red enables links to stand out within content.

License:

All themes that are for sale on RichWP.com are licensed under the GPL.

Installation

The first thing I found out was that this theme does not play nice with WampServer which is what I use to create and manage my local server environment. However, when I installed the theme on a live site, it worked just fine. It must also be pointed out that when you extract the files from the theme zip file, they will not be added to a folder that is automatically created, leaving a mess within the extraction location. The manual specifies that it’s best to upload the zip file through the theme management page and allow the extraction of files to take place there so that the file names and paths do not get screwed up. Once I installed the theme this way, everything worked as expected.

Configuration And Use

Before you can dive into the theme to customize it to your hearts content, you’ll need to create two pages. One called Home with the Frontpage Page Template applied and the other called Blog or News. Then, in the Reading Settings area of WordPress, select Static page and choose Home for the front-page and Blog or News for the Posts page. This will ensure that the front-page contains the three boxes at the bottom mimicking the demo site.

Another thing worth mentioning is that after the theme is installed, you’ll need to edit the Media settings to make sure the image dimensions are compatible with the theme. Refer to the themes manual to figure out what these dimensions are.

As is standard on most commercial WordPress themes, Rich Biz has it’s own theme options panel to guide users through the configuration and design process. The theme options panel does a good job of not inundating the user with all of the options up front. Instead, they use a tabbed interface for the main menus with drop down sub-menus. This keeps the page nice and tidy throughout the configuration process.

While Rich Biz provides options to exclude pages in the navigation menu or include pages in the footer navigation area, you need to know the ID’s of those pages in order to make this panel useful. I much prefer the method seen in other commercial themes where they provide a list of pages that have been created and you select a check-box next to each one you want to include or exclude. However, with a new menu management system on the way with WordPress 3.0, this may become a moot point in all commercial themes. Asides from the navigation, users can configure custom icon images to replace the ones that ship with the theme, whether to enable or disable a built in light box effect and other options.

Rich Biz provides a Front Page tab that contains options to edit the content for the three boxes that appear within the Front Page. The nice thing about this particular options panel is that it provides a way to edit the front page template file without touching any PHP. The HTML or content goes into each corresponding box with options to link the title to a particular page or post. The options also give users a chance to upload a big picture inside of the big box which would be perfect to showcase a product. This is a design meant to be static most of the time so you won’t find an image scroller within the big box at the top of the site although this would certainly be a cool enhancement.

As for design options, Rich Biz did not skimp. Users can edit everything from the navigation text links to the content and sidebar box designs from within the options page. One thing I found annoying is that whenever I clicked the save button to apply a color code change I made, I was redirected to the first option tab with all of the sub menus closed. For those that like to apply color changes one hex code at a time such as myself and then view those changes, this behaviour will become an increasingly frustrating inconvenience.

Rich Biz also comes with it’s own advertising manager where you can apply advertising codes to specific areas of the theme. For example, an advertising block under the post headline or an advertising block above the comment box. Adding these is as simple as copying and pasting the advertising banner code into the corresponding box and saving the changes.

Last but not least, the Upgrade tab provides easy access to upgrade the theme to the PRO version. If you purchase the regular theme, upgrading to the PRO version is only $57.00. The PRO Version of the RichBIZ theme is aimed at designers, and gives you full control over your theme design. You can change the look and feel of your site with just a few clicks with access to pre-made color schemes.

Support:

Support for RichWP products is handled through email as well as Skype. Felix states that any support for the initial setup for any of his themes is free. Support that extends beyond those boundaries will cost you $75.00 per hour. If you have a design that needs to be coded into a WordPress theme, Felix can do it in about 7-10 hours. RichWP also has a couple of video tutorials available for their themes.

Conclusion:

The theme itself works as advertised without any problems and is well suited to be used for a corporate website or the face of a product. When I inquired about a specific problem via email, Felix was quick to give me a response. However, I don’t understand how an email or Skype only support system could scale with an increasing amount of customers. Furthermore, since no public forums are in use, it’s hard for a customer to gauge how good the support is.

Before I wrap up the review, if you register an account with RichWP.com, RichBiz is one of the free themes you’ll gain access to as well as the Magazine Theme giving you a chance to play around with those themes. Also, if you decide to purchase any themes from RichWP, please do so through the following link as I’ll receive a cut back of 50%. Right now, RichWP.com is running a special where if you buy one theme, you can get another for free. Regular theme for regular theme or Pro for Pro.

