Recently our friend Andrew of WP-Fun.co.uk wrote an interesting post titled A New Name for Premium Themes:  Themes.   In his post, Andrew attempts to define what a premium WordPress theme is, then compares that definition with the most downloaded themes at the Free WordPress Theme Directory.   In my opinion, blog posts like this are great because they really spark some thought on the part of the reader.   After reading his post, I felt that the point Andrew is making is that if you look at the designs, feature sets, and quality of the most downloaded free themes from WordPress.org, they are all comparable to at least a few of the premium WordPress themes being sold on the market today. 

For those of us that have been using WordPress for at least 2-3 years, the evolution of the WordPress theme is simply amazing.  Back in 2007 themes weren’t necessarily even standards compliant, and the idea of widgets was still new and many themes didn’t support them.   Now the idea of a control panel being included with your theme, having your theme be widget ready, and having several color options included with the theme have almost become standard, (even with the free WordPress themes available).  

I’m sure there will always be some free themes available, but you have to wonder if at some point premium themes will become the standard.  I suppose if this is the case, then my next question is, if premium themes simply become themes, then what is next?   The top designers begin to release elite themes?  If premium is a fancy word for better, it seems that designers will just come up with a new fancy word for best like “elite” and use that as the word for next level of themes.  It may never end! 

There are also things like Theme Frameworks to consider as WordPress themes continue to evolve.   Give us your thoughts in the comments!

Though there are a number of popular magazine WordPress themes on the market, including a number of great free magazine themes, I think it is pretty safe to say that none have been more popular over the past year than the Mimbo theme (and the Mimbo Pro version).

This morning I just noticed that my friend Darren Hoyt, the author of Mimbo and Mimbo Pro, has updated his original free theme, calling it Mimbo 3.0.

Here is a screen shot of Mimbo 3.0:

You can view the live demo here.   Here are the updates features in the newest version of Mimbo:

• No more custom fields. Most importantly, custom fields are no longer necessary to call thumbnails. Mimbo 3.0 includes a script that pulls images automatically from the post body, then resizes them with TimThumb.
• Support for WordPress 2.7. This includes code for sticky posts, comment pagination, threaded comments, wp_logout_url, and the rest of the new features.
• Sticky Posts. In the past, you had to create a “Lead Story” category. With the new version, that beige box contains whichever post you’ve marked as sticky, or whichever is most recent.
• Standard Bloggy Behavior. What I learned about Mimbo 2.2 is that a lot of people missed having a regular old blog component on the homepage, ie, simple chronological display. So I tried to retain the popular magazine-style layout, while organizing the middle column more like a standard blog.
• Featured Categories. Thanks to some great coding help from the talented Jean-Baptiste, Mimbo 3.0 has a custom control panel that sets featured categories with a configurable number of headlines
• Localization/Translation. As I’ve realized, there’s really no excuse for not localizing your WP themes so they can be enjoyed by people all over the world. Feel free to contact me with translation help.
• 125×125 Ad Support. Mimbo 3.0 comes pre-styled to work with the excellent WP125 plugin and its companion widget.
• Better body id/classes. As I’ve written about, this can make your theme tremendously flexible, but now things are even flexible-er. Tip of the hat goes to Thematic, by way of Sandbox.
• Multi-Level Dropdown Menus. People asked for them and now they’re here. They’re semi-transparent, too, if you use a decent browser.
• Custom Sidebar Conditionals. If child pages exist, they will now appear in the sidebar when viewing a page section. And on single post pages, the sidebar will dynamically display a handy “Related Posts” box.
• Better Custom Archives. Personally, I almost never browse by month or year. I prefer a full archived list with dated headers. Mimbo 3.0 comes with a custom template that displays posts organized by month, plus pagination.
• Better Author Archives. Looking back, it’s not really necessary to have the author bio included at the bottom of every single post, as with v2.2. In the new version, author archives can be viewed only when the person’s name is clicked. Also, gravatars are now used for both author photos and comments. No more lame hacks.
• Gallery, Inline Image & Caption Styling. There are now styles for all the various ways you’d insert an image in a post which became possible with version 2.5.
• More Widget Freedom. In the past, I probably included too much custom code in the sidebar whereas most of it could be replicated/re-ordered with widgets anyway. So currently, the entire right-hand sidebar (minus the aforementioned Page submenu and “Related Posts” module) is widgetized and pre-styled for your pleasure.

[Download the Mimbo 3.0 Theme]

Since I launched my blog Cats Who Code, many people asked me about a similar theme. I first thought about releasing the Cats Who Code theme, but the main problem with that theme is that it is very complex and too specific to our blog.

So, I figured out that I definitely should release a similar theme, but make it simple to administrate for both WordPress advanced users and beginners.

On a personal note, I chose to get inspiration for this theme from New York City, where I traveled in June and really enjoyed it. The vector image isn’t from me, but from a designer named Raul. I have sent him an email to ask him if I can use his image for the theme, but never received a reply. After 2 weeks, I decided to make the theme available, anyways most people will use their own image instead.

Features

• Widgetized sidebar
• Widgetized footer
• Custom field to display a thumbnail on homepage
• SEO optimized
• Easy to customize
• Classy design with nice colors
• Integrated pagination

Screenshot & Live demo

If you want to see a live demo of the theme, just click here.

Download NYC Theme!

If you find any bugs or problems in the theme, let me know and i’ll correct it for a future version.

Hope you’ll like it! I plan to release a bunch of new themes in the near future, both here and at my blog Cats Who Code, so you should definitely subscribe to my RSS Feed and/or follow me on Twitter!

Who says that these days you have to pay for a high quality WordPress theme?   Today I noticed that one of my favorite free theme designers, ChiQ Montes, has released yet another incredible WordPress theme.

Her newest creation is the Maggo Mag theme, which is a 3-column theme with the sidebars split out on each side (I’ve always liked this style and wish more 3-column WordPress themes had the content in the middle).  Other features include being 125×125 ad block ready, the ability to add a video to the right sidebar, and of course the wonderful color blue.

Here is a screenshot:

And here is a live demo.   If you’d like to try out the Maggo Mag theme, you can download it here.