There’s editorial workflow, scheduling, and author management to consider, among other things.

Below are fifteen plugins that can make managing your multi-author blog a lot easier.

They include editorial workflow plugins, scheduling and calendar plugins, and plugins that will benefit your authors or make it easier to communicate with them.

EditFlow

EditFlow is one of the most useful plugins for managing posts on a multi-author blog. It allows you to set up custom editorial statuses for your posts, to better manage your workflow. It also sets up a feedback system directly in the post, to help eliminate emails going back and forth between authors and editors. It’s a must for blogs with any kind of editorial process.

Editorial Calendar

The Editorial Calendar plugin is great for blogs that need to schedule posts ahead of time, which includes most multi-author blogs. Editorial Calendar gives you a visual look at your upcoming posts and when they’re scheduled, and shows you gaps in your schedule.

WP Status Notifier

WP Status Notifier will automatically send emails to a specified address whenever a post is submitted for review, eliminating the need to check manually. You can also set it to email the post’s author when a post is approved or sent back to drafts.

Audit Trail Plugin

Audit Trail lets you keep track of what’s happening inside your blog by logging certain actions. You can record things like user logins, post saves, and other common functions so you know exactly who’s doing what on your blog.

Dashboard Notepad

Dashboard Notepad lets you leave notes in your blog’s dashboard. You can set who can edit notes and who can simply read them. It’s a great place for leaving instructions or other information for your writers.

Genki Pre-Publish Reminder

Genki Pre-Publish Reminder inserts a box in the post sidebar to remind your authors about anything important they need to do before publishing their posts. It accepts both HTML and PHP code for plenty of flexibility.

Auto-Schedule Posts

Auto-Schedule Posts takes over the post scheduling on your blog for you. It catches posts as they’re published and holds them until they meet your predefined criteria for being posted. You can set posts to only publish between certain hours, on certain days, and with a minimum amount of time between posts.

WP Hide Dashboard

WP Hide Dashboard removes the Dashboard menu from your WordPress backend for select user roles. You can also eliminate the Dashboard links in the admin menu, and prevent Dashboard access to users assigned to the Subscriber role (so they can edit their profiles but otherwise not have access to the Dashboard). It works with single site and multisite modes, and with BuddyPress.

Co-Authors Plus

Co-Authors Plus lets you assign multiple authors to a single post, page, or custom post type. Co-authored posts will show up on the feeds for both authors, and on the posts page for each.

Advanced Access Manager

With any multi-author blog, you’re almost certainly going to want to restrict the access that some users have. Advanced Access Manager lets you do just that. You can filter the admin menu, dashboard widgets, and list of metaboxes for particular user roles. You can also create new user roles, delete user roles, and otherwise fine-tune access. You can even apply settings to all the blogs in a multi-site setup.

Author Exposed

Author Exposed adds a hidden div with author information that can be exposed when a user clicks on the author’s name on a post. It has space to include the author’s email and website address, as well as a Gravatar and “About” section.

Cool Author Box

Cool Author Box adds a prominent author bio at the end of your post, in a styled box. It also includes support for a Gravatar, a link to the author’s website, and links to other posts by the same author.

Private Email Plugin

This Private Email Plugin lets you send an email out to the registered users of your blog. It creates a new submenu where you can send an email to specific users, based on user roles. It also reports back the success rate of each email, so you know if any of your users’ email addresses are out of date.

Adminimize

Adminimize visually minimizes the administrative header so you can see more admin page content. It also lets you hide unnecessary items from the WP admin menu, submenu, and the Dashboard, plus hide items from the post meta controls on Write pages to simplify the editing interface. And of course you can customize what’s hidden based on user roles.

Category Reminder

Since uncategorized posts end up with the default category assignment (which is often “Uncategorized”), it’s important that your authors remember to add a category to their post before publishing it. The Category Reminder plugin uses JavaScript to verify that a post category has been assigned, and will prompt the user to add one before publishing.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Do you run a multi-author blog? Do you have any recommendations for plugins that make running it easier? Let us know in the comments!

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TemplateMonster.com is among the most well known stock template and theme providers online.

They offer templates for a wide range of sites, agricultural sites to church sites, as well as general templates that can be used on almost any kind of site.

And all of their themes come with fantastic features that rival the top themes out there.

Every TemplateMonster.com WordPress theme has a long list of great features, and all are available for a reasonable price. They even offer installation services for all of their themes.

Below we’ve collected thirty of their best WordPress themes, though of course you can check out even more on their website.

Here are the features that every TemplateMonster.com theme includes:

• WordPress 3.1+ compatible
• Custom post types, including portfolio posts, slider posts, and testimonials posts
• Page templates, including full width page (without a sidebar), testimonials page, FAQs page, and portfolio pages
• Multi level dropdown menus
• Plugins, including WP Page Navi and WP-Contact Form 7.
• Cross browser compatible (including IE7+)
• PSD files are included
• All photos included and can be used on a website created from a theme
• Well documented, with detailed instructions on all the additional features and how to manage them

Here are just some of the great themes that TemplateMonster.com offers:

#37121

Details | Demo

#36986

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#36963

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#36893

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#36862

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#36750

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#36726

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#36724

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#36699

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#36697

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#36672

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#36660

Details | Demo

#36631

Details | Demo

#36590

Details | Demo

#36512

Details | Demo

#36485

Details | Demo

#36460

Details | Demo

#36449

Details | Demo

#36422

Details | Demo

#36397

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#36392

Details | Demo

#36391

Details | Demo

#36259

Details | Demo

#36235

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#36220

Details | Demo

#36219

Details | Demo

#36148

Details | Demo

#36176

Details | Demo

#36134

Details | Demo

#36078

Details | Demo

[Editor's note: This is a sponsored post for Template Monster]

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In order to ensure that we meet our SEO goals, we must make sure that we do it properly. Performing search engine optimization tasks improperly can put you even farther behind than where you started.

With this list of 10 SEO plug-ins, I’m going to show you how to easily exploit search engine optimization techniques and do it correctly.  Many of these plug-ins can be used in conjunction with each other, further optimizing your websites SEO potential.

As always if you think we’ve missed something, please let us know in the comments.

#10) CBnet Ping Optimizer

This is probably one of the widest unknown but most needed plug-ins for WordPress.  Your WordPress blog pings unnecessarily every time you click the “Save and Continue Editing” or “Save” buttons.  By doing this you can be tagged as a ping spammer ultimately getting you banned from certain directories and services.  This plug-in prevents all that by only notifying the services when your blog is first saved, properly letting the search engines index your blog without going into ping overkill.

The Good

• Notifies ping services every time you create a new post.
• Saves your blog from getting banned by keeping WordPress from pinging services too much when editing a post.
• Many times WordPress will unnecessarily ping excessively when a post has been scheduled.  This plug-in keeps that from happening and only pings once the scheduled post has actually been posted.
• Gives the ability to choose your own services to ping.
• There is a full log of pings directly in the plug-in which is great for analyzing whether the plug-in is even working, also if the pings that are going in and out.

The Not So Good

• There is very little help inside the plug-in for those unfamiliar with pings.
• Choosing services has to be done manually, meaning you have to know the URLs to Ping.

Ease of Use

With the lack of help, this plug-in can be quite confusing for new users.  Much of it has to do with the verbiage that is used, making it difficult to know exactly what an option actually does.  Nonetheless, CBnet Ping Optimizer is a near necessity to keep your WordPress blog from being labeled a ping spammer.  There are other ways around it but that’s beyond the scope of this article, but using this plug-in is definitely much easier because you can pretty much set it up and forget.

Skill level:  Intermediate to advanced

Cost:  Free

Try it for yourself:  CBnet Ping Optimizer

#9) SEO Friendly Images

The alt and title tags are extremely important for images, otherwise Google will completely ignore them or otherwise penalize your blog.  With this plug-in, not only can you add the alt and title tags, but you can also change the names of them both across the board.

The Good

• Adds the alt and title tags to all images where they are missing.
• Uses common language for the tags such as post titles and file names, instead of a simple file extension that search engines won’t read.
• Very easy to use and beginner friendly.
• Includes good help tips, letting you easily understand what each option does.
• Let’s you use something like %name to replace the image file name without the extension, or you can just use any common word like “designer”, but keep in mind that that word will be used across every image.

The Not So Good

• The only con I can really think of is the fact that there are ads inside of this plug-ins admin.  But then again, what can you expect from a free plug-in.

Ease of Use

SEO friendly images can essentially be an install and forget plug-in.  For that reason, it’s among one of the easiest to use plug-ins for WordPress.  Beyond that, the options are very self-explanatory or have enough help text to make the option extremely easy to modify.  I strongly suggest using this plug-in to keep your website from being penalized or ignored for not using proper alt and title tags.

Skill level:  Beginner to intermediate

Cost:  Free

Try it for yourself:  SEO Friendly Images

#8) Automatic SEO Links

This plug-in is a great tool for anyone who has forgotten to add links or would like to add links across an entire webpage in a very short period of time.  Basically you just choose a word and a link and it will be adopted throughout the entire site.

The Good

• Extremely easy to use, even the newest beginner when it have any problems.
• It works like a charm.  Just choose a word, link, title, target and a rel tag, save then done.  The link will show up on the chosen word throughout the entire site.
• Retains the database table just in case you deactivate the plug-in so that you don’t lose your links.

The Not So Good

• There are no help tips, but for most this plug-in is pretty self-explanatory.

Ease of Use

This plug-in is actually very easy to use, you might get stuck for a second or two at first, but overall it’s pretty easy.  With the ability to do around three hours worth of work inside of 10 minutes, this plug-in can save a lot of time.