Related posts:

1. Review Of iThemes Builder Theme
2. Personal Blogging Theme By BloggingTips.com
3. Review Of Eventina 2.0 – jQuery Strikes Again

In what I hope will be a regular occurrence, this is an interview with a featured member of the WPTavern forum. I hope to put the spotlight on at least one forum member per month. The member I choose to interview is random but in order to be in the running, you only have to be a member of the WPTavern forum. All the images in this post are briefs so they are subject to change. Without further adieu, here is the interview I conducted with Brad Potter.

How long have you been using WordPress?
I’ve been using WordPress for 2yrs. The first year was mostly spent experimenting with the software and various themes while I used other well known CMS solutions. I really became serious about using WordPress in the second year.

A year ago, you were just getting into the thick of things regarding WordPress themes. Now, you’re creating them on your own. How did you go from point A to point B?
I think that involves numerous resources really.

One book that helped me early on was “WordPress Theme Design” by Tessa Blakeley Silver.

Themes – I’ve purchased Unlimited or Developer packages from StudioPress, WooThemes, Press75 and Elegant Themes. I’ve also purchased individual themes from ThemeShift, Pro Theme Design and ThemeForest. While that might seem excessive to some, it’s given me the ability to analyze and experiment with a wide variety of themes built by some of the best developers in the commercial WordPress industry.

Websites – Some of my favorite websites for learning about WordPress development are themelab.com, digwp.com, wpengineer.com, wprecipes.com, themeshaper.com, justintadlock.com, wphacks.com, nettuts.com and of course wptavern.com.

Frameworks/Starter Themes – I’ve spent some time studying frameworks like Ian Stewart’s “Thematic“, Justin Tadlock’s “Hybrid” and Ptah Dunbar’s “WP Framework“. There are also some great starter themes that can help point a person in the right direction as well. “Starkers” by Elliot Jay Stocks, “Gravy” by Darren Hoyt, “Starter Theme” by Dan Philibin and the recently released “BLANK Theme” by Chris Coyier are a few.

WordPress Codex – While it’s not the easiest to navigate and search, I’ve spent a fair amount of time reading the Codex.

Considering the large amount of themes you’ve worked with in the past year, what are some of the trends you noticed?
I’ve seen more and more theme developers building in a greater number of sophisticated theme options and widgets making it easier for end users to get setup and running in a shorter amount of time. While a ton of theme options won’t always appeal to the more hard core developers, they certainly help newer users and likely cut down the number of support issues.

I’ve also begun to see more targeted solution based themes appear which I think is definitely a step in the right direction. Real Estate, Job Boards, Classifieds, Restaurant and Travel themes are a few examples.

Better design. I’ve definitely noticed the level of design being stepped up a notch. I think that can be attributed to several things. Theme developers hiring established designers, in-house designers improving their skills and increased competition in the marketplace.

In your opinion, what makes a good theme?
There are a lot of good themes but a “great” theme is one that has well structured code & style sheets, nicely integrated theme options, polished design, detailed documentation and equally important, competent support.

Out of all the theme frameworks available, have you found one that suits your needs?
Lately, I’ve really enjoyed using the Genesis Theme Framework by StudioPress which is available for free to all Pro Plus members. I was active in the beta testing period and hopefully I provided some valuable feedback to Brian Gardner and Nathan Rice. Genesis has great appeal to me for various reasons but I especially appreciate some of the built-in custom widgets like the Featured Page and Featured Posts. The Featured Posts in particular has tremendous flexibility and is very handy for building out the home page of various sites. I also appreciate the six layout options that can be used with either posts or pages. Most of all, you can really tell a lot of thought has gone into what’s under the hood. I would say Genesis definitely meets my criteria for what makes a great theme framework.

I’m also very impressed with “Canvas“, the latest theme offering by WooThemes. While the WooCrew says they are hesitant to label Canvas a “theme framework“, it contains all the goodness of the WooFramework2, is clean with a minimalist design and is much more advanced than your typical theme. Canvas has a huge amount of theme options that allow you to modify just about everything including layout, size, colors, borders, font sizes, font families and more. One other really useful feature is the new integrated WooNav which is being built into the core of WordPress 3.0. Canvas also has a liberal amount of hooks so you can basically transform it into just about any design you may desire. I had the opportunity to do some early beta testing on Canvas with Magnus Jepson and appreciated how he really took the time to listen to everyone’s feedback during the development cycle. Whether you call it a framework or not, Canvas can definitely form the basis of a superb WordPress theme.

