As I stated earlier (although in german), I'm doing a complete rewrite of the Lush theme. Reasons are that the structure and stylesheet were taken exactly like in the Typo3 version, although the structure of WordPress (especially the sidebar) differs from that - it was a pain in the ass to even get the most simple widgets to work.
Also, people argued about the speed of Lush, and their absolutely right. It takes about 40 to 50 files for the front page, not including pictures and other media inserted via posts. More than 10 files have to be loaded even before the site can be displayed. There are already points I think I could improve this issue.
Nevertheless, I'll try to keep it as easy to modify as the original version, but keeping in mind that they were also some plugins which didn't worked correctly, I hereby ask you: What do you want in Lush? I mean, which plugins should Lush support correctly? Are there any other things you would like to see? What about WordPress Widgets?
So far, the list of plugins already requested (in no particular order):
- Optimal Title
- Subscribe To Comments
- Landing Sites
- Extended Live Archive
- Lightbox
- Time since
- FAlbum
- Ultimate Tag Warrior
- Gravatar
I will not promise to include all of them, but I'll do my best. Also, this doesn't mean that I'll bundle them with Lush, I'll only check that the latest version will work as expected.
September 8th:
I thought I'll give you a small update on the progress, so you don't have to wonder what's going on. As of now, the design is ready, along with the new structure for the sidebar to be more compatible with WordPress plugins. There are only minor visual differences in the browsers, most of the time it's just some extended margins between elements, nothing special. The dropping sidebar is hopefully fixed. The problem here is the the blockquote tag (I don't explain why), but as far as I can see from all my test postings, it is now much harder to break Lush's layout :-)
Most of the plugins mentioned above are already included. Apart from that, the configuration panel needs to be written, the theme needs to be made valid against XHTML 1.0 Strict and some minor things too. As I stated in the comments, I don't give a timeline, but a first release early next week seems realistic.
Again, if you think that something's still missing, just write a quick comment and I'll see what I can do.
September 11th: As far as I can tell, the theme should be finished this evening or early next morning. I would really appreciate it if there are some of you out there, who would like to thoroughly test it. You know, what's still missing, any bugs I haven't seen yet, the hopefully better speed, and especially the support for FAlbum and the design as seen in Safari (I don't trust at all). Just leave me a comment with a correct email adress and I'll send it to you.
Beta Version
There's a beta version available, grab it here (ZIP file, ~150kb). It still has some minor flaws, which I'm currently working on. But since you had enough patience with me, I thought, I'd throw it out, so you can test it. It will not overwrite any of Lush's original settings, so it's safe to run it on your own blog. You should grab the zip if you want to try out the admin functions, if everything works as you would expect it. I especially do need some input from FAlbum users, as I don't use flickr on my own.
There's also a test blog available over here with the theme activated. This is mainly for revealing any display or javascript errors, bugs, missing core functions etc.
You're welcome to check it out, but please give me some input, so I can make this theme as soon as possible a 2.0.
September 20th
New version ready. Grab it here.
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Thanks for posting this post Jeriko, a lot of people are going to have many ideas for sure, it will be interesting to see what they are.
I myself will have to think of something wicked that would work great on my current Technolgy Blog which of course as you probably know uses the Lush Theme with my own added style.
Hi, warum ist das Lush-Thema langsam? ist mir gar nicht aufgefallen.
Please comment in english. Not for me, but for all the others, which do not understand german, but want to follow the discussion.
Regarding your question: The first load of a new site using Lush is painfully slow, since there are many JavaScripts and Stylesheets, which have to be fully loaded first in order to display the website. Navigating then is normal, it’s the first call that needs to be optimized.
I’d vote for all of those plugins… ;)
Wohooo! Sounds great! I can’t help with much but betatesting – but that’s something as far as i’m concerned. Falbum is what i’m most interested in.
Go man, go!
It would be nice if one could choose more than one link category to be displayed in the sidebar via Lush Options…! Unless it’s already there and I’m just too dumb to figure it out…!?
Having an option to easily re-arrange the Lush sidebar content (when not using widgets) would also be cool…
As for plugins — all of the above are great and would make great additions…! ;)
For the German version I’d like to see some graphics expert “localize” the text on the buttons, but that’s just a minor thing anyway…
Well, I’m sure I can come up with many more suggestions as the ball keeps rolling…! Keep up the great work and thanks in advance for what is sure to be a great update…! :)
P.S. Is there any kind of roadmap or timeline already…?!
No timeline. The easy part is done, which means the core layout is finished and working as expected in IE, FF, Opera, Safari, Konqueror. The stylesheet got down from 19kb to 10kb, and I’m asking myself all the time what in the hell I’ve forogt :-) As of now, I would expect a release this weekend or early next week, it depends on how much work I have to do – remember, I’m doing this in my free time :-)
Regarding your questions:
It’s now possible to display more than one link category in the sidebar, it wasn’t possible in the original version due to the structure, which I mentioned earlier.