Skill level:  Beginner

Cost:  Free

Try it for yourself:  Automatic SEO links

#7) Pingback Optimizer

Pingback Optimizer, this is a terrific plug-in for automating your back links or otherwise your ping backs.  It takes a lot of work to get successful back links, many of them are junk back links, but this plug-in takes those junk back links or random ping backs and turns them into quality ping backs.  The only real drawback I would say is that it has a nice price tag for multiple sites.

The Good

• Creates RSS feeds of your ping backs and sends them to RSS directories.
• It only takes a short period of time before you start seeing results and your SEO rankings go through the roof, but only temporarily without continued effort.
• While it may take lots of effort, that link building effort is spent over large periods of time so in effect this plug-in could essentially be called a set and forget tool.

The Not So Good

• While this plug-in works and is definitely good for back links, it also requires extra effort in link building in order to make the rankings stick.
• It’s definitely not an all-in-one solution and I would question whether it’s worth the price tag v.s. the results and amount of time spent optimizing.  Then again, as mentioned this is also one of the good points because that work is spent over time.
• The home sales page looks like a typical scam site.  However this is not the case, that does not negate the fact that the site itself could deter users from trying the plug-in.

Ease of Use

Pingback Optimizer is definitely easy to use in itself but as we all know creating back links, quality ping backs or link building, however you want to put it, takes lots and lots of effort.  This is a great tool to have in your belt and you definitely can’t go wrong.  The plug-in is surely worth a look, but it’s up to you to decide whether it’s worth the price tag.

Skill level:  Beginner to advanced

Cost:  Unlimited Domains = $97

Try it for yourself:  Pingback Optimizer

Note:  This review comes from research.  There is no screenshot because I didn’t get a chance to try it out.

#6) WordPress SEO by Yoast

Some might call this the granddaddy of all SEO plug-ins but they’d be wrong.  This plug-in is a conglomerate of advanced tools designed to give you full control over search engine optimization, but what it has in advanced tools, it lacks in organization and help primarily for beginners.  However WordPress SEO is a terrific all-in-one plug-in if you know what you’re doing.

The Good

• Has the ability to create XML site maps and notify major search engines.  It also gives you the ability to exclude taxonomies and post types.
• This plug-in can clean up your permalinks or links that direct back to your site, but this feature can break many other plug-ins.
• Forces canonical URLs on all pages.
• One of its better features is the ability to fully customize breadcrumbs.  Advanced users can even put in a snippet of code so that their breadcrumbs appear wherever they like.
• Another cool feature is the ability to add specific links to your RSS feeds so that scrapers grab them too and you get credited as the original source.
• If you prefer to use one SEO plug-in such as this one, you can easily transport data from other plug-ins directly inside WordPress SEO.
• WordPress SEO allows you to edit htaccess and robots.txt files directly in the plugin.

The Not So Good

• The XML site maps don’t seem to work all the time, and when it does it lacks organization.
• Extremely lacks in help tips or even access to a FAQ page.  The FAQ page that does exist takes forever to search.  It would be much preferable to have links next to the plug-in options that go to a specific part of the FAQ page.
• The plug-in is fairly bloated and uses way too many CPU resources.
• The entire plug-in lacks organization and aesthetic appeal.  There is just too much content in places where it doesn’t belong, making it hard to read or sort through.

Ease of Use

I wouldn’t say that the WordPress SEO plug-in by Yoast is really easy to use, but it does boast enough features to be called an all in one solution for search engine optimization.  If you are a beginner I would stay away, but if you are an advanced user or even an intermediate user then you might have to give this plug-in a try.

Skill level:  Intermediate to advanced

Cost:  Free

Try it for yourself:  WordPress SEO by Yoast

#5) WP no external links

Stop destroying your page rank.  Use this plug-in to mask all external links by making them internal, or by simply hiding them.  It’s important to mask external links for various reasons.  If you’re into affiliate marketing for example, Google knows when a link is forwarding to another link and you will be penalized.  Another reason is because people are smarter these days and they know when when they’re being sold too, usually that’s when they turn and high tale it outta there.  That’s just a couple of reasons and if nothing else, you don’t want Google to destroy your page ranking for being labeled a spammer.  So stop destroying your page rank and take a serious look at this plugin.

The Good

• Mask links in your posts, comments and authors links.
• Just check a box to add nofollow to all masked links.  The same applies for all external links where you can make the target blank.
• Supports the yandex search engine.
• Exclude specific URLs from being masked.
• Sufficient help info, otherwise all explanations use simple English terms.
• Even keeps track of click stats, and you can set the amount of days to keep the stats.
• Gives you the option to use JavaScript redirects, although personally I would prefer a 302.  Who needs the extra bloat.
• You can even automatically undo masking links when registered users visit the site.
• Gives good warning if an option is not deemed safe or necessary.
• For some it may be a good feature to completely remove links from all posts.
• You can even turn all links into plaintext.
• Finally the plug-in is lightweight and has plenty of features making it ideal for its function.

The Not So Good

• Some users may want to mask internal links, this plug-in does not offer that feature.
• It would be nice to be able to add a 302 inside of the plug-in instead of having to open and htaccess file, since the plug-in gives you the option to disable 302.

Ease of Use

WP no external links is really one of the easiest to use plug-ins for its function.  It has a very simple design and leaves the content easy to understand.  If you’re looking for a way to save your page rank from external links, then this plug-in is definitely the way to go.  It’s especially useful for blogs or any other site that uses many ads.

Skill level:  Beginner to intermediate

Cost:  Free

Try it for yourself:  WP no external links

#4) Easy WP SEO

Keyword density is very important to the success of a pages search engine optimization score.  With this plug-in you are given an SEO score for each and every page on your site. The plug-in will also show you step-by-step what you need to do on that page to increase keyword density.

The Good

• Shows a bold SEO score and keyword density score.
• Check marks help you easily identify what you are missing to get the correct keyword density score which is between 2 and 4%.
• Generates an SEO report which is very helpful in analyzing the effectiveness of your keywords, meta-tags, etc.
• Automatically includes your primary keyword in the alt tag of your first image.
• Encourages proper use of H tags.
• With the many and easily accessible help-tips, this plug-in is very easy to use for beginners.
• This plug-in uses plain English for the most part instead of confusing SEO terminology which many beginners may not understand, thus making it much easier for them to decipher what to do next.
• Another really cool feature is the ability to drag and drop images from your WordPress media library directly from the sidebar to your post.
• Automatically finds duplicate content and adds nofollow which is a huge time saver.
• Has a 60 day money back guarantee which essentially constitutes as a demo.

The Not So Good

• Advanced users may not find many options to tinker with as they so often like to do.
• The plug-in has a moderately hefty price and doesn’t even have a free demo, or at least not one that I can find. If you need a free SEO solution, then this plug-in is not for you. That is the main reason why this plug-in only rakes at number four.

Ease of Use

Easy WP SEO is an extremely easy to use plug-in.  There isn’t much else to say other than the fact that this plug-in has everything you need to improve your SEO and keyword density scores.  With that said, other than the moderate price tag, this plug-in is a steal for anyone who is a beginner or just wants to save time.

Skill level:  Beginner

Cost:  $37

Try it for yourself:  Easy WP SEO

#3)  Google XML site-maps

This plug-in is a great site map generator for beginners and advanced users.  It may look daunting at First When you look at it but it takes no time at all to get used too.  If you’re looking for an easy-to-use, user-friendly tool to create site maps, then this plug-in has you covered.

The Good

• Essentially you don’t need to customize.  It does have the ability to create a site map out of the box.
• Supports multi-site functionality.
• Ability to use gzip to compress your site map.
• Rebuilds your site map if anything changes, such as writing a new post.
• Ability to notify search engines about updates to your site map.
• Makes it even easier for search engine spiders to find your site map by using the WordPress robots.txt file.
• Options for advanced users such as increase memory limit or increase execution time limit.
• Good log information immediately after building the site map.
• Good organization of the actual site map and it gives the frequency of when a link will be updated.
• A really nice feature is the ability to include or exclude any WordPress content type such as categories, posts, custom Post types or just about anything else.
• You can set the time frequency for when something is updated such as your categories, posts, homepage and others.
• It even gives you the ability to change priority for when something is updated in the site map.

The Not So Good

• Some help tips but not enough to cater to beginners.
• Advanced options are too seamless with beginner options which can cause plug-in failure if someone doesn’t know what they’re doing.  It would be better if these options had to be opened to keep beginners from making mistakes and ultimately looking to the creator for help.
• Finding the Google XML site maps options is hidden in WordPress settings.
• Seems a little bulky and can be overwhelming for beginners or even intermediate users.

Ease of Use

Google XML site maps WordPress plug-in is actually a fairly simple plug-in to use with the exception of it being a little bulky and lacking in good help tips. That’s not to say that this plug-in isn’t good for beginners, it could just use a little help in that area. Although there are plenty of options and building a site map is as easy as a click of the mouse, so in that regard Google XML site maps is a perfect choice.

Skill level: Intermediate to advanced

Cost:  Free

Try it for yourself:  Google XML site maps

#2)  SEO Rank Reporter

SEO Rank Reporter is a pretty useful WordPress plugin.  It’s a simple tool to track your google rankings every 3 days so you can easily check it right in WordPress.

The Good

• Gives the ability to easily check a Google ranking for what appears to be a cross-referenced keyword.
• Incredibly easy to navigate the plugin and understand the contents.
• Has a nice graph displaying the keyword ranks together or separately with start and end dates.
• Rank Reporter is able to pull rankings from any Google country you choose in the settings.
• Email notifications for each new report.
• Retains all data, even when deactivating or upgrading the plugin.
• The ability to download a CSV of the report is a nice option.
• Very lightweight plugin for those worried about resource usage and/or page load times.
• Very good tool for those who want a basic plugin to track keyword rankings, understand SEO verbiage and have no need for more advanced tools or options.

