All the latest news and announcements, straight from the WooThemes HQ!
Headlining Act
05. Nov, 2009 by Adii Rockstar in New Themes
You only need to have a quick look at the Themes Leaderboard to realize that Magnus has designed a whole lot of our most popular themes since we started out. It should also be evident that it would be total ignorance from us should we deny the fact that Magnus’ signature design style has greatly influenced the overall look & feel of what we offer with WooThemes (even more remarkable considering we’ve worked with some of the best designers in the world)…
And with his new design – Headlines – that’s exactly the situation once again.
Headlines (which changed slightly from the initial teaser we posted in September) is a superbly designed magazine layout, which we’re sure will quickly jump to the top of the (already great magazine themes) pile. Whilst not reinventing any wheels with the release of Headlines, we wanted to prompt the users of old-timers such as Busy Bee or Fresh News to give their blogs a little overhaul before the start of the new year.
Clean & sophisticated means that Headlines will be extremely easy to bend & break according to all of your creative requirements and you should see a spade of amazing user modified versions to be added to the Showcase in the near future. It is however the pretty new featured slider that we’re sure will woo all the fans the most…
The sexy new featured slider used in Headlines
We’ve also experimented with a little bit of new functionality on Headlines… First experiment allows you to set the alignment of the post images / thumbnails right from the backend; so no more editing pesky template code. The second “experiment” (we’ve done this in one or two themes before) is to allow you to switch between using a left- or right-aligned sidebar. These surely aren’t groundbreaking on their own, but both are representative of our new development mindset which is geared to release our themes in a much more modular way in future.
Image Alignment Options: From left to right in one click
If you’re not convinced of the awesomeness yet, have a play with the demo and read up on the nitty-gritty with regards to Headlines’ theme features. Irrespective of whether you like Magnus’ design style; you will love this theme!
54 Responses to “Headlining Act”
5 November 2009 at 3:19 am #
Nice work Magnus. The additional modularity in the theme options is a terrific direction.
5 November 2009 at 3:24 am #
Great work.
I don’t know if it’s just in the demo, but there is an extra instance of the word “post” in the author section:
“This post was written by admin who has written 14 posts posts on Headlines.”
5 November 2009 at 3:31 am #
Gotta love those early bug fixes
Thanks!
5 November 2009 at 7:42 am #
Hmmm, well, I see some usability issues. First, the little thumbnails and text on the right-side of the main panel simply don’t look connected to the main panel at all. I’d never have guessed that they were used as “selectors” to choose main panel content. I went through the color schemes hoping they’d be tied together in one of those, but no.
Second, the panel directly under that looks almost the same, but functions in a different way. So we’ve got all these slightly emaciated-looking thumbnail sidebar links all doing different things.
Third, we’ve still got this totally confusing category/page navigation distinction which means absolutely nothing to anyone outside of Wordpress developers. It’s embarassing.
The styling I quite like, but why is there also that weird loading message as if it were Flash content ?
Sorry to be so negative.
5 November 2009 at 7:46 am #
You’re being slightly harsh here. The design is supposed to be used on WordPress and you’ll find that most of the people that will end up using Headlines, will be WP-savvy enough to understand the difference between categories & pages. Plus why would that anyway be an issue?
5 November 2009 at 8:16 am #
Might not satisfy you, but I made the hover effect on the tabber a bit more prominent, which might help
5 November 2009 at 7:44 am #
Hehe Once I saw the Site Referring to Godaddy I though Some one hacked the domain But i just released it error from twitter updates
About the new theme
The new theme is very nice I love Woo themes When Release This Kinda Of Magazine Styles Wordpress Themes .
About the title of the post why its image ???
Where the grunge style that’s used to be used in this kinda of themes from woo themes
Also About the Category Navigation ( Does it have Exclude and show category n the admin backend .
Also What about Adding more Button in the Category Navigation To show the Extra Catergories in drop Down Menus ( Same style noupe use in their category navigation )
One last thing About the reply button in the comments template ( the word reply is hardly seen
Nice Work
I love two things on it
1: Right and Left Sides Post Image this new cool feature
2: J-query Slider This awesome
Kinda Regards
Ahmed
5 November 2009 at 7:57 am #
Yep all our new themes have navigation options to exclude categories and pages.
Grunge style isn’t my thing
The ones in Fresh News were done by Liam McKay a while after the release. Not sure it fits this theme though…
The titles of posts are Cufon text. You can turn that off if you don’t like it.
I can see the reply button fine: http://www.jepson.no/u/191xhk.png It’s not meant to be to in your face
5 November 2009 at 8:07 am #
Hmm What about the more Button in the category navigation ??
Also i like the this arrangement more
http://www.jepson.no/u/n16m92.png
5 November 2009 at 8:15 am #
As I explained, if you like that then it is easy to tweak in header.php
More button you would have to add manually
5 November 2009 at 11:25 am #
I’ve now added the option to switch the page navigation to be positioned at the top of the page
5 November 2009 at 7:50 am #
Hey downsouth,
I haven’t heard anything negative about the Featured panel from WooTeam or our beta testers. It wasn’t mentioned in our preview blog post either, so I think users will understand how it works. I’ll look into improving it if there are any suggestions to do so.