Sorting things, yeah, I’ve thought about something that Hemingway does, but it will be something for a future release, as I’m not very familiar with this.
The theme will be ready to get localized, meaning the necessary structure is already available. I’ll also provide button templates to localize them as well. But I won’t do it myself.
Oh, and there will be a wide version too, as it was very popular too.
Another thing then: how about an option to set how many tags are being shown in the tag cloud…?! Shouldn’t be that hard…but then again, what do I know…?! ;)
Nice work so far Jerriko. I bookmarked this new Lush page and will follow the project closley.
If you need any testing in the (near) future I will do so!
I am new at WordPress and have been impressed with the lush theme. Apparently you are in the middle of an update. Will this be available for WordPress Users by next week?
I think so, yes.
Okay, I know that’s rather unrealistic…but how about customizable colour schemes…?! :)
Yes, I know…me and my stupid suggestions… ;)
Just a comment for anyone subscribed to the list: I’m looking for some beta testers, have a look at the updated post.
Well, I’d be glad to help out with the testing…you have my mail address via the comment form anyway, right…!?
Mac OS X 10.4.7 with Flock, Firefox, Safari, Camino, Opera, OmniWeb, Shiira…
I’ll be doing some beta testing on Firefox en IE7 RC1.
Jeriko,
OK, I look forward to seeing the newest and better LUSH.
Hi again!
I would very much like to betatest lush X2, thank you.
modde
I’m more than willing to give it a good run through.
To everyone subscribed to the comments: There’s a beta version as well as a test blog available, have a look at the post.
Cool! Gonna try it out as soon as i can! Thanx, Jeriko!
Installed it on my site and seems to work fine! A little bit faster than previous. Haven’t isntalled FAlbum yet, will do so tonight.
I don’t see the previous and next page buttons on the bottom of the page anymore?
Well. I’ve localized my version to swedish (in my own way…) and it was nice and neat. falbum works like a charm and so does master archive – super. One thing, though, comments show up as trackbacks.
Thought you should now. Great job, by the way!!
I have a ladybug that appears on mine, and I don’t want it there. How do I get rid of it?
I installed FAlbum last night but it doesn’t seem to work yet. Probably is my installation as I can see “modde” got it working.
Other plugins work fine:
-Simple Recent Comments
-Dunstan’s Time Since
-last.fm favorite artists cloud
What settings did you use for FAlbum “modde”?
Globally enabled
Selected style default
Thumbnail square 75×75
Number of albums 16
Number of photos 40
Recent pictures 5
Max width 400
Shadows enabled
Sizes disabled
Exif disabled
Private disabled
Private level 10
Can edit level 0
Friendly url numeric
URL-root /photos/
Thats it.
Good luck!
@ Camiel & Modde: The recent photos in the sidebar rely on a globally enabled FAlbum; there’s no other way to check in a safe way, if it is actually installed. As for the album page, I’ll include an option in the panel to create a static page with FAlbum activated in it – that should do the trick.
@ Andrew: As I stated before, I do not support the old version anymore. The new one will have an option to disable the easter egg. But you wouldn’t want that, do you? ;-)
Also, I’ll include some more plugins (Get Recent Comments, Brians Latest Comments, maybe Jerome’s Keywords). If everything works well, we’ll have a Lush 2.0 this weekend. WHOOHOO! :-)
Ok, I used the settings Modde described and FAlbum is globally activated. Still no FAlbum in the sidebar.
FAlbum does work (partialy) on this link:
http://www.mirjamencamiel.nl/weblog/wp-content/plugins/falbum/wp/album.php
Hi Cristoph, thanks for your email, can’t reply right now because I’m having Webmail troubles… Can read, can not send…
I forgot something realy stuppid, enabling FAlbum on the lush options page…. Shame Shame Shame…. :-(
Thanks for you’re support Cristoph, everything is working fine now!
About the beta testing, Lush x2 works like a charm on IE7 RC1. No errors at all!
Damn, I just got back from a business trip and now I’m way to tired to start checking out the beta…! :(
I’ll give it a try as soon as I have gotten my 12 hours of sleep or so…! ;)
A very good looking theme! Although I have problems using gravatars. my local gravatar doesn’t appear in my posts..whats going wrong? thx fpr help!
I’m using the latest version (2.0). Good job indeed!
There’s a problem, though. When I activate fGallery (with or without Lightbox enabled), the right column appears in the right bottom of the page.
Any clue what this might be?
Thank you in advance!
Riccardo.
heya. thanks for porting lush to wordpress. what i’d like to find out is how to integrate this addon called ‘brian’s latest comment’ to the side bar of lush.
Link no workie.
Nice theme! Is there still a possibility to dowload the (beta) theme somewere?
I’d love to try this theme! I try to dl the first lush version but it seems that’s not possible.
Did you removed it in purpose?
Thanks for your great work!