Amazing Grace, designed by Vladimir Prelovac:

And since he’s using it currently, you can get to see what it looks like and I can do 2 themes today:cool:

What I like about this theme:

The coloring is soft and soothing, and notice — it’s not the dark schematic, so beloved by most every SF&F&Horror writer (Prelovac is not a writer, to the best of my knowledge, just saying in general it’s something that struck me even in my own choices at times). The layout is excellent, and the text displays really well.

The feed button is very prominent on top. Header display is good. The theme comes with a few social bookmark buttons built in already, surprising and handy. As you scroll down the posts there, you’ll see the “Continue Reading” sign, similar to an lj-cut, although wordpress prefers to call it Read More. That’s built into the theme as well — I don’t have to use cuts, it supplies them automatically. Not a bad idea, actually, now that I get a good look at it (and having looked at mine too).

Post categories and comments show up prominently.

Overall, just a really understated, soft design and I like it.

There are some problems with the theme:

Requiring some work to be done by the user.

See the top navigation bar above the header, leading to the different main pages? That doesn’t come with the theme. Only the Home button (taking you back to the front page, an absolute must-have in my opinion), comes by default. To add the others, you’ll have to build a navbar it looks like; also in the footer he’s got some important details — those aren’t standard with this theme either.

What I found most bizarre about Amazing Grace is that it displays the first of your blogging categories on top, just beneath the header and before the main body of text. That…might suit some people but it’s something I’ll remove from this theme if I can.

Nebula Theme:

not sure who designed it, can’t remember where I found it. This is my current one. Not overly nuts about it, but it’s okay.

Coloring is a bit dark, not like Darkwater dark, which is actually quite nice, but this one is just plain dark. So — ideal for a SF&F writer then.

This one displays the post texts in the centre, with the sidebars to left and right. This is similar to my livejournal then. I…can’t make up my mind whether I prefer this, or prefer to have all the sidebars on one side.

Similar problem to most wordpress themes, this one doesn’t have a top navigation bar. I’m beginning to really like that separation myself: top navigation bar contains information on the website and blogger; stuff in the sidebar is all kinds of extras and goodies meant for the consumer/ reader.

Don’t know what other people’s thoughts on that matter is.

Additionally, the text in the sidebars of the Nebula theme are really, really small. And yellow.

It’s an okay theme, and I’ll probably keep it but I’m not nuts over it. It’s got the basic functionalities, is inoffensive in look and can be customized. It’s just so…geeky.

And there we are, two more themes in one day.

This is the first post I’ve written since upgrading to Wordpress 2.6. Couple new features added:

1) wordcount for posts: this one is now exactly 561. cool.

2) My Theme Driver plugin is now obsolete, WP 2.6 includes a theme previewer, so you get to see what your site will look like before activating a new theme. This? This is very handy. Takes long to load though.

3) The plugin menu is much, much improved, separating the actives from the inactives and allowing bulk management.

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Tags: amazing grace, Amazing Grace theme, blogs, Darkwater, front page, horror writer, livejournal, navbar, Nebula theme, themes, top navigation bar, website, wordpress, writers