Microblogging is still catching flame like a house on fire. After our foray into this type of themes – and the popularity of Retreat amongst others – we’re now venturing into that field again with our latest theme, Unite.
Unite was collaboratively designed by the pixel perfectionist Rogie King and it offers you a sweet, minimalist canvas on which you can create and showcase your content. The minimalist design is unobtrusive, which also means that your content can do all of the shining (here’s a reminder to implement a great “content is king” strategy). So we’re saying that this makes Unite great, but from your viewpoint this may all seem a tad dull… Maybe this would’ve been true had we not spent a lot of time adding some new bling to other aspects of the theme…
Commenting + Interaction
When Rogie first pitched this idea to us, we weren’t sure that we’d even be able to pull it off, but the WooTeam’s collective development skill has shone through once again to deliver something that is truly unique and dare I say: fancy pants.
Creating valuable reader interaction & engagement.
The above image probably best explains what we’ve created: not only can you now use threaded comments to reply to a specific comment (this is rather “old” WP functionality), but you can also reference / CC any other commenters in your comment by simply starting to type the “@” symbol. Typing the “@” symbol will bring up a list of commenters’ names who you can then reference in your comment (it includes “auto-complete” functionality) and they will also receive e-mail notifications of that comment if they have chosen to do so. Try this out for yourself if you don’t believe us.
The aim of this functionality was to increase & improve the interaction on your blog and keep more of those conversations happening on your domain; instead of elsewhere (i.e. Twitter / Facebook / other social networks).
Video content in an alternative style.
AJAX-y Goodness
You will also see that we’ve included AJAX commenting in Unite, which means that you can preview your comment (as you type it), whilst also publishing your comments without having to reload the page. Both of these improves both speed & usability, so that you can interact more in less time.
In addition to this AJAX-y awesomeness, we’ve also included further AJAX functionality for the display of more posts on a page. How many times do you get to the bottom of the page, only to have to click through to the next page, wait for it to load a new page and then continue your browsing. Well now you would just get to the bottom of the page, click the “More Posts” button and we’ll display those posts without having to reload the page. Quick & nifty.
Custom Taxonomy
Unite "Tumblogs" Taxonomy
Also new in Unite (and this will be rolled out to our other tumblog themes in the very near future, along with our enhanced dashboard publishing widget) is the use of a custom taxonomy “Tumblogs” for your tumblog posts. This means that you can post content to this taxonomy separately to other content (i.e. normal posts if you wanted to) that may appear on your blog, which in turn means that you can use Unite on an old blog of yours without having to worry about the older content not being compatible with Unite.
We trust that you will enjoy some of these new features that are making a debut here on WooThemes via Unite. As always, we’re happy to push a few boundaries and try out a few different things in keeping all of our users happy & on their toes with new awesomeness.
A dark, alternate style to Unite. Look at those LastFM, Flickr and live Twitter feeds - pixel perfected!
All that is left to do is to check out Unite’s demo or do some further reading on the nitty-gritty & features of Unite.
41 Responses to “United!”
loving the new theme though to be honest would have loved it if you were able to add to the theme if needed. It may be a bit too simplistic..Combine Unite and Canvas… and you have yourself an AMAZING personal blog that can be used again and again and again!!
Mansoor
The Unit banner thing block a good 20% of any embedded youtube video, how is this useful?
It’s not very useful, but it was how the Rogie designed it as alternative style. We have resized the video now so it fits better.
Please finally make your tumblog themes front posting able p2 style!
This is on our roadmap, albeit not top priority as this isn’t a massively popular request. As soon as we have time though, we’d love to be able to display our Quickpress on the front-end to allow for posting from there.
Nice to hear it’s on the list though. Waiting for this since the day I bought retreat…
This looks awesome! Well done! I imagine you could leverage this development into the Buddypress networking world. And I love the minimalism of the tumblr model.
One UI/Nav criticism: you dropped Cobus fixed nav panel in the Cinch theme and didn’t integrate any up/down type JS functionality, which I think is a slight ding against the design. I would love to be able to add in this type of functionality across themes via widget.
As a subscriber, each Woo theme reads to me like a walled garden of development, although the innovation is awesome and they utilize a common framework. So, you’re headed in the right direction, but how do I take advantage of your on-going developments without abandoning my investment in a particular theme? Maybe you could empower the user to mix and match features with more universal widgets and widgetized fields in the page templates.
