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Suggestions For My First Free Theme

Sorry for the short post today, we were having a garage sale and it started to rain. Anyway, I’ve got something good for you guys tomorrow

As the majority of you know, I am currently working on a free WordPress theme that will be released very soon. As I was working on it a few hours ago, an idea came to my mind, why not ask you guys what you want rather than launching the theme and then finding out?

I have constantly seen people complaining about the low quality of free WordPress themes and I definitely don’t plan on having mine being called “low quality”. I have designed this simple questionnaire for you that will hopefully help me improve my theme. I would really appreciate it if you could take a minute or two to answer the questions and leave a comment below with your answers. Honestly, it won’t take long, help me help you :)

I will also be taking a screenshot of my theme before releasing it so that you guys can give me your opinion on it and some final suggestions.

The Questionnaire:

Yes/No

  • Different font used for headers?
  • Links underlined?
  • Recent articles?

- 468×60 Ad next to header or below header?

- Specific color scheme?

- Widgetized?

- Social bookmarking icons at the bottom of each post?

That is all I could think of for now, if you have anything extra you would like to add then please leave a comment below and I will look into it. By the way, I don’t expect my theme to top the charts, many better theme designers have made plenty of themes better than mine, but there’s nothing wrong with trying ;)

Written by Rajaie AlKorani
August 2nd, 2008

8 Responses to “Suggestions For My First Free Theme”

  1. no no and yes… next to, blue would look nice otherwise white with gray, definitely widgetized and no social bookmarking…. hope that helps ;) good luck with the design man!

  2. Well, if you want me to give you a rundown of what I expect in a theme to call it a quality one, email me. In the meantime, while you are emailing me, I will answer the questions.
    You can use a different font in the header, I am not 100% on what this means, but I will say yes.
    Yes to underline links.
    No to recent articles, put in recent comments instead. If you can put in a plugin, then put in related posts.
    Below header please.
    Color scheme is another thing you will have to email me about, I am very picky on that kind of stuff.
    Yes widgetized, just make sue you can get the top commentators widget in (for some reason I can’t get it to work, if you know how then tell me).
    Social bookmarking icons please, it would be good if they were as tricked out as the elite theme, those are really nice.
    All for now Rajaie!

  3. by Rajaie AlKorani at 4:10 am on 03/08/08

    Hehe, just what I expected, two exactly different opinions :lol: Let’s wait for more comments…

  4. No, I like the current font
    No, Links does not need to be underlined but link color a shade lighter than the regular text. Hover could be underlined
    No, if the current homepage structure is followed (you are keeping 5 recent articles on homepage)

    Try the 468×60 right below the top nav bar… it may look great if there’s not much animation on it.

    The current color scheme is not that bad.

    Yes, need to be widgetized for platform upgrade preparedness.

    Social bookmarking is up to you.

    Other observations from the current theme.
    1. Need to stretch the white sidebar until the footer, right now it stops where the sidebar content ends exposing the background color. This is the case with Archives page as well.
    2. You may not need the H1 tag on all five posts on the homepage. I would keep H1 for the title.
    3. Push Popular articles to top of the content area (like Johnchow dot com)
    4. Archive page font could be reduced
    5. Push twitter updates and anything else to the footer
    6. The bottom borderstyle of side bar heading may not need dashed underline. Instead make the heading fonts a little darker
    7. Try to create a theme that highlights the first post in full and with significants and the previous five posts in excerpts in a different color.

    So much for now…

    Cheers,
    Ajith
    PS: I am planning to rework my theme as well…

  5. Some people may use ad block if they have a MMO blog or other money making blog whereas some will stick with No ad block/social bookmarking if they have a personal blog :)

    But it must be widgetized.. Why not make 2 different theme :D

  6. by Rajaie AlKorani at 4:43 pm on 03/08/08

    Thanks for the suggestions guys :)

  7. Hi Rajaie :)

    Here’s a totally different suggestion for your theme. Once you have created it, have some of your readers (maybe contact them via email) test your theme. Their feedback will provide you with a few ideas on what’s good and what’s not good – that way you’ll know what needs improvement and what must stay as is.

    Hope that helps ;)

    P. S.: are you going to code that theme by yourself? If you need help you know where to find me!

  8. by Rajaie AlKorani at 10:12 pm on 05/08/08

    @Ikki, I was thinking the same exact thing :) Yes, I’ll be coding it myself as well and will be sure to contact you if I need anything, thanks for the offer!