What tips can you offer for those aspiring to be theme designers/creators?
While I’m brand new to the game on theme development, I can only share what’s working for me thus far.

Don’t be afraid to spend a few dollars buying a theme even if it’s for learning purposes only.

Get plugged-in. Follow, study and learn from the leading developers and designers in the industry. Many of them post valuable insights and information on their commercial blogs, private blogs and via twitter.

Participate in WordPress related forums and don’t be afraid to ask questions even if they appear to be dumb.

Read. I’m buying two more books myself, the “WordPress Bible” by Aaron Brazell and “Digging Into WordPress” by Chris Coyier and Jeff Starr.

If anyone tries to tell you the market is saturated, don’t listen to them. Chances are you have something unique to add to the marketplace and community. If you fail at first, that’s fine. Many times failure precedes the path to success. One of my favorite quotes is “The greatest risk in life is not taking one”.

Has the WPTavern site/community helped you at all in your quest to be a theme designer?
I joined WPTavern in January 09 right about the time I was becoming serious about using WordPress in client website development. WPTavern.com is definitely one of my “go-to” places on the web in order to stay current with a large variety of WordPress topics, theme development included. I’ve enjoyed interacting with and learning from people in the WPTavern forums and WordPress Weekly is with out a doubt one of my favorite podcasts.

Where can we go to keep an eye on your work?
I’m working on a new site to showcase my themes that are currently in development. In the meantime Twitter would be the best way to follow me as I’ll make any announcements there. http://www.twitter.com/bradleypotter

Related posts:

1. Genesis Under The Scope
2. GPL, Theme Critique, WP Showcase, Interview Questions
3. Great Group Interview With Popular Theme Designers

Back on February 27th 2009, I came across a unique looking WordPress MU theme where the entire site was like a Google map. It was called gMaps and was created by a company called WPMU Premium. That company has now re-branded into The PremiumPress. They have now made gMaps compatible with BuddyPress with a slew of new options. They are also working on a new project called RadioPress.

They are still working on integrating e-commerce and VIP membership capabilities with March being the target date. Once that’s online, RadioPress and gMaps will be available for purchase. RadioPress looks like it will be a very interesting product. I wonder how it will compare with something like the PowerPress plugin.

Related posts:

1. gMaps – Cool WPMU Theme
2. WPMU 2.9.1 The Last Version Of MU?
3. New Support Forum For WPMU

Not only has Michael Torbert taken some heat with the commercial version of All In One SEO Pro but I’ve also taken some myself thanks to the podcast advertisement and the banner in the sidebar. The biggest argument I hear from everyone is that it does exactly the same thing the free version does except it has no ads. So where is the value? Why is it worth paying for? The answer is easy. To remove the ads and donate link, the support is only part of the package. But I’ve been thinking, what is the difference between software that is ad-supported which provides an option to pay to have the ads removed and AIOSEP Pro? I did this with FeedDemon and the program is exactly the same before I paid to have the ads removed. I don’t see anyone lining up with pitchforks to go after them. If what FeedDemon does is acceptable, why is a WordPress plugin so different?

I think that the switch from being free to commercial is what has people in a fit but that’s just the nature of plugins this year. It’s his choice to make as it is for all plugin authors. There are two easy ways of solving this problem. Pay to have the ads removed or use the ad-supported version.

The other complaint I’ve heard is that the $39.00 (sale price) is a monthly fee. I can not verify if this is true but if it is, I would complain as well. I think that has to do with the system WPPlugins.com has setup and hopefully, they build in a way for plugin authors to be more flexible with the types of models/payments that can be received.

Related posts:

1. What Plugin Authors Shouldn’t Do
2. Plugin Repository And Commercial Plugins
3. Plugins And Commercial WordPress Sites

I just finished reading this great collection of interviews with WordPress commercial theme developers on Designm.ag. A couple things worth noting regarding the interviews. The majority of them say that competition is fierce and that getting in the market now will be very difficult. That might be true, but don’t let those words discourage you. There is always room for someone who does themes better whether it be design, user interface, or functionality. Also worth noting that most of the commercial theme shops involved with WordPress are anywhere between 1-5 man shops. That’s an educated guess but I don’t think I’m too far off. This means you don’t need a superb team to make noise.