The Not So Good

• Would be nice to check the page (PR) ranking too.
• There is some help but seriously lacking for the true beginner.  The lack of help tips could increase a lot of research time for those who don’t understand what rankings mean, etc.
• Could have more advanced SEO tracking tools.

Ease of Use

SEO Rank Reporter is definitely one of the easier to use plugins out there for WordPress.  It has a simple interface with clear to understand verbiage and a few tips to get you started.  The layout is very straightforward and well organized.  With only 4 small and simple menu items to navigate, it doesn’t get much easier than that.

Skill level:  Beginner to intermediate

Cost:  Free

Try it for yourself: SEO Rank Reporter

#1)  All in One SEO Pack

Our number one plug-in is the granddaddy of them all, the A in One SEO Pack.  This plugin does a little bit of everything from Canonical URLs, Title Rewrites to Auto-generated descriptions, all in one easy to use configuration page.

With a built in API, this is arguably the most popular SEO plugin for WordPress!

The Good

• It’s an excellent plugin for beginners, you literally can install and forget, but you will be missing out.  At the very least you should enter the home page title manually.
• As someone who’s not a beginner, I found this plugin to be extremely useful for advanced users, tinkering with the many options available for me to fine tune.
• Custom Post Types are an important part of WordPress and as of version 1.6.12, this plugin handles them pretty well.
• Testing shows that Canonical URLs are generated consistently, so you can be sure that you won’t be penalized by Google.
• Ability to easily change the format of any title.
• Having the option to Use Tags for Meta Keywords is great and can save tons of time.
• Lots of duplicate content avoidances such as no-index options.
• Auto-generated page descriptions can be good and bad.  It used the first paragraph in an article, so there is no marketing aspect to encourage Googlers to click on your link.
• Supports AutoMeta and is backwards compatible with many other plugins.
• Other nice options include creating a log, excluding pages from the plugin, adding additional headers and more.

The Not So Good

• Automatically generated Meta Tags?  I’m nit-picking here but the placement of the meta-tags could be called into question.
• Dynamic Generated Keywords.  Does not work very well so I would not recommend this. You’re better off adding them yourself, or else you’ll get a lot of the same keywords on every page.
• A pro version gives minimal upgrades and comes with monthly fees.  This plugin received less criticism when the developers took donations.

Ease of Use

I would call this one of the easiest to use SEO plugins on the market.  Never mind the fact that nearly every option is in one central location, help tips are easily accessible too, and friendly reminders are nothing short of “in your face”.

Skill level:  Beginner to advanced

Cost:  Free

Try it for yourself:  All in One SEO

Justin Hubbard has been helping businesses since 2007 by creating timeless, memorable logos as part of a branding package and modern, user-friendly websites.

Never Ending WordPress Business Bundle – only $14!

Sure, you can hard-code your font replacement into your theme (or into a theme options page), but a plugin is sometimes a much better option, especially when you want to make a theme backwards-compatible.

Below are seven fantastic font replacement plugins. Some are for use with paid services, while others work with free services or are self-hosted.

All of the plugins included are compatible up to WP 3.1.4, and most are compatible up to 3.2.1.

1. Fontific

Fontific is my personal favorite font replacement plugin. It works with the Google Web Fonts API, which has hundreds of free fonts available for use on personal and commercial sites, with no sign-up and no hassle.

To use Fontific, you just install and activate the plugin, and then define font rules on the “Fonts” panel in the WP “Appearance” menu. Just choose which CSS selector you want to apply the style to, select the font you want to use for that selector, and then use sliders and the color selector to specify things like size, line height and letter spacing.

Pros: Easy to install and setup. Drop-down menus and sliders make it easy to use, even for non-technical users. Live preview is really helpful when you don’t know exactly how you want your fonts styled.

Cons: If you have a ton of selectors to style, it can get to be overwhelming to manage.

Average Rating on WordPress.org: 4+ stars

2. WP-Cufón

WP-Cufon is a simple plugin for implementing Cufon font replacement on your WP site. To use it, just convert your font files and upload them to the plugin’s font directory (you can use the Generator on the Cufon website). Then you can activate the fonts you want to use in the Admin Menu and specify which elements should be replaced with Cufon fonts.

WP-Cufon is regularly updated, and is currently on version 1.6.1.

Pros: Huge variety of fonts available. Easy to set up.

Cons: You have to host your own font files, which can greatly add to bandwidth usage on high traffic sites. You’re also responsible for making sure the license for any of your fonts permits web usage.

Average Rating on WordPress.org: 4.5+ stars

3. Typekit Fonts for WordPress

If you want to use Typekit fonts on your WP site, then the Typekit Fonts for WordPress plugin is a great place to start. Unlike Google Web Fonts and Cufon, Typekit has paid plans that give you access to a large library of fonts. There is also a free plan that includes a limited number of fonts and covers up to 25,000 page views per month, along with some other restrictions.

To use the plugin, simply install it in your plugins directory and activate it. Then access the Typekit Fonts panel in your WordPress dashboard and enter your Typekit embed code. From there, you can set up CSS selectors and enter CSS rules in the plugin settings.

Pros: Tons of fonts to choose from. Easy to set up.

Cons: You have to pay if you want to use more than the trial library of fonts, or a have higher page views.

Average Rating on WordPress.org: 3.5+ stars

4. Fontdeck

The Fontdeck plugin lets you easily add Fontdeck fonts to your WP website. Fontdeck has a huge collection of premium fonts, starting at just $2.50 per font, per year (with an average price of around $7.50 per font, per year). They can also host custom fonts for clients, and can handle very large traffic sites.

To use the Fontdeck plugin, just install it in your site’s plugins directory, and activate it. Then create your website project on the Fontdeck site and add your fonts. From there, paste the project ID from Fontdeck into the plugin settings page. From there, you can choose which types of text are targeted by which font.

Pros: Fontdeck has very competitive pricing compared to many premium web font providers.

Cons: Setup is a bit more complex than some other plugins. No management of Fontdeck projects from within the plugin.

Average Rating on WordPress.org: 5 stars

5. WP Web Fonts

WP Web Fonts is another plugin that works with Google Web Fonts. To use it, just find the fonts you want on the Google Web Fonts site. then copy and paste the code into the appropriate places on the WP Web Fonts Options page to add them into your site’s HTML and CSS.

From there, it’s not entirely clear how to actually integrate those fonts into your stylesheets, without directly editing your theme’s CSS, or possibly adding selectors directly into Step 2. Otherwise, fonts across your entire site are replaced with the web font you selected.

Pros: Simple to install.

Cons: The plugin isn’t self-contained, and requires you to copy and paste code from the Google Web Fonts site. It’s also appears to limit you to just one web font.

Average Rating on WordPress.org: 5 stars

6. WP Google Fonts

WP Google Fonts is another Google Web Fonts plugin. This one is particularly easy to use for non-technical users. Just select the font you want to use from the dropdown menu, select which element you want to assign it to, and save. You can also insert custom CSS, or hard-code your font choices into your external stylesheet.

It also shows a preview of available fonts, which is handy since there’s no live preview.

Pros: Versatile for both technical and non-technical users.

Cons: No live preview.

Average Rating on WordPress.org: 4.5+ stars

7. AnyFont

AnyFont allows you to use any TrueType of OpenType font on your WordPress site. It uses FontServ.com to convert your fonts to the various webfont formats. The built-in font manager makes it easy to upload your fonts, and includes a character map so you can verify which characters are available for each font.

There are additional style management options, including drop shadows. You can apply fonts within your posts or pages, or apply them to your CSS elements. Installation is simple. Just install and activate the plugin, set up your account on FontServ.com, and enter your API key.

Pros: Works with any TrueType or OpenType font. Gives you plenty of usage options.

Cons: You’re responsible for hosting your own fonts. You’re also responsible for making sure the fonts you use are properly licensed.

Average Rating on WordPress.org: 3+ stars

Conclusion

While there are currently a limited number of options for font replacement in the newest versions of WordPress, the options that are available are excellent. Whether you want a premium service, a self-hosted option, or a free service, there’s a plugin listed above that will work for you.

Webfont implementation is sure to grow in the immediate future, due to the options it opens up for designers, and there are sure to be more font replacement plugins available in the coming months and years.

In the meantime, what’s your favorite font replacement plugin? Did we miss any above? Let us know in the comments!

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

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Child themes let you start with the basics of an existing theme, so you’re not having to reinvent the wheel. You can pick a theme that has the functionality and basic layout you need, but then customize everything about it as you would designing a theme from scratch.

For this tutorial, we’ll be creating a child theme based on the newest WordPress default theme, Twenty Eleven. We’ll also be using some handy plugins and other tricks to make it even easier to create a child theme.

You’ll need some very basic HTML and CSS knowledge, but the good news is that for a basic child theme, you don’t need to know any PHP! The theme created is very basic, but it will give you the building blocks you need to get started creating your own themes, even if you’ve never created a WordPress theme before!

The theme we’ll be creating

Here’s a brief look at the final theme we’ll be creating:

A word about parent themes

Probably the most important step in creating a child theme is picking out your parent theme. For this tutorial, as already mentioned, we’ll be using Twenty Eleven. The reasons for this include the fact that it’s easily accessible, free, is probably already installed on any updated WP install, and is well-coded.