Still, it’s great to see themes roll out with minimalist styles ready to use out of the box. Thanks!
Mmmm, you touch on something that we haven’t yet found a solution for: enabling all functionality in all themes. At this stage there’s just no viable (in terms of development time & also cross-theme support / compatibility) way of enabling all of the functionality across all themes. Once we find a way of doing this in a viable & sustainable way, we’ll most definitely invest some time in this regard.
I see your point, and I am not interested in total universality. I think my interest would be in seeing certain functionality turned into widgets that can operate across a class of themes. Like a set of slider/feature widgets that can be swapped out in the magazine category. I happen to like the Boast slider, but I’m using Canvas to be more specific. Or, I’d like to add a 2nd custom woo nav bar below the slider, so there should be a hook in the code to allow me to make that change. You at Woo have done some great design and development work–as a user/subscriber, I’d like to see you re-purpose some of the innovation.
Well even a set of 5 widgets for example isn’t viable if we need to support it across 73 themes. We’re also in a situation where we can’t simply support 40 out of 73 themes with this, as that defeats the object of having a “universal widget bundle”.
That said, the WooFramework is a great core and it is available across all themes; so we will definitely continue improving that core and adding more functionality to it.
Have to agree with Schaeffer on this one a bit. I made the same observation in my ‘theme suggestions’ topic a few days back. I don’t see myself ever using the theme itself, but would like to merge some of the functionality into one of my current woo themes.
In the interim, would it be possible that when new theme functionality like this is released that a ‘how to’ manual may be added at the same time?
As canvas is the overall framework in play at woo, it would be nice to see a guide on how to add this type of functionality to canvas for those of us who don’t mind getting our hands dirty in code.
I do realize that some of the concepts added by woo are definitely not ‘plug n play’, and require numerous additions to canvas. It would be nice to see a map of the interdependencies of code snippets needed to accomplish this. It would save me tons of hours of reading through the code base of each new release to see what is involved.
The typical response I get in the support forums is that cross-pollinating code for hybridization is over and beyond Woo’s support of their themes. Which is why I’d like to see some degree of hybridization standardized as part of the Woo framework. I’d even be willing to pay for ‘premium widgets’ in an app type store. Either way, I’d probably remain a loyal subscriber for longer if I knew I could take advantage of the innovation factory long term.
In some ways I have to agree with the Woo team on this one though. Providing full support for cross-pollinating code would be a huge support nightmare for them. Just look at the ‘average’ questions in the forums and it’s immediately apparent that the skill set of the average user is nowhere near what it needs to be in order to pull this off.
I started a theme suggestions thread about modularization of theme functions that I hope gains at least some traction for more advanced users.
In the interim, I would like to at least see some basic documentation with new releases on new functions and their dependencies. As I said, that would save me countless hours of reading through and mapping all the new code.
Or, they could always build the ‘mega’ Canvas framework option where we have all the new functionality available already. Then they could just leave it in our hands to activate or not. (still would be a lot of work, but I’m willing as I’m sure other coders are)
I will say that I have NO plans of cancelling my subscription though. The added code functionality and quality is worth hundreds of times what I pay each month.
Being an architect of buildings, I like things built on modular concepts, which is why I am working on a site based on Canvas. What I am imagining is probably a model that shifts emphasis to widget development or action hooks, which might be limited to a certain category of themes, like the Canvas framework for example. The other themes could be ‘one-offs’. But it’s none of my business obviously–just speaking as a happy customer.
Can you perhaps drop us a mail with some suggestions with regards to the documentation you mention above? If you can flesh out the idea, I can follow this up with the team and see what we can do to help in this regard.
And a note with regards to having a “mega” Canvas / framework… This is not something that we will ever explore as we don’t believe in having one bloated theme that includes all of the features that only 1% of users will use every now and again. This kind of theme is also a nightmare to customize, which is also why we’ve specifically limited Canvas it what it can & can’t do.
That said, we are now embarking on an exciting new journey which will see us releasing add-ons to our themes. So for example – the commenting module in Unite should be available as a separate add-on in the next couple of weeks. We’re doing this as a possible trial and will re-evaluate this strategy once we have received feedback on that.
Taking the Unite commenting module and making it an add-on is a great idea. I think a lot of the themes have produced really awesome design innovations that might be similarly modularized. It’s a small, finite set of modules, however, not a total, universal design concept. And if the modules anticipate a typical Woo stylesheet, then you get extra points for awesomeness!
