Here’s a summary of the improvements, fixes, etc:

1. Options Page
   This took up most of the development time. It meant that all the stylesheets had to be edited, along with creating the actual options available (of which there are 41!) Click the thumbnail to view a cropped screenshot.
   - Font options
   - Colour options
   - Change layout from fluid to fixed
2. Bugs
   - Images that are taller than the content will no longer cause the layout of the post meta data and comments to wig-out.
3. Miscellaneous
   - I’ve removed support for Lightbox as it was causing the CSS to be invalid.
   - All the public viewable icons have been replaced with png. This is to aid transparency when the theme’s background colours are changed. For visitors how might still be using Internet Explorer 6 I’ve used transparent gifs - this may look odd if the theme’s background colour is changed to a dark colour. I may try and sort out a fix for this at a later date.
   - I would still like to get the theme i18n compliant, but am not willing to commit to a time-scale. If there is anyone out there who would like to help with this then please do get in touch.

On a final note - This is the final major release of Web2.0* - I will only be updating the theme with fixes as and when bugs are found and reported. Please do not request personal enhancements, etc. My free-time is very limited and I need to concentrate on my paying free-lance work. Thank you for your understanding and more importantly your continued support - it is much appreciated.

1. The support for Spry (AJAX): How many people use Spry (it’s Adobe’s AJAX framework)? I looked at it briefly, once, but didn’t like how it inserts ’spry:command‘ into html tags - so that’s where I left my investigation. So, no, this feature is not one that interests me.
2. Photoshop & Fireworks integration: Ok - it is just me or is it really not that diffecult to have Photoshop/Fireworks open while you’re working in Dreamweaver? Do I really need to copy directly from either of these programs and paste directly into Dreamweaver? I don’t think so. So again, this feature doesn’t interest me.
3. Browser Compatibility Check: Code semantic and valid css and xhtml and your code should be compatible with most browsers! This feature isn’t for me.
4. CSS Advisor website: Won’t this be available to the general public anyway?
5. CSS layouts: Glad to see that this is included - it should help those starting out in web design to get to grips with css layouts, but it’s not one for me - I prefer to get my hands dirty thank you.

So there you have my initial thoughts. This isn’t a release that will excite any hand-coder. Sure there seem to be some great new features for people starting out in web design - but are these people really going to be willing to shell out their hard-earned cash for this release?

Will I be paying $199 (upwards!) for the upgrade? Unfortunately not - I’ll be putting my money towards an editor that is trying to make life easier for coders.

After a short Google session I came upon Crimson Editor. It’s no longer being maintained but it is definately worth investigating if you’re looking for a light-weight code editor. The one feature that I do love is the ability to create a copy of the file before it was editted when you save it. This can also be done in such a way that they get autonumbered - thus creating a simply version control system.

There is a set of ColdFusion tags in a syntax file (click on ‘Syntax Files’ and then search for the term ‘ColdFusion’) and these are very easy to install. It doesn’t have an auto-complete feature, but this can be a good thing as it forces you to remember the tags.

I strongly recommend that you re-download the theme and reply it.

The theme has now had over 2,000 downloads - so a big thank you to everyone. Could I request that if you are using the theme that you rate it? That would be greatly appreciated.

Update 26 January 2007: There was a problem with displaying the links.php page when used with Wordpress 2.1 - this has now been fixed. If you don’t want to replace the whole page then download the updated page.

Update 28 January 2007: Another small update to the theme - more work done to try ensure that the theme is Wordpress 2.1 compliant and I’ve also added more option to the Admin area on the sidebar (see image below).

Update 26 March 2007: One more small update - this time to do with IE7 and the drop down menu. So if you’re experiencing problems do re-download and apply the theme.

Update 28 March 2007: Found that the comments page was a little screwy - this has been fixed in the latest version (1.2.5). Thanks to Hasan for the tip about automatically pulling the post’s author email address so that it isn’t hard-coded any more.

There are also a host of plugins available that extend this useful collection.

Be sure to check it out!

Having recently fallen in love with Flickr I thought it would be great to have a Flickr-like ability when editting the prices - i.e. click on the price and it becomes a form field which allows you to update the price without refreshing the whole page.

So, after much research I’ve managed to implement this with the help of the Prototype Javascript Library and Joesph Scott’s Edit In Place add-on.

Here’s a screenshot to give you an idea of what I mean:

I’ve also packaged a simple example of this technique - but taken one step further; all the database records (except for the ID) are edittable. This should give you plenty to sink your teeth in.

Download cf_editinplace.rar file or Download cf_editinplace.zip file

Update: the above archives now include a debug form. That’s one of the joys of AJAX is trying to debug the application. Hopefully the debug form will make this a little easier.

I welcome your comments.