That last one is the most important thing to consider when picking your parent theme: make sure that it is well coded. The main reason for this is that if your parent theme is well-coded, it will be infinitely easier to create a child theme that is well-coded, because you won’t have to employ hacks to make things work.

Any time you want to make customizations to a theme, you’re better off to use a child theme instead of editing the parent theme directly. This way, if an update for the original theme is issued, your theme won’t break. And if both the parent theme and your theme are coded well, you likely won’t notice any differences in the updated theme on your site’s front-end.

One-Click Child Theme

The quickest and easiest way to get started with a child theme is to use the One-Click Child Theme plugin. Just install it, activate the parent theme you want your child theme to be based on (if it isn’t active already), and click on “Child Theme” under Appearance in the WP dashboard.

From there, enter a name for your new child theme, a short description, and your name, and click on “Create Child”. That’s all there is to it. One word or warning: I got an error message after clicking “Create Child”, but the child theme was created without a hitch.

Alternatively, you can create a child theme from scratch. To do that, open up your text or code editor of choice and enter the following information (this is taking into account that you’ll be using the Twenty Eleven parent theme):

/*
Theme Name:     Your Child Theme's Name
Description:    Your theme's description.
Author:         Your Name Here
Template:       twentyeleven

(optional values you can add: Theme URI, Author URI, Version)
*/

@import url("../twentyeleven/style.css");

The “Template” portion is what makes this a child theme rather than a regular theme, so make sure you properly identify the theme’s parent.

Setting Theme Options

Before you start customizing your new child theme’s CSS, make sure you check out the theme options and do some customizations there. It’s better to make changes within the existing framework of the theme if that’s an option, as it makes it easier to manage your theme’s code.

For this customization, I’ve selected a content-on-left layout with a single sidebar, and left the color scheme and default link color (for now). I’ve also left the background white, the header with one of the default images, and the header text color black.

Note: If you want to disable the color selection in theme options, add !important to the color specifications in your CSS.

Basics of editing your theme

If you go to the WordPress theme editor, you’ll see a mostly-blank style sheet for your new child theme. The first line of your new CSS file (after the child theme info) is importing the stylesheet from the parent theme. This is vital, and it has to remain at the top of your sheet or the parent stylesheet will be invalidated and won’t import.

One thing you may want to do at this point is install a better code editor plugin for theme editing. Color-coded syntax makes it significantly easier to code directly in WP, and will especially be useful for those who are used to colored syntax with outside editors. My personal choice is Advanced Code Editor.

You’ll also want some kind of text editor for setting up our functions.php file, preferably one with syntax highlighting.

Finding the code to change

This can be one of the most frustrating parts of child theme development: finding which parts of the code need to be edited and which can be left alone. The entire point of a child theme is to make theme creation and maintenance easier. To that end, we want to create as little new code as possible.

To make this a lot easier, you’ll want to do is install a plugin like Firebug. This will allow you to click on a part of your page design and view the associated div and CSS classes. You can also try out code to see what works, and then copy and paste it into your theme’s CSS. I’ve found that keeping your front-end theme open in one tab alongside another tab with the WP dashboard where you’re editing files is the most efficient way to edit your code.

The basics

Let’s start by defining things like the body background color, the typography, and other basics that will give us the basis for our child theme. This code sets up everything in the header, with the exception of moving our navigation menu. Let’s break it down into a few different steps.

This first block of code gives us all of our basic typography (we’ll be pulling in “Droid Sans” and “Dancing Script” from Google Web Fonts; more on that in the section on functions.php):

body, input, textarea, p {
    color: #000000;
    font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif;
}
p {
    font-size: 14px;
    line-height: 24px;
}
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 {
    font-family: 'Dancing Script', cursive;
}

This next section sets up the main content background and drop shadow.

#page {
    background: #f5f5dc;
    -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 10px #67949c;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 10px #67949c;
    box-shadow: 0 0 10px #67949c;
}

Then we’ll make some adjustments on our blog title and description, as well as changing the top border of the header and removing the search form (which will be replaced with our navigation menu in the next step).

#site-title a {
    font-size: 48px;
    font-weight: 700;
    line-height: 60px;
}
#branding {
    border-top: 2px solid #67949c;
}
#branding #searchform {
    display: none;
}
#site-description {
    font-size: 18px;
    margin: 0 270px 3em 0;
}

This gives us a header that looks like this:

Move the main navigation menu

The next change we want to make is to move the navigation menu from its default position under the header image to the upper right, opposite the blog title or logo.

This format works best for sites that only have a small number of pages. Larger sites, or sites with sub-pages, will need additional consideration, and likely won’t work well with this kind of layout.

Here’s the code you’ll need:

#access {
    clear: both;
    display: block;
    float: right;
    margin: 0 auto 6px;
    position: relative;
    top: -410px;
    width: 500px;
    background: none;
    box-shadow: none;
}

Your navigation menu should now be sitting up above the header image, adjacent to your logo. Next we’ll add some styles to our navigation and turn them into buttons instead of a solid bar. Here’s the code for the basic font styling:

 #access a {
    font-family: 'Dancing Script', 'Helvetica Neue',Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif;
    font-size: 1.4em;
    font-weight: 700;
    padding: 0 1em;
    line-height: 2.666em;
}

Here’s the basic formatting for the button behind the text, including a nice inner shadow:

#access li {
    background: #84bbc5;
    margin-right: 15px;
    -moz-box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px #739ca3;
    -webkit-box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px #739ca3;
    box-shadow: inset 0 0 3px 3px #739ca3;
}

And here’s the code for adding a drop shadow behind the buttons when they’re hovered over (which actually gives the impression of an animation effect in use):

#access li:hover > a, #access a:focus {
    background: #84bbc5;
    color: #EEEEEE;
    -moz-box-shadow: 0 0 3px 3px #739ca3;
    -webkit-box-shadow: 0 0 3px 3px #739ca3;
    box-shadow: 0 0 3px 3px #739ca3;
}

Now your header will look like this:

Basic styling for your sidebar

Let’s add some very basic styles for your sidebar. The changes we’re making here are primarily to make the sidebars match the design of the rest of the site. Here’s the code:

.widget a {
    font-weight: 400;
    font-family: 'Droid Sans', sans-serif !important;
}
.widget-title {
    color: #282828;
    letter-spacing: 0.1em;
    line-height: 1.5em;
    text-transform: none;
}

The .widget-title is already in an H3 tag, so it takes on the font already specified there.

And here’s how that looks:

Changes to the post format

First we want to change the padding for the top of the posts, so the first post lines up with the top of the sidebar.

.entry-title {
    padding-top: 0px;
}

Next we’ll change the comment icon that appears next to the post title on the home page. This one is simple: just create your new icon (I’ve created versions for active and inactive versions) and then upload them using WP’s media uploader. Take the URL for each, and insert them like this:

.entry-header .comments-link a {
    background: url("http://blogetic.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/comment-link.png") no-repeat scroll 0 0;
    top: 0;
}
.entry-header .comments-link a:hover, .entry-header .comments-link a:focus, .entry-header .comments-link a:active {
    background: url("http://blogetic.com/site/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/comment-active.png") no-repeat scroll 0 0;
    background-color:  #f5f5dc !important;
}

You’ll need to add the !important to the background-color attribute for the hover state in order to override the styling done to links elsewhere in the theme. The hover image is a filled-in text bubble, while the normal state is just an outline. Here’s the result:

Next we’ll work on the comments styling. This is simple, as all we’re doing is changing the color scheme. Here’s the code:

#respond {
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #dadabe;
    border: 1px solid #67949c;
}
#respond input[type="text"], #respond textarea {
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #FFFFFF;
    border: 4px solid #b3b398;
}
#respond .comment-form-author label, #respond .comment-form-email label, #respond .comment-form-url label, #respond .comment-form-comment label {
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #b3b398;
    box-shadow: 1px 2px 2px rgba(204, 204, 204, 0.8);
    color: #555555;
}
#respond input#submit {
    background: none repeat scroll 0 0 #67949c;
}

And here’s the end result:

Inserting code into your head or elsewhere in your theme

This is probably the most technical part of creating a child theme, and is only necessary if you wannt to do something like add Google Web Fonts to your site. That’s exactly what we’re going to do here. This is the only time in creating your child theme that you’ll need to work with PHP, and if you don’t need to insert anything into your theme’s header or elsewhere, you won’t need to work with PHP at all.

First, create a functions.php file in your text or code editor of choice. The basic code you’ll use will look something like this:

<?php function customfunctionname() { ?>
  <script type="text/javascript">
    Whatever your JavaScript is
  </script>
<?php }
add_action('wp_head', 'customfunctionname');
?>

For the child theme above, we needed to insert code into our header to link the appropriate Google Web Fonts so we could call them into our CSS. Here’s how we do that (you can get the link directly from Google with whichever fonts you want to use):

<?php function googlefonts() { ?>
    <link href='http://fonts.googleapis.com/css?family=Dancing+Script:400,700' rel='stylesheet' type='text/css'>
<?php }
add_action('wp_head', 'googlefonts');
?>

Now your fonts should all be working properly! And all the functions that were included in the original parent theme will still be working, too.

Download the theme files

If you want to see all of the code for both the CSS and the functions.php file, you can download them here. Also included are the comment bubble icons.

Conclusion

Creating a child theme is incredibly simple when compared to designing and coding a theme from scratch. With some basic CSS knowledge and just a little bit of PHP, you can create basically any kind of theme you want. Child themes, in many cases, can also be used commercially (as long as the parent theme allows for such use) or sold as stock themes (just remember to let your buyers know that the theme requires a parent theme).

Make sure that your code is well-written, commented, and organized. This way, if your parent theme is updated, your child theme is unlikely to break.

