Yesterday

I first heard of and used WordPress a few years ago (back when the latest version was 1.5), only because one of the Web sites I was writing for was powered by it. My first impressions of WordPress revolved mostly around the administration panel — I thought it was fairly easy to use, but looked quite awful. I was also involved with another site at the time that was powered by Textpattern, and compared to that, WordPress definitely felt a bit bulky.

You should know that during this time, I used to work solely as a writer/editor (full-time as well as freelance), and wasn’t too involved with the programming and development side of things. Graphic design (print and Web) was just a hobby at the time.

A couple years later, I was still working as a writer, but I did a lot of design and programming work on the side as well. I launched Split Magazine at around this time (January 2006). The very first edition of the magazine was strictly hand-coded. I was looking for a content management system to power the magazine — I wanted something that wasn’t too complex, had a user-friendly admin panel and allowed you to implement your own designs (as opposed to a CMS that forces you to work around generic portal templates).

Having used it a few years ago, I remembered Textpattern as being quite elegant and easy to use, so I installed it on a test server and started playing around with it. After two or three days of trying to work with it, Textpattern somehow didn’t seem to be ideal for what I was trying to do. I started looking for other content management systems, and ended up trying Typo3, Joomla! and Drupal, but they weren’t the easiest to work with, and just felt like they did too many things. Just to clarify, I don’t mean to be disrespectful to these applications. I have heard a lot of good things about them — all I’m saying is that they just weren’t right for me.

I didn’t even think of WordPress at the time, because I didn’t have a very memorable experience the first time around — and frankly, I didn’t know too much about it. I don’t quite remember the details now, but somehow I happened to come across WordPress, and thought I’d give it a shot — one final attempt before I went back to Textpattern and tried once again to make it work for me.

By then, the latest version of WordPress was 2.0.2. I downloaded and installed it (the five-minute install seemed too good to be true until I tried it out), and was pleasantly surprised by how much the administration panel had improved. I found a nice theme (don’t quite remember which one it was, unfortunately) and tried my best to make it look as magazine-like as possible. With the help of a couple plugins, and after a lot of tearing my hair out, I was able to accomplish that.

I started playing around with WordPress some more until I knew enough to make my own theme from scratch. Around July 2006, I created my first “proper” magazine-like theme (with a white/grey/ice blue colour scheme) for Split Magazine (and was quite proud of that effort), after which I worked on the new avatar of Nirali Magazine with Priya in September 2006. By this time, I was quite sure I could create a WordPress theme based on pretty much any page layout. The current version (in terms of design) of Split was launched in October 2006. Fast forward to right now, and you have this weblog and The Morning After theme for WordPress to add to (several) other WordPress-based sites that I’ve worked on.

As most of you already know, WordPress 2.5 was released a few days ago. This release (code named “Brecker”) features a whole lot of new stuff, including a much improved file uploading system (now with multi-file uploads and progress bars), a built-in photo gallery system, easier plugin upgrades, and a brand new administration panel.

WordPress has clearly improved a lot since version 2.0 (which was a big improvement from version 1.5). I didn’t quite like the direction that the WordPress developers were going in with versions 2.1 and 2.2, but version 2.3 (”Dexter”) was a step in the right direction, and the current release is definitely my favourite version of WordPress by far.

To (finally) wind this up, I’d love to hear about how you got started with WordPress, and your thoughts about WordPress 2.5.

Go.

Stop the Presses

The much-awaited (if I may say so myself) version 1.3 of the Morning After theme for WordPress is finally out. Get it here.

Version 1.3 of the theme can (should?) be considered as a major upgrade. New features include compatibility with widgets and support for WordPress’ in-built tagging functionality. This version of the theme only works with WordPress 2.3 and above. If you are still using older versions of WordPress to power your Web site(s), then I’d recommend upgrading your WordPress installation or using the previous version of the theme. (Keep in mind version 1.2 of the theme is not widget-compatible.)

I know some of you have been waiting a while for the widget-ready version of the Morning After theme, and I’d like to thank you all for your patience and continued interest in the theme. I hope you enjoy using it.

It’s Gettin’ Better (Man!)

It’s been a while since I posted anything regarding the Morning After theme for WordPress. Since I released the theme in September last year, the response that it has received has been fantastic, exceeding all my expectations. I’ve seen a lot of Web sites using the theme, and some of them have done a really great job of customising it to suit their needs. Check these out:

London Theatre Blog ⋅ NewEnding Studios ⋅ PopSofa ⋅ The Coveted ⋅ Nyquist Capital ⋅ Bill Nighy Info ⋅ Utah Luxury ⋅ Tube Guitar ⋅ Edinburgh Sucks ⋅ House and Fig ⋅ The Traveler’s Notebook ⋅ Truth on Cinema ⋅ Can We Be Frank?

You can check out a listing of other Morning After-powered sites here, if you’re interested. Feel free to post your own in the comments.

Over the past few months, there has also been a strong community of users built around the use and customisation of the theme, as is evident in the support forums. I’d like to say a big thank you to everyone who has thought highly enough of the theme to use it on their own Web site. I’d also like to thank everyone on the forums who has been volunteering to help other Morning After users with customisation and other issues.

For those of you who have been waiting for a widget-ready version of the theme, I have some good news for you. I will, in fact, be releasing a widget-ready version of the Morning After theme, and it should be available sometime in March.

I have been getting quite a few e-mails from users of the theme, asking me if they can donate via Paypal instead of Moneybookers. I have just added a ‘Donate via Paypal’ button at the bottom of the theme page, if you’re so inclined. As mentioned there, the Morning After theme is absolutely free for you to download and use, and donations are strictly optional.

Lastly, for those of you wondering why the theme is called what it is, here’s the story behind the name. I was actually listening to a Duran Duran song called “Save a Prayer” when I was trying to think of a name for the theme, and as many of you might know, the chorus of the song goes, “Don’t say a prayer for me now, save it ’til the morning after”. ‘The Morning After’ sounded like a cool name for the theme, so I thought I’d use it. Now you know.

What, you expected something more exciting?

Gimme Gimme Gimme

It’s finally here. The Morning After theme for WordPress, version 1.0. Get it here.

Just a quick note: There’s no support for tagging in this version. Since WordPress 2.3 is going to have some major changes in the database structure and in-built tagging, I thought I’d wait till 2.3 catches on before I add tagging support to The Morning After. Also, the theme doesn’t support widgets, because, well, I don’t like widgets. I’ll add that in soon though, in version 1.1. I think.

I’d like to thank you all for your patience, kind words and encouragement. It means a lot to me. I hope you enjoy using the theme!

Edit: To use this theme with WordPress 2.3, please follow the simple fix posted here.

The Morning Before The Morning After

I’m really close now to completing The Morning After, a magazine-style theme for WordPress. I’d like to thank all of you for your patience so far, and I’m honoured that so many of you are looking forward to this theme eagerly, based just on my other projects.

Well, for those of you interested, here is a full-size preview (ignore the dummy text) of the Morning After home page: click here to view. Bear in mind that this is only a preview, and I might decide to alter some things before releasing the theme (which should be really soon now).