So supported stylesheets is where viability becomes a major concern again, but as said we’re exploring this and we’ll see how this goes.
I agree about the “one bloated theme” point. That’s one extreme. At *almost* (=not totally) the other extreme is what we have now. Where you have to do serious coding and hooking to cross-use almost anything.
Consider what StudioPress has done with Genesis and its child themes. Of course, since most of the child themes there are “magazine” with static home pages, it’s simple for them. But the Genesis framework just as easily supports blog themes. Since you’ve already got the Woo framework in place, it ought to be possible to enable some swapping.
Note! I’m not connected with StudioPress in *any* way. I use their themes on occasion. That’s all. Most of my themes I code myself.
If there were some limited possibilities to have the kind of swapping others have mentioned up above, I’d go to the subscription model ASAP, rather than the occasional multiple-discount package system I’ve currently been using.
%%robert
Unity menu overlaps content. Let me know when you guys fix this issue and I’ll check it out…
We fixed the video width now so it doesn’t overlap
Still seems to be some overlap issues within the posts
We fixed it in the theme but the demo image dimensions were set to old settings. You can set the width you desire in the options panel for images
I can’t say I’m enamored by this theme. I do like the fact that you’re trying something different with the comment system, but I don’t feel the innovations do justice to the ultimate aim of any theme: content. On the contrary, I think the content has fallen prey to the cult of technical wizardry. More than bells and whistles, I want to read/view what people have to say/show.
I find that most of the people I read on a frequent basis, particular blogs or micro blogs, tend to use very simple themes/templates. They’re not so much worried about how cutting edge their comment systems are, or how in tune with trends their blog themes are, they’re worried about getting a poignant message across.
My feeling is that the Woo crew has been so desperate to innovate, so eager to lead the WP Premium Theme race, that they’ve forgotten the KISS rule.
I think this theme is a clear KISS theme, with it’s clean and simple styling. It just does it in a stylish way also
Sure, we’ve innovated with regards to the commenting functionality and a few other things, but surely the minimalist design is absolutely perfect for publishing & consuming content!?
I have to agree with the general sentiments already posted above. It seems like there is some good functionality that you guys are working on, but I don’t think I will ever use this theme. Although parts of it are of interest.
Also, the full width template is about 260 pixels wider than all the other templates (and the footer).
And that is exactly why we have 73 themes now; to allow you to pick the one’s that you enjoy most and which is most valuable to you.
We’ve got 32k+ users and judging by downloads, Unite is already very popular among a part of those users.
Especially since the full width page template hasn’t been fixed!
How do you do! I’m so delighted with your blog and your’s wordpress themes, that I want to say you thanks a lot for your colorful and marvelous themes. You are REAL designer and creativity man. Sorry for commenting here in your blog. It was so hard to find out a mail address form in your site…
Timothy, Kiev, Ukraine – Chernobyl country
This may be the most clever piece of code and brilliant logic ever devised by a human, but I’ll never know because I just can’t get past its overwhelming ugliness.
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder
It’s awesome in the eye of this beholder. It’s nice to see black and white versions in the pre-sets as well as the color-mixes for those of us who prefer more of a typographic approach.
I can’t imagine this commenting system scales well to large sites, it’d crush the server/db (if my experience with another AJAX commenting widget is any indication). So I’d rather not see this universally provided. On the other hand, I’ve been waiting and waiting for some sort of amazing new publication/news blog theme to consider. Still waiting…
Why do you say that?
Great theme! Top notch.
Grey on black buttons don’t look so good in the demo, guys. They’re not rounded, but square with some wrong coloring in the corners. But otherwise fine
To which buttons are you referring!?
In quickly trying out the theme, I noticed that the fixed nav panel overlaps the footer, which seems graphically unresolved when you scroll to the bottom of the page. I installed the Woo About Author Widget in the #1 position and it was really jarring when the two black containers overlapped in the default style setting. The AA widget doesn’t seem to be styled for the theme–looks out of place.
I like the general blog post styling better than Cinch, in this tumble class of themes, but Cinch seems a little more resolved. However, it lacks the minimalism, which I drew me to this one. The tumble-log WP themes are compelling. Will they be dialed into your upcoming iPhone app? Thanks for all the recent developments.
We’ll have to look into that overlapping issue; expect an update soon-ish.
And yep, all of the tumblog themes on WP will work with our upcoming iPhone app.
Could we expect an iPad app too ??
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