The child theme we’ve created in this tutorial is very, very basic. But it gives you the information you need to start designing your own themes. Start with basic restyling to get your feet wet, and then start exploring the things you can do with PHP in your functions.php file. Child themes, when built on a great parent theme, can be as powerful as any other theme available. For more information on child themes, check out the WordPress Codex.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Have more tips for creating great child themes? Let us know in the comments!

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The good news is that there are a ton of awesome calendar plugins out there that can be integrated into your site quickly and easily.

Whether you just want to display events or do something more complex (like allow visitors to book events or appointments), there are existing plugins available to help you do whatever it is you need.

Below, we’ve collected a dozen of the coolest plugins out there for adding advanced calendar functionality to WP. Check them out, and then let us know your favorites (on or off this list) in the comments!

My Calendar

My Calendar is an advanced event management plugin with calendar functionality. Its key features include the ability to display events as a list or in a calendar grid; daily, weekly, or monthly views; mini-calendar for compact displays (including display as a widget); calendar views for a single category, select categories, or all categories; recurring events support; and more! My Calendar is available in English, French, Dutch, Danish, Japanese, Russian, Turkish, German, Swedish, Italian, Czech, and Brazilian Portuguese.

Simple Events Calendar

Simple Events Calendar lets you easily add upcoming events to your posts or pages, with an hCalendar standard microformat, making your events fully semantic. Events can be published with a Twitter link so your visitors can share your events easily, and events can contain URLs for more information, and a location link (which can be used for Google Maps). You can add labels to your events to make it possible to display only specific events on your calendar. There are numerous other shortcode functions you can use to display only specific dates. Simple Events Calendar displays events in a list format rather than a grid calendar.

Google Calendar Events

If you use Google Calendar already, then Google Calendar Events might be the perfect plugin for you. It lets you feed in events from a Google Calendar and display them in a calendar grid or as a list on a page, post, or widget. Events from multiple Google Calendars can be shown on a single calendar grid or list, and you can control the number of events displayed and how they’re displayed. Grid-layout calendars can have the option to change the month displayed, too.

Event Espresso Lite

Event Espresso Lite is a limited feature version of the premium Event Espresso event management system for WordPress. Event Espresso Lite is a full-featured WordPress event management plugin, not just a calendar. It can handle ticketing and registration, take sign-ups 24/7, and accept payments for tickets. It can even generate event reports and help with promotions. The Lite version only works with the PayPal IPN, though premium versions allow you to accept other payment options (and add other features like recurring events and Groupon support).

Ajax Event Calendar

Ajax Event Calendar creates a fully localized calendar that lets authorized users manage events in custom categories. Ajax Event Calendar supports repeating events on a daily, weekly, monthly, or yearly basis, and calendars are added to your site as a grid-layout calendar or an event list using simple shortcodes. The plugin is currently translated into 21 languages.

Event Calendar/Scheduler

The Event Calendar/Scheduler plugin can be used either as a scheduler for managing and visualizing events and appointments, or as a blog archive calendar. It supports day/week/month/year/agenda views as well as letting you create custom views, a drag-and-drop interface for configuring date and time, a customizable appearance, customizable time scale, and support for single or multi-day events and recurring events.

Booking Calendar

Booking Calendar is an online reservations and availability checking plugin. Visitors to your site can check availability for services, lodging, or anything else you want, as well as make reservations or appointments. It supports multi-day, single-day, or by-the-hour booking, and has integrated payment support. It supports resource scheduling (for things like equipment or conference rooms), client scheduling, meeting scheduling, event scheduling, patient scheduling, and more. It also has support for email notifications to both site visitors and administrators, a TinyMCE button for integration into posts and pages, a book calendar widget, and form validation support. Multiple skin styles are available.

Calendar Archives

The default calendar widget in WordPress serves as an archive to your past posts, but it’s pretty boring. The Calendar Archives plugin, on the other hand, serves as a visual archive of your past posts, complete with images for posts that include them. It makes for a much more interesting and engaging archive format. Because of the way it works, it’s best suited for blogs with a daily posting schedule, as days without posts just show up blank. To display the calendar, just create a new page with no sidebars and insert the shortcode. It takes care of everything else.

The Events Calendar

The Events Calendar has a number of great features that let you rapidly create and manage your events. It creates a custom post type for events, an upcoming events widget, and has a full template meant to complement the Twenty Ten and Twenty Eleven themes right out of the box. There are extensive template tags for customization and it works with MU. In Calendar Month view, tooltips can provide additional information about events, and The Events Calendar integrates with Google Maps. There’s even support for venue, cost, address, and start and end times. There’s a pro version available with more features (including recurring events and saved venues and organizers).

Availability Calendar

Availability Calendar makes it easy to display a calendar on your WP site that shows availability for things like a rental property. A full calendar year is displayed at one time, with booked dates highlighted. You can show as many years as you like, which makes it great for properties which might be booked well in advance.

Calendar

Calendar is a simple plugin that lets you manage events and appointments. It includes a monthly view, mouse-over details for each event, optional time stamp and author information for each event, multi-day events and multiple events on a single day, recurring events, lists of today’s events can be displayed in posts or pages, and modifiable CSS using the options panel, among many others. It’s a very powerful plugin, rivaling many premium calendar plugins out there.

All-in-One Event Calendar

All-in-One Event Calendar is a great plugin for large and complex calendars. It supports color-coding of events based on category, recurring events, filtering by category or tag, embedded Google Maps, sharing with any calendar system that supports iCalendar feeds, month and agenda views, an upcoming events widget, and more. It’s also event-registration ready.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Which calendar plugins for WordPress have you used? Which would you recommend?

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Free themes, especially, tend to have a greater disparity in quality from one another, with some being just as great as the best premium themes, and others being poorly designed or poorly coded (or both).

Below, we’ve collected more than sixty of the best themes released since late summer. Roughly half are premium themes, ranging in price from $35 to $80, with the other half being free.

If you think there are other themes out there released during the same time period that should have been included, let us know in the comments!

Premium Themes

Traverse ($80)

Demo | Details

A Builder child theme with a number of textures and a muted color palette, perfect for a travel blog.

Momento ($50+)

Demo | Details

A responsive theme with a portfolio section, widgetized home page, and feature slider.

Mag.press ($50+)

Demo | Details

A minimalist magazine theme with blue accents and a featured post slider.

LeanBiz ($39 subscription)

Demo | Details

A simple theme with four unique color schemes, optional blog-style structure, ad management, automated thumbnail resizing, and more.

HandHeld Mobile ($39 subscription)

Details

A mobile theme that works alongside your default theme, and includes a gallery section, smooth ajax loading, and more.

Sky ($39 subscription)

Demo | Details

A very pretty theme with five unique color schemes, a gallery section, and ad management.

eList Directory ($39 subscription)

Demo | Details

A directory theme with unlimited custom color schemes, a classic directory structure, a custom form builder, e-commerce integration, and an optional blog-style structure.

Currents ($70+)

Details

Currents is a responsive design with a focus on content, a featured post slider, and custom news areas.

Teamster ($70+)

Details

A modular theme for magazine sites with multiple authors, a featured post slider, author tabber, and custome post types.

Announcement ($70+)

Details

Announcement is a niche theme specially designed for personal announcements, and includes a custom homepage, photograph slider, and custom post layouts.

Buro ($70+)

Details

Buro is a responsive design with atextured background, featured slider, custom home page and custom post types.

Adam & Eve ($49+)

Demo | Details

A responsive design specifically for wedding websites or couple blogs.

Tisa ($39)

Demo | Details

Tisa is a simple theme with a fluid and responsive design, built-in lightbox gallery, feature slider, and welcome message option.

Grido ($39)

Demo | Details

Grido is a Tumblr-like theme with a responsive layout, support for WP post formats, and nine post gradient colors.

Simfo ($39)

Demo | Details

A minimalist responsive theme with some subtle grunge textures, a feature slider, and options for product or service highlights.

onPlay ($69)

Demo | Details

onPlay is a magazine theme with a flexible layout, featured slider, footer carousel, and unlimited tabbed/featured categories.

Pulse ($69)

Demo | Details

A magazine-style theme with a flexible layout and a widgetized home page.

Domestica ($69)

Demo | Details

A real estate based theme with numerous unique features including multiple layouts, integrated Google Maps, an agent template, and a listing template.

Voyage ($69)

Demo | Details

A versatile theme that can be used for a variety of sites, including a portfolio or business site, with custom homepage widgets and custom page templates.

Medica ($49)

Details

A theme specifically for doctor’s websites, health clinics, dentist’s office, or other medical businesses.

Writer ($49)

Details

A stylish premium theme that includes a variety of textured headers (fabric, leather, wood, and grass), as well as shortcodes and one-click auto install.

Brand Crafters ($49)

Demo | Details

A corporate theme with infinite style variations and five different homepage sliders.

Quantum ($48)

Demo | Details

A multipurpose theme that includes an accordion slider, a custom background panel, and featured post images.

Business Theme ($69)

Demo | Details

A simple corporate theme with a fresh design, a page template for job postings, and more.

Tumble Theme ($69)

Demo | Details

A Tumblr-style blogging theme that includes a variety of post styles, including video posts, status updates, quotes, galleries, and more.

Showcase ($69)

Demo | Details

A minimalist portfolio theme great for artists, designers, photographers and other creatives.

Fluid ($59)

Demo | Details

Fluid is a responsive theme with a slideshow feature, galleries, responsive menus, and more.

iLicious ($35)

Demo | Details

A versatile theme that can be used for an app site or a portfolio, with a customizable slideshow.

