Add New Themes

What you see above is a picture of the new “Add New Theme” section underneath the Appearance Tab.  There are several ways you can get a new WordPress theme on your blog. First you can browse through the WordPress.org Extend Free Theme Gallery. You can filter this gallery by keyword, author, tag, color, columns, width, features, and subject. Also you can view the Featured Themes that WordPress.org’s crackpot (term used with effection) team have suggested that everyone use. They also allow you to filter by Newest themes and most Recently Updated themes.

These options are all well and good if you are interested in getting Freebies. But the feature that has me really excited is the new upload feature! That’s right you now have the ability to upload wordpress themes as zip files directly into WordPress!

This totally eliminates the need to explain to clients what FTP means and why they need to CHMOD something. It’s easy to use too! All you need to do is browse for the zip file, click on upload. Once uploaded it will ask if you want to Preview or Activate the theme. If you don’t want to do either it will take you back to the themes you have already installed.

Widgets Overhauled in WordPress 2.8

Yes! What you are look at above is the total overhaul of the widgets control panel. Currently in WordPress 2.7 the widgets are somewhat of a pain to use – and is especially hard to explain to new clients who have never used WordPress before. You have to show them where to find the drop down menu that allows you to switched between different sidebars. It’s too confusing.

But not anymore. The new Widget Control Panel means you don’t have to load any extra pages. All the work can be done right here. You drag and drop widgets to their appropriate sidebars like you used to be able to do Pre-WordPress2.6. Also, they have included a new feature called Inactive Widgets. When you drag a widget to this area it will keep the settings.

Speaking of widgets…

The Links Widget Upgraded

The links widget got completely updated too! One of my biggest complaints from clients was they were not able to automatically separate the Links in the Link Widget. Let’s say you filtered your links using three Link Categories, but you only wanted one of those categories to show up on the sidebar. In WordPress 2.7 there are NO Link options. That changes in WordPress 2.8! Not only do you get the ability to choose which categories you want listed in the Link Widget – you can also choose if an Image, Name or Description should appear with it.

Also, new for WordPress 2.8 is the ability for the Admin to rate his/her links.

Press This get Upgraded too

One of the hidden gems inside of WordPress has always been the “Press This” browser link. For those who don’t know, “Press This” allows you to post WordPress blogs on the go while browsing other website. One of the new features inside “Press This” is the ability to add media from the page you are viewing. In the page above I’m viewing the New York Times article about Rachel Alexandra’s win. I have decided that I want to post an image from the article as well so I went ahead and clicked on the horses coming out of the gate. It’s that easy!

If you are viewing a Youtube page and you click on “Press This” it will automatically give you the embed code that you can then insert into your post. I can see this becoming VERY useful for bloggers.

Update: I guess this was already upgraded in WordPress2.7. Hehe It’s new to me!

WordPress 2.8 Beta

Learn more about WordPress 2.8 Beta on Codex Page.

For those who are brave and want to try out the new WordPress before it is officially release head over to the Download Page. I must warn though – this is a Beta and it has the potential to mess things up! Use at your own risk!

Well, with Twitter Tools I can pull my twitter feed and have it update my blog automatically!

Twitter Tools

Get it Here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/twitter-tools/

Description: Twitter Tools is a plugin that creates a complete integration between your WordPress blog and your Twitter account.

Set up a Daily Digest of your Tweets

1. Download and Activate the Twitter Tools plugin.
2. In the Settings Menu on the Dashboard click on Twitter Tools.
3. Enter your Twitter username/password (Future releases will probably include the “OAuth” aka Twitter Connect option)
4. Enable option to create a tweet when you post in your blog? – YES
5. Set this on by default? – NO
6. Create a blog post from each of your tweets? – NO
7. Create a blog post from each of your tweets? – YES
8. Choose a time that is more convenient for you. I choose 11PM
9. Scroll down to the Categories part: Choose the category you would prefer your tweets to be added. Most like creating a new “twitter” category. I just placed mine in the JoeBrooks category.
10. Tags: These are the tags that will be added to each daily digest. Mine are: JoeBrooks, Tweets, Twitter, Joe Brooks Tweets, Joe Brooks Twitter
11. Exclude @reply tweets in your sidebar, digests and created blog posts? – NO (If you want to include all your tweets) or YES (If you want to exclude your replies to others).
12. Click on the Update Twitter Tools Options button.