I enjoy these group interviews. They give readers a wider perspective on a particular market. If that’s not all, there are folks in the comments who say they are gearing up to launch something of their own. At the very least, their efforts should be rewarded by the possibility of more client work.

Related posts:

1. Comparisons Between Most Popular Theme Frameworks
2. Great Explanation Of Theme Template Pages
3. Nomad-One Interviews Six Great Theme Developers

I’ve been a fan of Ajax Edit Comments ever since its creation. Ajax Edit Comments enables anonymous users to easily edit their own comments in a Digg like interface using Ajax. Since its creation, Ronald Huereca and Ajay D’ Souza have done a fantastic job continuously improving the plugin. For example, in one of the most recent updates, comment authors now have a way to request that their comment be deleted for one reason or another.

I was a bit surprised when Ronald got in touch with me to let me know that Ajax Edit Comments would now be a commercial plugin. Intrigued, I sent Ronald a few questions to find out what his plans are.

I noticed you now have an entire site dedicated to this awesome plugin. What are your plans to take AEC to the next level?

The first priority for the next version is performance enhancements. I want to cut the size of the JavaScript, CSS, and PHP that loads. I’d also like to significantly decrease the Database queries involved.

As far as front-end features, several users have asked for do-follow to be added. Although it seems out of scope for the plugin, it wouldn’t be all that difficult to implement. I’d like to look at other comment plugins out there as well and see if it would make sense to implement those features into Ajax Edit Comments.

We just added a two-column drop-down in version 3.2, which makes the options even more less cluttered. I also plan on improving the e-mail feature introduced in 3.2, and add a “whitelist” feature, which will enable admin to select certain trusted users who can skip the spam and moderation queue.

Another future enhancement is allowing admin to select which advanced editing options are enabled, and to make better use of CSS sprites to handle all of the icon effects.

I also plan on re-organizing the admin options page to provide better help messages and to make it less cluttered.

Are there plans to simultaneously develop a free version with the paid version or will the free version be discontinued in favor of the paid one?

I do plan to more-or-less discontinue the free version as far as features. However, I will continue to check the WP Extend version to make sure it works with the latest WordPress version.

Will the plugin continue to be licensed under the GPL?

Absolutely. What we’re trying to do with the new site is provide automatic upgrades (very similar to Gravity Forms), priority support, and affiliate opportunities.

We offer a 7-day free trial for all initial subscriptions, and those that choose to cancel are more than welcome to keep and tinker with the plugin.

With regards to the subscription plans, what are people paying for?

I would say priority support, automatic upgrades, and our affiliate program.

With version 3.1 (the last free release), there are four options in the Ajax Edit Comments settings that allow anybody using the plugin to become an affiliate, as long as they are a paying subscriber of the new Ajax Edit Comments plugin.

Affiliates can enable an option that will show a message below any anonymous commenter posted. If that person gets a lot of comments, there is a potential to make some money here through referrals.

All affiliates will earn 50% of any net sales via referrals. And just to re-iterate, all paying subscribers are automatically affiliates since the plugin has the affiliate options built-in by default.

What prompted you to start a subscription service around this plugin?

It’s probably the same-old story: donations were few if rare.

I tried to do periodic e-mails with the 3.0 version, but even then, the donations still weren’t coming.

At the same time, support requests were exploding, both on WP Extend and the official forums that Ajay D’souza was running.

In an effort to capitalize on the plugin’s large user base, we (Ajay D’souza and I) decided to centralize the support and set up a subscription based service for support and upgrades.

Who makes up the team behind Ajax Edit Comments?

Ajay D’souza (http://ajaydsouza.com/) and myself (ronalfy.com).

We are both co-authors of the plugin. Ajay is the lead on support matters, translator interface, and forum maintenance. I am the lead on overall site maintenance and feature additions to the plugin.

I understand that this plugin will have an affiliate program attached to it, how will this work?

Once a user is subscribed, he is automatically an affiliate. The user can access an authentication key and affiliate ID by accessing his member’s section.

Once he installs 3.1 or above, he can enter the key and ID into the plugin settings. If he enables the option to show affiliate text to his users, all anonymous commenters will see the affiliate text below their comment.