E-Shopper ($35)

Demo | Details

Create a plugin-free, fully functional online store with this theme, which also includes a flexible home page layout and video documentation.

Sideshow ($40)

Demo | Details

A filterable portfolio theme with post format support, three custom widgets, and more.

Studeo ($40)

Demo | Details

Studeo is a creative agency theme with a filterable portfolio, unlimited colors, four custom widgets, and audio & video support.

Switchblade ($35)

Demo | Details

A simple theme with content composer content manager for posts, three sliders, and eight pre-defined colors.

Architectos ($35)

Demo | Details

A Visual Composer theme with unlimited layouts, jQuery enhancements, and custom widgets.

RT-Theme 15 ($35)

Demo | Details

A premium theme with a product showcase, multiple background options, a tons of shortcodes.

Infinity ($49)

Demo | Details

A minimalist responsive theme for portfolio sites.

Free Themes

Launch Effect

Details

Launch Effect is a minimal launch page theme with a large photo background and built-in tracking stats.

Basically

Demo | Details

A minimalist theme with seven interchangeable color schemes, custom menu, custom body background, WP thumbnails, and more.

Busby

Demo | Details

A mostly neutral theme with bright yellow accents and stitching details.

Hello Sexy

Demo | Details

A minimalist theme made with HTML5 and CSS3.

Samaraka

Demo | Details

A dark theme customized from the Light Folio theme

Skeleton

Demo | Details

Skeleton is a basic responsive theme that helps you build simple, uncluttered, mobile-friendly WP sites.

Berylliumous

Demo | Details

A simple theme with a featured slideshow, and gray color scheme.

Leadescent

Demo | Details

A detailed but minimalist theme with image borders, monochrome icons, and a feature slider.

Century Club

Demo | Details

A simple theme with a textured background, custom menus, and valid CSS and HTML.

Wood Stair

Demo | Details

A dark theme with a wood-textured background and light orange accents.

OkaSan

Demo | Details

A clean theme with a textured background and accordion featured post section with shadow details.

Black and White

Demo | Details

A black, white, and gray theme with dashed lines and a cloud background.

S Cloud

Demo | Details

A light blue, white, and gold theme with an accordian featured post section and three columns.

Balita

Demo | Details

A free e-commerce theme from Smashing Magazine, aimed at stores that sell products for children.

Time

Demo | Details

A simple theme with a large featured image, two color styles, and ten different layouts.

Feature

Demo | Details

A multi-column theme with a clean and simple design, two color styles, and nine different layouts.

The Blog

Demo | Details

Includes sliders, eleven style variations, and eleven different layouts, as well as automatic thumbnail generation.

Cobera

Demo | Details

A minimalist theme with eight different layouts, two color styles, and automatic thumbnail.

Showcaser

Demo | Details

A minimalist black and white gallery theme.

PhotoClick

Demo | Details

A simple theme well-suited for photo blogs, with two color schemes included. There’s also a premium version for $4.99.

Octopink

Demo | Details

A pink blog design with three different background options. There’s also a premium version with additional options, including a responsive layout, for $4.99.

Mercurable

Demo | Details

A simple theme with an emphasis on post images and a textured background.

Masutoliso Magazine

Demo | Details

A gray, orange, and white theme with a featured news slider.

Chiefly

Demo | Details

A mostly gray and blue theme with a rainbow stripe along the top of the page.

Pongsari Version 1.1

Demo | Details

A clean and simple theme adapted from the TwentyTen theme, with shadow details and lime green accents.

Ghetting

Demo | Details

A detailed theme with multiple textures and a muted color scheme.

Parallax

Demo | Details

An elegant theme designed to show off images with a prominent slider at the top of the page.

Poloniumify

Demo | Details

A clean and modern e-commerce theme with a gray color scheme and featured product slider.

Magazzino

Demo | Details

A two-column blog layout with both black & white and color versions.

Wootique

Demo | Details

A flexible, highly customizable e-commerce theme for use with the free WooCommerce.

Swatch

Demo | Details

A free business theme from WooThemes, with a featured slider, a custom home page, a portfolio page template, and custom post types.

BonPress

Demo | Details

A personal blog theme with a variety of post formats, custom widgets, and multiple color schemes.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

What’s your favorite new theme from the past few months? Did we exclude any you think should have been included? Let us know in the comments!

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Tumblogging is a great option for those people who don’t want to post long blog posts, but do want to share images, music, videos, and other snippets of content with their followers.

There’s less pressure with a tumblog than there is with a regular blog, and it’s often viewed as a much more casual kind of presence. So the question becomes, which platform should you use?

Should you sign up for Tumblr? Or should you host your own tumblog with the self-hosted version of WordPress? Or is there something else entirely you could do? Read on to find out.

WordPress for tumblogging

Since the release of WordPress 3.0, you’ve had the ability to add your own custom post types to WP. This opens up a lot of possibilities for tumblogging, as you can set post types with custom formats for videos, photos, audio, quote, text, and other kinds of post content. It’s now much easier for developers to create tumblog themes that actually look more like the tumblogs you’d see on sites like Tumblr. This removes one of the big disadvantages that used to exist in using WordPress for tumblog-style posting.

The WooTumblog plugin makes it even easier to set up your tumblog on WP. Just install the plugin and WooTubmlog will add a Tumblog posting feature to your Dashboard to make it easy to post Article, Image, Link, Audio, Video, and Quote post types.

The biggest advantage WordPress has is that it’s self-hosted. You have complete control over your content. You can choose whatever host you want, customize your site in whatever way you want, and otherwise be a complete control freak.

Downsides of WordPress

Of course, with all the control WordPress offers, it also means you’re 100% responsible for maintaining your blog. You’re not just responsible for updating the content. You’re also in charge of making sure your site is secure, that your plugins are up to date, and that you don’t have any malicious code on your site. This is often easier said than done.

The other downside to WordPress when compared to Tumblr is that it’s not free. You’ll need at least a basic web host, and that’s going to cost you at least a few dollars a month for even the most basic service. If your tumblog is high-traffic, it might cost you a lot more than that, especially considering the volume of media generally present on a tumblog site.

Seven themes for your WP tumblog

While there are dozens of themes out there for tumblogging with WordPress, here are five that are great to get you started.

CoPilot

Waves

Crisp

Tapestry Child Theme

My Journey

Salju (free)

Tumble Ten (free)

If you’re more interested in creating your own tumblog theme for WordPress, Digging Into WordPress has a great tutorial for doing just that, including the custom post type coding.

Tumblogging with Tumblr

Tumblr has grown into a huge community, with nearly 12 billion posts, over 32 million tumblogs, and more than 39 millions posts per day. It’s definitely the most popular dedicated tumblogging platform out there.

Some of the biggest advantages Tumblr has going for it is that it’s hosted and free. All you have to do is add content. There are plenty of free themes for Tumblr, and the ability to customize your CSS and HTML to create your own theme.

Tumlbr also has the added advantage of a vibrant community surrounding it. Finding content on Tumblr is simple, because you can follow other Tumblogs and reblog their content if you so choose. People can also reblog and like your content. This community is something that a self-hosted tumblog on WordPress doesn’t have (and likely never will have). So if you want to be involved in a tumblogging community, Tumblr is really your best option.

Tumblr Goodies

One nice thing Tumblr offers is a page of “Goodies”. These include apps for mobile devices (they have iPhone, Blackberry, and Android apps), as well as a backup utility for Mac, a Facebook application, a Publish to Twitter option, and a Bookmarklet to make sharing to Tumblr easier.

Disadvantages of Tumblr

The biggest disadvantage to Tumblr is that you’re at the whim of the Tumblr platform. Tumblr has developed a bit of a reputation for downtime, though it seems to have cleared up in recent months. This isn’t usually as much of an issue with a self-hosted solution (as long as you have a good web host).

The other issue that arises from a hosted platform like Tumblr is that you don’t have final control over your content. If Tumblr suddenly shuts down, there’s no guarantee you’ll be able to recover any of your content. If their policies change and your Tumblog suddenly violates those policies, they can shut you down without warning. This is why backing up your Tumblr content is important, so that you’ll still have a copy of everything in the event something should happen.

The wildcard: Posterous

There’s one service we haven’t talked about that’s often overlooked in the world of tumblogging: Posterous.

Posterous is a simple blogging platform that works a little bit different than most. Rather than posting from a dashboard or similar interface, posting is mostly done via email (though they also offer a dashboard for posting and mobile apps for both iOS and Android).

In September 2011 Posterous introduced “Posterous Spaces”, a new take on the tumblog. They now offer more fine-tuned privacy controls so you can post publicly or privately. All of the original functionality of Posterous was maintained, but additional functionality was also added along with some new themes. It’s now a cross between a tumblog and a social network, which may be appealing to some users.

Posterous Spaces also allows users to create multiple Spaces that can be set to public or private, and shared with just the people you want. In a way, it combines the features of Tumblr with those of Google+. Like Tumblr, Posterous has the advantages and disadvantages inherent in a free, hosted service.

If you’re new to tumblogging, Posterous is definitely worth checking out.

Conclusion

Tumblogging is a great way to post quick updates when you don’t have the time or the inclination for regular blogging.

It’s often more casual than a regular blog, more personal, or more granular than a “real” blog. And because of that, it occupies its own space on the web and its own part in our online lives.

There are advantages and disadvantages to each platform, ones that you’ll have to weigh for yourself to see which service best fits what you’re looking for.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Do you use any of the platforms above for your tumblog? Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

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You want to make it easy for your visitors to share what you’ve written with their social networks so that others can discover your content.

And the best way to do that is to include a button or two that puts the idea of sharing front and center, and makes it incredibly simple for your users to post your link to Facebook, Twitter, Google+, or elsewhere.

