shibbyonline

welcome to 2008

This is the traditional ‘first’ post of the year, you know the ones where we all discuss our plans for the coming year.

Looking back at 2007

On a personal level 2007 has been a bit of a mixed up year, full of ups and downs with the odd twist.
The highlight of the year without doubt had to be tv birth of by neice Francessa but that did not happen until July so lets back track a bit.
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Untitled

Some times you just can not think of a title and so you go with the old month and year algorithm.
To which I’m now theming Nov07.

I’ve always wanted to knock out some custom themes that are hand built from the ground up. But everything I try I end up with WordPress moving the goal posts (in respect of function changes in 2.3) or a incomplete style sheet and this bugs me! They never feel complete and I know it, to which I’m never happy and I move on to something else.

But a few months ago I started following the Blueprint CSS project. I know these CSS frameworks are getting some stick; or at least provoke great discussions, but I felt I needed to try it out for my self.
So I set about building a theme from the grass roots of Blueprint, but as with most people I fell foul of the grid layout in Blueprint and ended up floating back to my floats and widths to get things positioned. But if you look closely you will see a lot of Blueprint in here under the bonnet.

The design itself is something I have been working on for over four months now; yep I know I’m slow, but each time I get some where I have to change directions and it gets put towards the back. The first sighting was during October when I managed to rush a pink version out.
I wanted to move towards a darker site but something that I could build off for quite a while. So whilst it is up and running now, expect a few tweeks and changes here and there. Look out for a Blueprint inspired downloadable theme in the future.

White

There is something to be said for trying new ideas and keeping everything fresh.
But there is also something to be said for actually sitting down and finishing something off; something like a WordPress theme.

Exit the Black theme, enter the White version. OK so naming stuff was never really my strong point.
I got a bit tired of a dark site, for most it really works for me I wanted something lighter. I guess the dark nights are calling for a lighter treat for the eyes.

Yes as before when God spares me a few minutes on my own I’ll know it into a release; so how many is that now, I’m 0 for 4!