That should do it! Check back tomorrow on your blog to see if everything posted properly. Here is how my first Twitter Daily Digest appeared like: http://www.joebrooks.me/twitter-updates-for-2009-04-27.html

wpSpoiler

Get it Here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wpspoiler/

Description: wpSpoiler is a plugin for WordPress, designed to protect the reader against spoilers, for example in book or filmreviews. The spoiler text is hidden by default and shows up if wished.

To mark a text as spoiler, enclose the passage with [spoiler] and [/spoiler].

Tiny Spoiler

Get it Here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tiny-spoiler/

Description:

• shows/hides text in spoiler shortcode
• name of spoiler area can be given
• only one little button [+] or [-]

WP_Censor

Get it Here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wp-censor/

Description: Black out certain words that may appear in a post especially when quoting. Aids you to keep the original content intact but maintain privacy or a family rating. Also allows the ability to hide explicit content, or spoiler information, such as sports results and film endings and allow the user to choose if they wish to view it.

SASpoiler

Get it Here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/saspoiler/

Description: Hides text behind a black text/black background tile. Holding the mouse over the text reveals it. Insipred by Something Awful’s spoiler system.

Usage: Simply put a [SPOILER]tag around your text[/SPOILER] that you wish to become “spoilered.” Works in both comments and posts.

Advanced Spoiler

Get it Here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/advanced-spoiler/

Description: Show or hide contents(text, image etc.) with animated effects wrapped by spoiler markup tag([spoiler][/spoiler]).

• Animate effects: appear, blind, slide, apblind(appear + blind), phase, simple(no animate)
• Supports TinyMCE button and quicktags button
• Provides option page for default effect, show text, hide text, animate speed, nested spoilers.
• Supports ‘Simple Mode’: no aniated effects and just simple javascript.

I must have been under a rock yesterday because I totally missed this announcement. The Automatic/WordPress Team announced one of the newest features will allow blog adminstraters to reply directly to comments posted on their blog by use of Email.

This could come in handy for those who already have email notifications turned on. Instead of seeing that you have a new comment and having to login to respond all you need to do is hit reply in your preferred email client, type response and click on send.

More:

To use this feature, blog owners are required to make a couple of configuration changes which are very simple. Once done with these configurations, bloggers can reply to comments using their preferred email address and save the effort of replying via the WordPress admin interface.

The two changes are as follows:

1. Please make sure that email notifications for comments are turned on.
2. Select the Enable sending comment replies via email option.

These settings can be finetuned under Settings->Discussion page.

Update: Unless I’m missing something, this update seems to only be available for WordPress.com users, which takes my excitement down a few notches.  (frown)

Premium WordPress Theme Now Available!
Name: WPGrungeTheme

Description: A never before released them that mixes the worlds of Internet Grunge and Web 2.0 Stripes. This Blog was designed to be fresh and unique.

Live Demo (Demo is for the Blue Version of the Theme)

Price: $15

Premium WordPress Theme Now Available!
Name: WPGrungeTheme

Description: A never before released them that mixes the worlds of Internet Grunge and Web 2.0 Stripes. This Blog was designed to be fresh and unique.

Live Demo (Demo is for the Blue Version of the Theme)

Price: $15

Premium WordPress Theme Now Available!
Name: WPGrungeTheme

Description: A never before released them that mixes the worlds of Internet Grunge and Web 2.0 Stripes. This Blog was designed to be fresh and unique.

Live Demo (Demo is for the Blue Version of the Theme)

Price: $15