The page/category navigation is well know to users of WordPress, and I’m trying to mix it up a little from Fresh and Busy Bee. It’s very easy to move the panel to the top by editing the header.php file. I did it in 2 seconds with Firebug: http://www.jepson.no/u/n16m92.png
The loading is only our theme switcher loading
5 November 2009 at 10:23 am #
In a former life as a Mr Young-And-Ambitious corporate exec I oversaw a lot of usability and acceptance testing. Two things I got from that were: hit the devs with every bullet and bomb and complaint you’ve got because no one’s going to be interested in your excuses after the site is launched; and second, try to think like one of your most “simple” customers. I think I’m finding some of these attitudes very hard to shake
I know I’ve mentioned this category/page issue before, but just to be clear: we (Woo & us loyal followers) are all comfortable with the distinction; we know how it works; we know some of the technical motivations for it as well. But to a site visitor it’s simply two layers of navigation. Many people will find that confusing. I absolutely 100% guarantee it.
Likewise my point with the panel. We’re used to sliding panels, clickable thingummys, and rotating whatsits. But a lot of site visitors won’t be. They don’t make instant assumptions about page navigation unless you hit them on the head with it. Of course if I was always making sites for artists, poets, bloggers under 25 and modern art galleries this wouldn’t be an issue. And I imagine a fair number of people here are doing just that so my comments will be irritating and irrelevant to them.
But mainly, I only bring up these points because I love your stuff. I’ve tried many templates from many sites and am extremely happy with Woo themes. I won’t go into lengthy raptures here, but they are superior in many ways from clear commenting, excellent options panel, lack of bugs, colour options and of course amazing support.
I just expect the world from you now – the ability to simultaneously satisfy everyone – that’s all
5 November 2009 at 11:07 am #
Hey thanks again for input
Do you have any ideas for the navigation? Should I include an option to remove page nav/move to top of page?
For the featured tabber, I set it to auto rotate automatically in the options panel, so it should be very pretty obvious how the panel is connected now?
High expectations are good… it keeps me on my toes
5 November 2009 at 12:09 pm #
I really like that. How would you see it for someone that wants more advertising though? I was thinking about one friend in particular, who was looking at BusyBee but I thought he would like this one as well … but he was looking at ads between posts. Thoughts on how that would look?
I am definitely loving the amount of color choices on this one. THANKS!
5 November 2009 at 12:25 pm #
Ads between posts shouldn’t be that hard to accomplish… Just ad your ad code in single.php wherever you please.
I’ve opted to go for in post ad integrated though, since it has a better placement.
5 November 2009 at 2:47 pm #
I’m just thinking of them appearing as post boxes, or maybe I would make them appear as something similar to a post box on the front page … only maybe a bit different to separate from the other text. Thinking, thinking, thinking …
PS – I like the share thing on the single post. I just caught that. Cute.
5 November 2009 at 12:21 pm #
Magnus really does put major foot to ass when designing themes, the quality of his work (and the other designers) is stufifying.
Congrats on the new addition to the Woo Themes family guys, keep rocking.
5 November 2009 at 12:25 pm #
Thanks for those kind words Bronson! Made my day a little less stressfull
5 November 2009 at 12:52 pm #
Just a note that the demo loads a little buggy: pages load various nav elements on top of each other then immediately disappear and resolve, there are minor delays in the nav drop downs, and some quirky load times of various parts of the page.
I don’t know if that’s the result of your demo generator or the theme.
5 November 2009 at 2:33 pm #
Try the theme directly here: http://www.woothemes.com/demo/headlines/
Also if you could tell us which browser?
5 November 2009 at 2:35 pm #
Yes, this link is MUCH better. I had the issue in Firefox and Chrome.
After some searching I noticed other themes are exhibiting the same problems in your demo generator. I’m guessing the new version has too much java going on and its conflicting with java of your themes from executing properly/quickly.
5 November 2009 at 3:05 pm #
We’ve tested the demo switcher in multiple browsers, and don’t seem to have any problems. If you could send us a screenshot to support@woothemes.com, then we can check it out
BTW you can view the theme directly by clicking the red X in the theme switcher
5 November 2009 at 2:40 pm #
One more thing – on the new link you provided, there is still an issue of the title fonts adjusting after a page loads. I’m guessing there’s some kind of rendering effect that takes place after load, but it gives the theme a buggy vibe when it changes each time.
5 November 2009 at 3:06 pm #
Yep we use Cufon font replacement. You can disable that if you don’t want it
We think the slight “buggy” vibe is worth it with the font replacement and font smoothing achieved with Cufon 
5 November 2009 at 2:57 pm #
Great looking design although i can see why downsouth had some issue with the featured, most people are so tuned to thinking that
they need to skip through the featured with a right or left arrow
thingy, so i guess this will take some getting use to for some,especially older netizens.
