June 18th, 2010 Posted in Computer, Web Design

New WordPress and some theme frameworks

Ferret’s Domain is now running on WordPress 3, which seems like a significant increase in smoothness since the last version. All the plugins I use carried on working much to my relief.

I’ve also been checking out theme frameworks. This month I have seen:

WooThemes
commercial framework and template – extremely slick and transforms the control panel/front end. Uses the 960GS grid system CSS framework. Very high attention to detail and the admin interface is very pleasing. The front of the site was changed to an events based format, which really impressed me.

Atahualpa
Difficult to spell, very easy to use, free and everything can be dealt with from the control panel with no file editing required. SEO improvements over a standard WordPress install. Atahualpa saved me some serious hours on a client project this week so comes highly recommended.

Thesis
Commercial, very powerful framework that allows you to replace anything in your WordPress install with a different layout or coding. Good for SEO too. Probably a bit over the top for most projects, and a more flexible CMS would possibly be better in some cases.

BuddyPress
Install WordPress with Buddypress and you have a ready made social network in about 5 minutes. Seriously impressed with Buddypress, which saved me hours of customising a normal WordPress install. Good community behind it too, so a big thumbs up.