Below are ten great social sharing plugins for your WordPress blog. Most are free and all have sharing options for multiple platforms. Some even include upwards of a hundred or more services you can implement.

1. Sharebar

Rail-style sharing icons have quickly risen to be one of the most popular styles seen on WP blogs today. Sharebar is arguably one of the most attractive plugins in this list, and one of the most usable. Its location to the side of posts, rather than at the top or bottom, improves visibility for those reading posts, especially since it moves with the viewport as you scroll. The only downside to Sharebar is that it only supports a limited number of services: Twitter, Digg, Facebook, Buzz, and Email.

2. AddToAny

AddToAny is a button-based sharing plugin that’s un-intrusive and easy to use, both from the perspective of the blog owner and the visitor sharing content. It includes a ton of services, from the most popular to ones you may never have heard of, though they’re arranged so that only the most popular show up on initial hover, with an additional click required to show the rest. It also includes bookmarking and email options.

AddToAny also includes an options panel that lets you customize which services you want to include, how the button will look (including color scheme), and more. This makes is much more friendly to users who want to fully integrate it into their site without having to dive into the code.

3. ShareThis

ShareThis is one of the most versatile plugins on this list. You can configure it to display share buttons in a variety of ways, including a single icon, a series of icons or buttons, or a series of widgets with the number of shares or retweets displayed. Registered ShareThis publishers get access to various tracking reports to see how much their content is being shared.

In addition to the main sharing options above, ShareThis is also testing a ShareBar for the bottom of your pages, and a HoveringButtons bar for including share buttons in a rail style along the side of the page.

4. Sociable Pro

Sociable Pro is the premium version ($9.99) of the popular free Sociable plugin. The Pro version adds a number of functionality improvements over the free version, as well as some additional options. One of the biggest reasons Sociable Pro is worth paying for, though, is the ability to use your own custom icons. This alone makes it a much more attractive plugin, and makes it easier to integrate directly with your site while maintaining the ease of using a plugin.

5. AddThis

AddThis includes both sharing tools and robust analytics so you know how your content is being shared. It includes dynamic personalization options, so users see the right options at the right times. It has a huge directory of services to choose from (more than 300), and there’s deep Twitter and Facebook integration. It also includes automatic translation to more than 70 languages. You can use AddThis without registering, but then you miss out on the analytics options.

6. Socialize

Socialize creates sharing buttons that include sharing counts. It works with Twitter, Facebook, Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon and other services. The fact that the buttons can be placed either within your post, in the footer, or elsewhere is a big advantage for Socialize.

7. I Love Social Bookmarking

I Love Social Bookmarking is a simple plugin that’s based on a single icon that displays various subscription, social bookmarking, and sharing options when hovered on. It’s small and unobtrusive, and has a number of more advanced administrator options, including automatic or manual display, background colors, font face and size, link target, list title and style, and the ability to select which social media services are included.

8. SexyBookmarks

SexyBookmarks is a more stylized sharing plugin that includes options for a ton of different social networks. It includes analytics information, official support for Google’s URL shortener, uses the Share API, and has been localized to more than 15 languages.

9. Light Social

Light Social is a simple plugin that places sharing icons at the bottom of your posts. Services supported include Digg, Reddit, StumbleUpon, Facebook, Delicious, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google Buzz, and more. It’s implemented with lightweight HTML code for minimal impact on your blog’s file sizes and load time. You can enable or disable each individual service, but other than that there aren’t really any options.

10. SocioFluid

SocioFluid is another stylized social sharing plugin that uses icons. The icons in this case zoom slightly when hovered over, and the name of the service is displayed (similar to the way the Dock works on Mac OS X). If your blog has the right kind of design, it’s a neat plugin. It’s MIT and GPL licensed, and can be used completely for free. The icons are from Icondock and the plugin uses jQuery for the effects.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Which of the plugins above have you used? Or do you use a different option all together? Let us know in the comments!

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Others start with the basic WordPress code and design around that.

But others begin with a starter theme or framework, which is arguably the most efficient way to create a WP theme.

So you know you need a framework if you want to be more efficient in designing WP themes, but there are dozens of starter themes and frameworks out there. Where do you begin?

The answer to that is with the list below. Check out the free and premium frameworks and starter themes below. Try a few of them out and then decide which one(s) work best for your projects.

PageLines Platform Pro

Price: $95 – $175 | Details

PageLines Platform Pro is a drag-and-drop framework for creating custom WordPress themes. One of the best features that Platform Pro includes is a thing called “Sections”. These are pre-designed HTML, JavaScript or other coded modules that you can place anywhere on your site. They’re like widgets, but can be enabled or disabled on any page (without loading code on pages where they aren’t used) and they automatically register hooks for customization.

Main Features

• Includes a number of design modes to get you started, including magazine and blog layouts, full-width layouts, and more.
• A layout builder with drag-and-drop functionality.
• Works with BuddyPress and bbPress
• Uses HTML5 and works with WordPress 3.0, including custom post types and menus, and custom taxonomies.
• Includes support for Google Fonts API and Cufon.

Platform Pro is a great option for designers who want to quickly customize designs for their clients. Support for child themes makes it easy to create completely custom designs while maintaining the ease-of-use Platform Pro focuses on.

SWFPress

Price: Free – $150+ | Details

There are tons of frameworks out there that make creating a WP theme quick and easy. As long as you don’t want to create a theme using Flash. That’s where SWFPress comes in. It uses XML to send your WP data to a Flash theme, making it easy to use a pre-existing theme or to build one from scratch. The advantages to using a framework like this are pretty obvious: you can use WP to update your site, and could use an alternate mobile site that doesn’t use Flash without too much trouble.

Main Features

• Full WordPress integration.
• Built-in menu management features.
• Theme settings including color pickers, drop-down menus, form and table uploads, and more.
• The ability to format your XML files however you want.
• Works like any other theme, and can be fully customized by developers.

While SWFPress isn’t going to be suitable for every website, it can make it easier to create Flash-based sites that are still easy to use and maintain. While Flash is definitely under a huge threat from HTML5, that doesn’t mean it’s going to go away completely any time soon.

Thesis

Price: $87 – $164 | Details

Thesis is one of the most popular premium theme frameworks, used on over 37,000 websites. There are two licenses, with the less expensive one only allowing use on a single website (the developer license can be used on an unlimited number of your own sites, with additional license fees for use on client websites).

Main Features

• Layout generator with 1, 2, and 3 column design options.
• A full options panel for customization with coding.
• Future-proof customization system.
• Full support.
• A focus on typography.

Thesis is a very highly-regarded theme framework, and is used on some high-profile sites like the Print Magazine blog, The Domino Project, and Outspoken Media. There’s a full gallery of Thesis customizations you can browse to get an idea of just what Thesis is capable of.

Elemental

Price: $59.99 – $149.99 | Details

Elemental is a premium framework that can be used as-is by bloggers or can be fully customized to build client sites for almost any purpose in a variety of styles. The main thing that sets it apart is that it looks good even without a child theme, making it a great choice for non-designers who want a customizable, but good-looking site.

Main Features

• Control panel that lets you customize column size, typography, and navigation, among other things.
• Four widgetized areas.
• Custom controls for masthead image and logo.
• Twelve custom page templates for things like contact forms, sitemaps, blogrolls, image galleries, and more.
• Custom widgets for social networking, Twitter updates, related posts, popular posts, and more.

Elemental is a powerful premium theme that’s well-suited to developers and site owners. With all the customization options it offers, it can be used right out of the box without requiring child themes or custom coding, something many frameworks are lacking.

Toolbox

Price: Free | Details

Toolbox is a free HTML5 starter theme that’s completely stripped down and ready for you to build from. It’s licensed to be used for commercial projects or publicly-released themes. It uses semantic HTML5 markup, is extremely minimal, and uses a fluid, em-based CSS layout that can also work for a static design.

Main Features

• Suitable for fluid or fixed layouts.
• Uses HTML5.
• Free for personal or commercial use, and public themes.

Toolbox isn’t loaded with tons of features, because its goal is to just give you a starting point for your theme designs. The flexible licensing is a huge plus for designers who want to create commercial themes without paying fees.

Bones

Price: Free | Details

Bones is a WP development theme based on HTML5 Boilerplate, the 960.gs Grid, and CSS3. It includes two style sheets (one as a default and one for customization), and is only 246 KB in size. It includes five plugin-like functions to make your life easier, including relates post and page navigation. You can browse all of the code right on the website.

Main Features

• Based on leading frameworks like HTML5 Boilerplate and 960.gs Grid.
• Built-in functions for features usually handled by plugins.
• Includes post type and post format features.
• Detailed documentation.
• Lightweight.

Bones is a fantastic modern framework for designers looking to create HTML5 themes. It’s free and open source, and you can join in on the development on Github.

HTML5 WordPress Shell

Price: Free | Details

HTML5 WordPress Shell is designed to be a starting point for creating HTML5-based WP themes. It includes a number of WordPress features, as well as a number of HTML5 features and a separate set of base plugins they recommend you download and install. The code is all clearly commented to make it easier for you to customize and build from.

Main Features

• Dynamic sidebar and custom template examples are included.
• Smart sidebar disabling.
• Modernizr for HTML5 feature detection.
• iPhone detection.
• @font-face examples.

Shell is a great starting-point with some useful features that aren’t found in many starter themes. The inclusion of base plugins (which you can download in one package) is a nice addition to the basic theme.

Genesis Framework

Price: $59.95 | Details

Genesis is a premium theme from StudioPress. It makes it easy to quickly build custom WP sites, whether you’re a novice or an advanced developer. There are forty turn-key designs available for Genesis, or you can use it as the basis for building child themes.