If a user clicks on the affiliate link and subscribes, the affiliate is given 50% of the net sale, no matter what amount it is. So if an affiliate purchases a subscription at $10 a year, then that affiliate will only need two-three of his users to make up for his purchase.

For those interested in the affiliate program, there are more details here: http://www.ajaxeditcomments.com/affiliates/

If I use AEC, will I still be able to receive automatic upgrades from the WordPress.org plugin repository, or will they come from somewhere else?

With version 3.1 or above, all automatic upgrades will come through the
AjaxEditComments.com website.

The automatic upgrade mechanism is very similar to the way Gravity Forms’ works (probably because I used some of their code ).

Once you enter in the authentication key, you are good to go with automatic upgrades. All our plugin files are hosted on Amazon S3, so there shouldn’t be an issue with upgrade speed.

Anything else you’d like to say?

Sure. The cheapest subscription starts at only $10 a year, and for anybody who’s used the plugin, they will tell you that’s a steal. The discounted price will last until January 31st.

There’s a 7-day free trial involved for new subscribers, so if you aren’t satisfied with the plugin or the way things work at the site, you can cancel your subscription and not be charged.

For subscribers who cancel after the 7-day trial, the subscription will remain valid for a year after the initial subscription purchase.

Related posts:

1. WP Ajax Edit Comments Gets New Dev
2. WP AJax Edit Comments Needs New Dev
3. Ajax Edit Comments Gets A Minor Update

Over the weekend, I finally had a chance to sit down and beta test a new theme from iThemes called Builder. The theme aims to blow the walls off of Flexx and take theme development to the next level.

I won’t dive into a lengthy review here but in the Builder theme, users can easily build Layouts. In the time span of 5 minutes, I created a layout that mimics the one I’m using on WPTavern.com complete with the widget spots.

Created this layout in just a few minutes

After building my layout with clicks of the mouse and not having to touch one bit of PHP code, the only thing left for me to do is style the layout through CSS. This is the type of theme framework I can get behind which doesn’t require me to know hooks or filters, etc although I’m sure those are built in. One of my wishes for WordPress was to one day, be able to use a WYSIWYG theme creation tool where I could whip up a theme using standard elements. Although Builder and Elastic are not exactly what I had in mind, they are pretty darn close and both impress me quite a bit. They really empower the end user to create things instead of relying on a developer.

Between Builder and Elastic, I’m wondering if it’s possible for a theme developer to put himself out of business by creating and releasing something that for the most part, removes the developer from the equation. Let’s discuss.

Related posts:

1. WPWeekly Episode 71 – Running A Business Around WordPress

I recently had the chance to send some questions over Darren’s way regarding the newest theme released by Pro Theme Design called TheLocal. This theme is aimed at the HyperLocal news market and contains specific items such as the weather, date and time, and an awesome front page that is all widgetized. On with the interview!

To start things off, what inspired you to create this theme alongside Bill Gillbanks?

Since before the first Mimbo theme, I had a fair amount of experience designing for newspapers and magazines and I always liked that format.

As traditional media began changing in the last few years, I got more frequent emails from journalists who were either fired or were striking out on their own. I convinced a few of them to trade some insider knowledge for some WordPress help.

One journalist in particular gave me a long list of features that followed the hyperlocal model which was starting to grow. I pitched them to Ben and he was able to take about 90% of them and turn them into widgets or control panel options, which really thrilled this particular writer.

I also started signing up for a lot of journalism communities and Ning networks, etc, to connect with writers and find out what they were looking for. The Local is really just the first step, as we already have a lot more we want to add.

Why have you decided to go down the route of single site and multi-site licenses?

There are people who use our themes to set up quickie websites for their own purposes and may only have a question or two in the forums. The single-license offers support for only that one domain.

Then there are developers who use a single version of Elemental to build out 10 client sites with multiple child-theme designs. When they buy a multi-license, they get PSDs, sample child themes, as well as ongoing support for a number of domains.

What are some of the key points of differentiation from other premium themes?

I think a big selling point is the custom widgets and the fact the homepage is entirely widgetized. Ben has coded it so that no matter which column you insert widgets, the widths change dynamically so it’s difficult to break the layout. This is really important when the audience is writers with limited technical knowledge.