By the way if i can make a request will you guys design a theme for a personal blog?, not too bloated with features and such just a simple design but clean n clear as always.
Cheers.
5 November 2009 at 3:07 pm #
We have loads of those on the way, so stay tuned
5 November 2009 at 4:26 pm #
Hey can you check the pink and purple colors in the demo
5 November 2009 at 5:08 pm #
Checked… they look pink and purple as expected. Anything special you want me to check?
5 November 2009 at 5:36 pm #
Im not sure but the pink style appear purple to me
Correct me if I’m wrong
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pink
5 November 2009 at 5:45 pm #
Yeah looks like I’m color blind
I’ll change the names of the styles in the next update.
5 November 2009 at 4:37 pm #
Woo Hoo! I’ve been checking the site daily waiting for this theme to be launched. The early preview was great. Can’t wait to start using it.
5 November 2009 at 4:57 pm #
The auto-rotate being switched on really helps understanding of the top panel function – much better.
But now, when you’ve scrolled down the homepage looking for interesting content (as people do), you get the content jumping up and down depending on the depth of the top panel articles. This is very annoying.
Can you set a fixed depth for the panel content ? I can see this as a common request.
As for the nav, my ambition would be to just have the grey panel and nothing else – so long as you can get pages in there somehow.
Also, the way the comment reply panels are configured with the top name panel being very similar to the background colour, means that the actual reply comment seems oddly offset from the gravatar. That’s just a simple css change I suppose. Still, to me the aesthetic symmetry is off.
Don’t your beta testers talk about these sorts of things ?
5 November 2009 at 5:06 pm #
Setting a fixed height should be doable… I’ll look into it and may add it as an option.
Our beta testers haven’t mentioned the reply buttons (the slider effect was added after beta testing), and I designed them to be like that so I think we’ll stick with that. But feel free to tweak them to what you feel they should look like
5 November 2009 at 5:43 pm #
Yes you can set the autoheight: false in header.php so that it doesn’t auto set the height of the slider
5 November 2009 at 4:59 pm #
I hope any changes you make to the theme will be “options” and not just changes to please one person that dislikes the theme as it is
I love the way it looks, and with a little Firefox firebug and some CSS edits, it has enough flexibility to be what I want it to be.
5 November 2009 at 5:03 pm #
Any new changes will be options of course
I’ve already added a few today.
5 November 2009 at 5:00 pm #
Si, sin dudas este es el mejor theme que hiciste Magnus! Es mucho mas lindo que BusyBee!!
Saludos!
5 November 2009 at 8:10 pm #
Hi Magnus,
I like featured slider so much and recent comments gravatar in sidebar. WooThemes team rock!
6 November 2009 at 7:14 am #
lovely theme and good features,overall good work done by woothemes
6 November 2009 at 1:00 pm #
I really love the way the author info box is laid out in this design. Overall, I really like the layout of this theme.
6 November 2009 at 3:19 pm #
I don´t get it and get creazy…..
my featured slider doesn´t slide – no matter what I do. As well I cannot see or activate those little previews – right side of the slider. looks different at me. Just see the sidebars, but not the “featured banner”
What did I wrong?
ufff
6 November 2009 at 4:00 pm #
hey pedro,
You have to setup your featured slider in the options panel to auto slide. Please post your problems in our forum and we will help you out
6 November 2009 at 3:20 pm #
Well done!
6 November 2009 at 3:21 pm #
I hope you understood my question…. You got a grey field combined with the featured content.
I tried a tag “featured”, I tried a category “featured” – nothing…
got wp 2.8.4
no-problem server – running several themes from you guys…. so that´s not the problem
7 November 2009 at 4:54 am #
overall good theme with few issues
7 November 2009 at 5:04 am #
Which issues are you referring to?
9 November 2009 at 2:28 am #
Nice theme. Clean modern design. Love it. It has everything I was looking for a client design.
just an aside: while checking sophisticatedfolio beta, came across “optimize”. Is new business theme in the works?
10 November 2009 at 12:06 am #
Really nice theme. clean and very visually appealing.
Also, kudo’s to Magnus for keeping a level head with all of the comments you’re fielding here. Great for business.
10 November 2009 at 4:36 am #
Thanks Mike!
13 November 2009 at 12:02 am #
Help!
I’m really new at this and I’ve tried to find the answer browsing these forums but unable to find the fix.
Here’s my problem – my pictures aren’t displayed with the slider feature. I’ve uploaded them per instructions and changed the permissions in the cashe folder for picture resizing and as you’ll see they are still not displaying. What might I do now?
http://www.icandogymnastics.com
Thanks for your help!
13 November 2009 at 3:42 am #
Stephen – Please post the question in our support forum or consult this tutorial for help.
13 November 2009 at 9:13 am #
Will do!
13 November 2009 at 12:11 pm #
i’ve try the demo page.
Just a question, is the theme is already compatible with the new wordpress 2.8.6 version? i’ve notice that this theme is still using the 2.8.5 version.
Thanks