Other than that nothing was changed. I have been thinking about adding in a section to let people choose what script-style font they wish to use, hopefully I’ll have some time in the next few weeks to squeeze that in.

For some reason, I think related to WordPress 3.0, the jQuery that was being bundled was interfering with my own google-loaded jQuery. I had deliberately kept that version lower than the official version, because of some of the scripts that were being included.

But after upgrading to WordPress 3.0, it appears that this then started overriding my own version, causing some scripts to really screw up (jQuery.easing mostly).

So after looking around for a fix, I found this post by Falcon1986-Online, and he had written about a solution, which worked well, which was to deregister the script like so:

<?php wp_deregister_script(‘jquery’); ?>

Put that before the wp_head() call and it fixes the problem. Now only if jQuery.easing would be fixed to work with a higher version of jQuery…

The usual refinements will be added in, lots of admin backend options, colours, links, display options, add-ins, layout and so on.

The original design had a fixed size/width window that the horizontal scrolling would take place in. I’m going to try to change that and make sure it conforms to the size of the window opened, to use the entire viewport.

It’s late July now, still working on the theme, should be ready in a week or two.

Whereas when it was originally created it didn’t have an admin backend now it does, with these options:

• Header; set the image in the top left, blog title/tagline, size, font, alignment.
• Content; set excerpt or full on index, image size in posts, blockquote colour, object float in posts.
• Sidebars; sidebar title colour.
• Comments; show comments on posts/pages, avatar size, background colour.
• Font; font and font size.
• Twitter; twitter username, if set allows a built-in widget.
• Colours; link colours, text colours, and underlines.
• Footer; image in the bottom right.

Right above the footer is a section showing three widget-ready blocks, this is a new addition to the theme (at least, editing them via the widget interface is).

If you’re interested, see the theme release page: Very English WordPress Theme. It has a link on there at the bottom where you can download it (it’s free!).

Now though I am happy to say that this may be something that I will relegate to the past, assuming people start ditching IE6 in droves and upgrade (although knowing companies and governments they won’t do so in a hurry). Why, you may ask? IE9 is why!

This article from The Guardian just shows you a little:

Gavin says the IE9 preview has been downloaded more than 1m times since 15 March, and developers are excited about it because it makes new kinds of web experience possible: experiences that are much more like applications than websites. This is using HTML5 and hardware acceleration, of course.

HTML5 no less! Not that it’s actually been accepted as a standard yet, but getting closer and closer as I write. For the first time in err, well forever I think, a Microsoft product is going to be released that follows the standards, rather than attempting to enforce it’s own. I think I may buy an expensive bottle of something when they formally release it next year… Or, maybe I should wait and see if they put their money where their collective mouth is?

I have changed the format of the administration backend, making it more user-friendly and using tabbed menus. I added a few more options, such as letting people select pages to use as menu options, and to select the sort order. The theme now uses the Google CDN to load up jquery, which will speed up the pages as far as Google is concerned, affecting SEO.

The header section is now widgetized, and I heavily styled the calendar widget in the header, distinctly different from the calendar widget for the sidebars. All in all, it’s a small update, but one that will make the theme more useful.

Also, I’ve had the chance to update the custom login area a little, make some custom changes to the registration page too, making it look like the login page. This is a little more professional as the older one was something I had neglected (it’s surprising what you miss when you don’t test it out).

The admin backend has been greatly expanded, letting bloggers choose colours, fonts, layout, and the calendar options. The calendar options let you choose which calendar to use (you still have to download, install, and activate them) and whether you want to show it at all.

To read more about it, see the Future Day WordPress Theme release page.

6 columns, 1 menu column, featured posts on top of 3 content columns, 2 sidebars

This is a very highly developed wordpress theme, letting you choose the layout, from three columns to six, with a variety of options for featured posts, colours, images, backgrounds and so on.

You can grab a copy of this theme from the theme release page: Raised Paper WordPress Theme