Main Features

• Optimized, secure code.
• Unlimited support, updates, and websites.
• Integrated, single-click updates to both Genesis and WordPress that are fully tested and supported.
• Theme options include font size and choice, default layout, custom fields, header settings, navigation settings, and much more.
• Threaded comments support.

Genesis is another framework that’s well-suited to both developers and designers as well as end-users. The number of child themes available makes it an affordable option for those who don’t want a completely custom design.

WordPress Theme Framework

Price: $8 | Details

WTF is an inexpensive premium framework that includes a highly-customizable options page, premium theme functions, and more. It’s one of the least expensive premium frameworks out there, available exclusively through CodeCanyon. It’s built to be used with any theme design to extend functionality and add theme options, and all you have to do to use it is put the folder into your theme folder and add a line of code to your functions.php file.

Main Features

• Built-in theme options page.
• Includes breadcrumb functions.
• Includes a number of additional post functions, including popular posts, related posts, and future posts.
• Latest tweet function included.
• Full and thorough documentation.

WTF works differently than most frameworks, but that makes it appealing to designers or users who already have a theme, but want to add more functionality and integrate a theme options panel into the existing design.

Thematic

Price: Free | Details

Thematic is one of the more well-known free WP frameworks, created by the Automattic Theme Team. It’s free and open-source, search-engine optimized, and highly-customizable and extensible. There’s a complete guide to using Thematic available on the ThemeShaper website, as well as a number of child themes.

Main Features

• Thirteen widget-ready areas.
• Includes a sample child theme for rapid development.
• Can by used as-is or as the basis for a child theme.
• Multiple layout options for 2 and 3 column designs.
• Options for multi-author blogs.
• Editable footer text (the theme credit can be removed without damaging the rest of the theme’s code).

Thematic is one of the most highly-regarded theme frameworks out there. It’s also one of the most powerful, and may be overkill for some sites. The user guide makes it easy to get started, though, and even includes a style guide.

Roots

Price: Free | Details

Roots is a basic HTML5 starter theme for developers. It offers the choice between using a number of layout frameworks as the base for the theme layout (including 960.gs, Blueprint CSS, and 1140 CSS Grid). It’s highly customizable, allowing you to create themes with virtually any layout or style you want.

Main Features

• hNews microformat ready.
• Built on HTML5 Boilerplate.
• Rewrites URLs so they’re clean and free of the usual WP file structure.
• When activated from a fresh install, you’ll get a number of features upon activation, including a custom home page and permalink structure changes.
• WPML compatible.

Roots is one of the most promising HTML5 starter themes out there, and is highly customizable. Basic built-in styles makes theme development quick and painless.

Headway Themes

Price: $87 – $164 | Details

Headway Themes is a drag-and-drop WP framework licensed under the GNU GPLv2 license. It allows for visual design of your site, with a fully customizable look and layout. The Visual Layout Editor can save you time even if you’re comfortable working with HTML, CSS, and PHP.

Main Features

• Headway Configuration Panel makes it easy to customize just about everything.
• The “Easy Hooks” feature makes it simple to insert custom content where you want on a page.
• Built-in search engine optimization.
• Drag-and-drop layout design.
• Complete visual design control.

Headway Themes includes a ton of features for both developers and designers, and can be customized even without coding knowledge. While it’s definitely among the more expensive premium frameworks out there, it’s also among the most fully-featured and user-friendly.

Whiteboard Framework 3.1.5

Price: Free | Details

Whiteboard is built on the Less Framework, meaning it adapts well to different screen sizes and formats. It has a minimalist design right out of the box, and can be used as-is or as the basis for a more complex theme design. It’s a great basis for virtually any kind of WP site.

Main Features

• Built on the Less Framework so it includes a mobile version automatically.
• Can be used as-is or built on.
• HTML5 with graceful degradation built in.
• More dynamic classes and IDs than any other WP framework.
• Lightweight and well commented for easier development.
• Follows the Web Accessibility Initiative.

Whiteboard is a highly-customizable theme, and its built-in basic styles and classes make it much quicker to develop themes. The overall div structure is strong and flexible, and the Less Framework can be easily removed if desired. Whiteboard is aimed at designers and developers who are comfortable working with HTML and CSS, unlike some of the other themes included here.

Starkers

Price: Free | Details

Starkers is a semantic, bare-bones WordPress starter theme. It includes no styles, no presentational elements, and no non-semantic markup. It’s simply a blank slate for your theme designs, and is a stripped-back version of the default “Twenty Ten” theme. It’s fully-GPL licensed so you can use it for personal or commercial projects.

Main Features

• Fully semantic code.
• Completely bare-bones with no presentational elements.
• Based on the Twenty Ten theme.

Starkers is an excellent starting point for theme developers who want to create a modern theme basically from scratch. It saves time by offering a basic framework for your theme design, but puts no restrictions on presentation or style.

Carrington

Price: Free – $149+ | Details

Carrington is actually a suite of starter themes, including a blog theme, a minimalist theme, a mobile theme, a business theme, and a developer theme that’s just a bare-bones theme skeleton. There’s extensive community support for Carrington, as well as professional support available.

Main Features

• A number of starter themes to choose from based on your needs.
• A reactive templating engine is available that makes it easy to create different visual styles for different areas of your sites.
• An advanced drag-and-drop page layout system, Carrington Build, is also available.

Carrington is growing into a very powerful suite of both premium and free starter theme and framework elements. There’s full documentation available, which makes it easy to get started developing Carrington-based themes.

Standard Theme

Price: $49 – $99 | Details

Standard has been used as the basis for countless websites with a huge variety of styles. The premium features built into it make it well worth the price, as does the ongoing support. The layout and style are easy to customize, without any coding necessary.

Main Features

• Support for WP 3.1 post formats.
• A powerful admin panel that includes general settings, framework options, navigation options, ads, comment and sharing options, and much more.
• Author preferences that includes a sidebar widget and a customizable “Author Box” at the end of each post.
• Custom menu support.
• Page templates.
• Easy Analytics integration.

Standard is GPL-licensed, so you can use it on all of your sites. You can build your own themes on top of Standard, or use it on any site you want. This is a great option for theme designers or developers who don’t want to deal with expensive licensing options for publicly released themes or multiple commercial websites.

HTML5 Reset WordPress Theme

Price: Free | Details | Demo

If all you need is a basic, blank HTML5 starter theme, then the HTML5 Reset Theme might be perfect for you. It’s based entirely on the HTML5 Reset templates.

Main Features

• Semantic HTML5 markup.
• jQuery, Modernizr, and Analytics support is built in.
• Compatible with hNew Microformat.
• Starter CSS declarations for basic WordPress elements.
• A widget-ready sidebar.

HTML5 Reset is a very basic starting-point for building WordPress themes. It’s obviously aimed at designers and developers who are quite comfortable with code. It’s being developed on Github, and the code is constantly being updated and improved.

The Buffet Framework

Price: Free | Details

Buffet is a basic WP theme framework for both end users and developers. It’s built to be redesigned through the use of child themes. It also has support for creating theme extensions by grouping a set of action and filter functions together, making it possible for child theme designers to enable or disable extensions via the options panel.

Main Features

• Support for microformats.
• A number of features powered by jQuery.
• Theme options panel with tabbed organization.
• Action and filter hooks with inline documentation.
• Search engine optimization that includes breadcrumbs, headings, and canonical URLs.

Buffet is an excellent starting point for the development of child themes. Its minimalist design is also suitable for use right out of the box, a big plus for many developers who want a quick but powerful solution.

Ashford

Price: Free – $49 | Details

Ashford is specifically a CMS framework for WordPress, rather than a blog framework (or an all-purpose framework). It’s been downloaded more than 20,000 times and has been featured in a number of blog posts since its release in 2008.

Main Features

• Page templates, including 250 variations in the Pro version.
• Built-in mega menus in Pro.
• Interactive hero elements, including sliders, carousels, rotating banners, and more.
• Complete customization of headers, backgrounds, color styles, and web fonts.
• Built-in mobile site in the Pro version.

Ashford offers a ton of features in both the free and Pro versions. As already stated, it’s meant for non-blog sites, and the features it includes are aimed toward that end.

Catalyst

Price: $97 – $174 | Details

Catalyst is a premium theme framework with tons of built-in features and options. It includes excellent support, unlimited layout possibilities, and more than 800 design options. It’s a blank canvas WP theme that’s flexible and easy to customize.

Main Features

• Unlimited custom layouts, widgets, and hook boxes.
• Dynamik child theme provides 800+ no-coding design options.
• Built-in child theme creator (with ability to download your child themes).
• Custom CSS building tool that writes your code for you.
• Uses HTML5 and CSS3 code.

Catalyst has two licensing options available: a personal edition with the ability to use Catalyst on as many sites as you want, but support for only two sites; and a developer addition with support for unlimited sites and access to the developer edition section with exclusive resources.

Simon WP Framework

Price: Free | Details

Simon is a framework and blank theme that lets you quickly build and deploy WP websites. It can be built on and used however you please, and has some great features built-in.

Main Features

• Built on the 960.gs Grid.
• Uses the Blueprint Typography Framework.
• Two-column design.
• Featured post capability.

Simon is a great basic framework for creating simple sites. It’s not as comprehensive as some of the frameworks included here, but you don’t always need a platform with a thousand different options. If you need something that’s easy to use and built on a solid platform, then Simon is worth a go.

Written exclusively for WDD by Cameron Chapman.

Which WP theme frameworks do you use? Which one is your favorite? Let us know in the comments!

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