Also the Adsense widgets are nice. They can be used in 6 different sizes throughout the site. All you need is an account number and it generates the widgets, which are sized according to whatever column you insert them. The homepage grid was specifically chosen to accommodate the standard sizes.

How easy is TheLocal to modify outside of it’s given purpose? For example, what if I want three sidebars on the top half of the page instead of four?

Since most of the heavy lifting is done via the parent theme Elemental, the index.php file for The Local is only a few lines -

 
<?php get_header(); ?>
 
<div id="widgetcol-1"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-1'); ?></div>
 
<div id="widgetcol-2"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-2'); ?></div>
 
<div id="widgetcol-3"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-3'); ?></div>
 
<div id="widgetcol-4"><?php bm_dynamicSidebar('home-widgetcol-4'); ?></div>
 
<?php get_footer(); ?>

Even for a new user, styling or moving around the columns or inserting standard content is straightforward.

Also since it inherits all of Elemental’s functionality, the theme comes with a control panel that lets you edit your nav (pages vs. categories), typography, weather, footer categories, header image, and so on.

Would you consider this a magazine theme, or something different?

I think a magazine has more emphasis on original content whereas The Local does a lot more aggregation and appeals to community interests.

Can you explain what “Additional customizable content areas via action hooks” and is this geared more towards the developer crowd?

This has become more common in frameworks like Thematic and Hybrid and we wanted to include it here so that people were free to add PHP functions or HTML within certain pockets of the layout without having to touch the templates and interfere with the upgrade process. There are 12 different regions that you can edit this way.

Anything else you’d like to add or say?

A better way to tour the theme and really see what it can do is to check out
the product screencasts – http://prothemedesign.com/themes/thelocal/

Related posts:

1. WordPress Themes In 2009
2. A Refreshing New Look For Darren Hoyt
3. Magazine/News Themes The New Black?

Before the September 3rd WordPress development meeting took place, Mark Jaquith added some interesting items to the meeting agenda that specifically addressed commercial plugin authors and the guidelines of the repository. Mark had conversed with Matt Mullenweg and the decision was that there was not much to talk about.

Matt and I had a chat and there’s not really anything to discuss. Plugins that merely exist as placeholders for a plugin hosted elsewhere (like a “requirements check” plugin) are out, but “lite” versions, etc are in. The goal is to have the directory be free-to-download plugins. A placeholder for a premium plugin is against that spirit.

Makes perfect sense to me. When I pressed on for more clarification, this is what Mark had to say:

WordPress is not anti-business. We’ve just decided to keep the wp.org Plugin Directory a hosting site for zero-cost plugins. There is already a rule (#3) that says it is a hosting site, not a listing site. It’s for actual plugins, not plugins whose primary purpose is to send people somewhere else to download a plugin. This is not a change in policy as much as being consistent about the existing policies. One “requirements check” plugin was allowed in, and another was not. I was concerned about the dual standard.

If your plugin is actually a plugin, not just an advertisement or a placeholder for a plugin hosted elsewhere, you’re fine, as far as this rule is concerned.

I don’t see very many commercial GPL plugin authors having a product in the repository anyways. However, it definitely looks like you can have a free “lite” version hosted in the repository with links or mentions to a commercial version of that plugin. However, where does one draw the limits between a lite plugin that is reduced to the point where the commercial option is the only one that makes sense thus making it seem like a plugin who’s primary purpose is to push the commercial option?

Obviously, common sense here goes a long way to avoiding issues. If you have questions about adding your plugin to the repository, you should get in touch with markr who usually can be found in the WordPress.com IRC channel.

By the way, Matt himself said he was not aware of writing a blog post that would clarify these issues. So that rumor is debunked.

Related posts:

1. Listener Poll: Should there be a page on the plugin repository for Commercial GPL plugins?
2. Plugins And Commercial WordPress Sites
3. Plugin Code Repository Bookmarklet

Due to the recording schedule change for WordPress Weekly, these polls will now be conducted every Tuesday instead of every Friday. This week, I want to know which theme company in this list has the best word of mouth advertising. Now, I don’t want you to guess but if the company you continuously hear about from others as a recommendation is in the list, vote for them. If not, add the company name to the comments. No one better mention Thesis because they don’t count.

In my own opinion, WooThemes has the best word of mouth advertising right now. In fact, I’m very impressed with the marketing aspect of the company. Everywhere I look I see Woo this and Woo that. Also, they are doing some cool posts on their WooCamp blog with the theme ShowDowns. While most commercial theme authors have a showcase featuring sites using their theme, ShowDown takes it a step further by getting the audience involved.

Related posts:

1. Another Company Goes 100% GPL
2. GPL Commercial Theme Page Now On The Repository
3. How Do I Contribute To Commercial GPL Themes?

GravityForms which takes form generation to the next level in WordPress has finally been launched to the public. I’ve been playing around with the plugin since I joined the beta test program in late June. Since then, the RocketGenius team has worked extensively to improve the plugin for the masses. For those that don’t know, GravityForms is like a WYSIWYG editor for creating forms. For an expansive look as to what this plugin is capable of, I suggest taking some time to watch my screencast review which is about 11 minutes long.

Without a shadow of a doubt, I can fully recommend this plugin to anyone who is looking for an intuitive, easy way to create and manage forms on their WordPress powered site. The plugin is also licensed under the GPL which makes it that much better. If you’re looking for even more information regarding this plugin, I highly recommend listening to episode 4 of the Press This podcast where Joost De Valk interviews Carl Hancock, lead developer of the GravityForms plugin.

I’ve never signed up or participated in anyone’s affiliate program before, but GravityForms has become the first. So with that said, the following link is my affiliate code which will drop back 20% of your purchase to me. If you do purchase the plugin through me, thank you for your continued support of WPTavern.com. By the way, not sure how much longer this coupon code will remain active but if you use GFORMS20 it will take off 20% of your order.

Related posts:

1. Video Preview Of GravityForms

Nathan Rice who I first came into contact with through iThemes and at WordCamp Dallas 2008 has moved on to a new venture called Modthemes. Modthemes is a fresh new venture that offers commercial GPL themes for WordPress with Bryan Hauer as CEO. Right now, there is only one theme available with another on the way.

The WordPress community has benefited greatly from his contributions in both themes and plugins. I want to wish the best of luck to Nathan on his new career path.

Related posts:

1. Prodigy Framework Needs Beta Testers

The other night, I participated in a conversation with a few other people on Twitter regarding iThemes. There was some talk that iThemes was losing momentum and that the company was stagnating. Others said that iThemes was not producing innovative themes and pushing the boundaries of WordPress. While we speculated on the current status of iThemes, Cory Miller who is the co-founder took notice of the tweets and responded in a post on the company blog.

We respect and appreciate our customers who have gotten us here. We are deeply committed to the products and goodwill we’ve built with iThemes. In short, we love what we do!

For as long as I can see or forecast, iThemes will continue to be a creator and innovator of WordPress themes – focusing specifically on CMS and Business themes as we’ve consistently done since we opened the doors in January 2008.

I’m pretty happy to find out iThemes will continue into the foreseeable future to churn out business and CMS specific themes for WordPress. However, I’m really appreciative of the fact that Cory Miller came out and responded to the community discussion in a post on the company blog which not only answers our speculation, but also reinforces the companies stance to their customers. This is the sign of a co-founder who is paying attention and responding when necessary before speculation turns into false facts. If only other companies would be as responsive or alert, I think it would save them a lot of trouble in the long run.

By the way, take a look at Yukon which is iThemes latest offering. A Clean, business oriented theme with a few different post templates and drop down menus.

Related posts:

1. How Do I Contribute To Commercial GPL Themes?

Now that most of the big commercial theme operations have gone GPL, I’ve been wondering how I or their customers should contribute to their projects. I’m guessing the process is different for each company so if you operate a commercial GPL theme business, please respond in the comments so I can compile the answers for a future post. Thanks

Related posts:

1. GPL Commercial Theme Page Now On The Repository
2. WPTavern Business Thinktank
3. Listener Poll: Should there be a page on the plugin repository for Commercial GPL plugins?

Recently, it was announced that there is now a commercial GPL themes page that was added to the WordPress theme repository. Now, there is discussion that there should be a page on the plugin repository for commercial GPL plugins. While Matt has said that there is no need for this because the repository already has a number of commercial GPL plugins, not all GPL plugins reside in the repository. A great example of this is the Shopp e-commerce plugin. What do you think?

Related posts:

1. GPL Commercial Theme Page Now On The Repository
2. Plugins And Commercial WordPress Sites
3. Listener Poll: How Should I Review A Theme?