After seeing the discussion on our latest theme release (Sealight) explode, we decided that it would be a good idea to engage with our users, and potential future users, about what you would like to see from us going forward.
For those that didn’t follow the conversation, we’ll quickly provide a bit of a recap:
- Opinions on the latest theme release range from it being great, to it being not so great (this is specifically being leveled at the design of the theme and not as much the functionality which most consider to be awesome);
- The criticism seems to be that we aren’t being innovative enough with our themes – particularly our business themes – and that other theme providers are doing this much better than us;
- Our strategy is to release themes that meet the requirements of as many of our users as possible, and as a result we try to avoid going overly niche when designing new themes;
- Furthermore, we always need to find the balance of the features that should be included in a theme out-of-the-box versus what should be left for custom development should single users require very specific / unique functionality.
That’s been the discussion up until now (you may want to read through it yourself to catch all the little bits). So what now?
This is where we need you to speak up; but not just in terms of adding your voice or having an opinion, but providing us with some clear, concise & constructive feedback about how you feel we can do the following: 1) improve our themes; 2) add innovation to our themes collection; and 3) increase your value when using WooThemes.
You can do this by giving us some exact examples of websites (in terms of design & feature sets) that you would like us to consider as part of our inspiration, or directing us to other WordPress themes which perhaps already scratches your itch (an itch that we aren’t scratching at the moment).
So please shoot with any thoughts, ideas, suggestions or feedback that you may have. We look forward to engaging with you. 
186 Responses to “Open Forum: What would you like?”
I’m in general agreement with the points that were outlined in that thread. I find Woothemes to be simply outstanding in their functionality and ability to be tweaked, but feel they fall down in the design aspect. For me personally that is not a problem as I would not want to use a theme out the box due to branding issues. So long as the right elements are in place and I can work with it, I’m happy.
As for what’s on my wishlist, well, something like ‘WishList’ would be one of them. (http://member.wishlistproducts.com/). I want to be able to build a paid membership site (hence why I’m looking forward to the e-commerce functionality) that offers Paypal payment and protected content for members. If a Wootheme had that functionality built into it properly I would snatch it up in an instant, regardless of the basic design
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Hi
You mention that our themes fall down in the design aspect… Can you elaborate? What sites do you think look good design wise?
It’s a tricky question
. Design as well as art are quite subjective topics, even though people like to throw rules around.
I think was I was getting at was that the themes produced are in general quite simple. Perhaps ‘under-designed’ might be a good way of putting it. They often feel to me to lack individuality or rely too heavily on the same formula. Obviously this is what the majority of users want, so I don’t think you are wrong to focus on it. As I said originally, the simplicity allows me room to breathe my own life into a theme.
However, seeing some real visual innovation from time to time would be nice too. At the moment, my honest impression when scrolling down the themes page is that nearly every theme uses the same formula. Logo on left, top header bar, sidebar or scroller and blog-style lists underneath. I think you mentioned in a previous post about the ’10% of users’. Knocking off something a little quirky or stylised with unusual or creative typography that caters more for niche audiences might bring more eyes to your site and silence those who would claim you don’t have designers on your team.
Here are a few themes I just quickly dug up on themeforest. They aren’t the best, but I think they do show something a little different.
http://themeforest.net/item/exehill-2/60710
http://themeforest.net/item/infocus-powerful-professional-wordpress-theme/85486
http://themeforest.net/item/shapeshifter-one-page-infinite-possibilities/75759
http://themeforest.net/item/gateway-studios-for-wordpress/82145
http://themeforest.net/item/inki-elegant-blog-theme/72966
http://themeforest.net/item/paragon/57892
Wishlist is also on our radar and we’ve been discussing a potential collaboration with the Wishlist crew. No confirmed happenings just yet, but the good news is that this is on our radar.
Interesting to hear. I’ve built a couple sites (mine included) using Wishlist Member, and I’ve been very happy and impressed with it.
I haven’t tried s2Member yet—I only recently heard about it while researching BuddyPress—but it sounds promising. Just throwing it out there, in case it sticks.
That’s good to know! Any idea when we might see this sort of theme? In the next couple of months perhaps? Or are we talking Spring next year?
It’s on our radar only, no definite plans for any themes yet.
I see Wishlist uses a WooTheme and some guy named Adii Rockstar is being used as a promotional tool.
Suggestions:
1.- Pretty CSS or Java Tooltips for all themes.
2.- eCart Integration for all themes.
3.- CSS for “Price & Package” for all themes.
4.- WooFramework: a way to easy add custom taxonomies and post… with a few clicks
5.- WooFramework: a easy way to columnize your post (1 column, 2 column, etc.), like WP-columns Plugin.
6.- The javascript and CSS files in the themes may be a little lighter than now, to the time load web are faster (suggestion from webmaster google tools).
7.- The output code (like SEO outputs or any other): please, retest and re-retest before launch upgrades with this features.
Thanks.
I love the idea of custom taxomony and post control being part of the WooFramework.
That should be a priority development.
I’ve experimented with the idea for a management panel for custom post types within the theme, however there are several plugins that do this already. It would be cool to do a different spin on it though. Any ideas what you would like in a feature like this?
I saw at WooCodex page that the columnize is already launch at WooFramework.
Thanks WooTeam… it is a great feature!
Yep we responded quickly and released some more awesomeness.
Why not use Uservoice for this? http://www.uservoice.com/ Woo users can post ideas and the rest votes.
Good idea.
The plan is to collate some thoughts here first and be completely transparent about that process and then moving onto a more in-depth discussion, where I think UserVoice may come in handy!
I’ve been banging on about design for almost a year now.
Your themes are NOT being designed by graphic designers. The coders may fancy themselves as designers, maybe they even call themself a designer, but they are obviously NOT finished artists or know even the basics about typography. I’ve given many detailed suggestions previously ranging from pleas to properly line-up elements, to simple things like consistent spacing. “The devil is in the detail” is the usual designers mantra.
Likewise your color schemes are limp. It’s just a superficial once-over changing a background here and a head style there. Often it ends up with totally mismatched colors and text that’s almost unreadable. Taking the trouble to produce even a single true light theme and a corresponding reversed dark theme would be a good start. Color requires the eye of a professional not some self-taught coding nerd.
All too late for me though, I’ve just bailed out of my membership. I know Adii will be overjoyed to see me go.
Best of luck.
First off: we’re never pleased to see any of our users go.
And then I only really have one thing that I can say about your claims of our themes being designed by “self-taught coding nerds”… Having worked with designers like Elliot Jay Stocks, Tim van Damme, Dan Rubin, Sarah Parmenter, Sam Brown etc. I’d really like to know how they perceive your comments there, as they are widely regarded to be part of the best of the best.
I can see where you’re coming from at certain points, downsouth, but Adii is right too, in that top designers work with Woo.
Would you mind showing us a portfolio or some type of gallery of your work? Obviously, you know what you’re talking about and maybe it could translate into working with WooThemes. Do know I’m not being sarcastic here. I’m actually interested in what you can do!
Better ways to highlight featured content.
The slider in Canvas is OK, but it doesn’t work with a blog-style front page.
I’d love to see a “feature bar” that could display 3 or 4 static items. A good example of this is at http://www.press75.com/themes/massive-news-theme-demo/ . It even has featured content widgets, that you can select a category or tag for, so I could have the last 3 posts categorised as ‘review’ highlighted in the side.
Also, the ‘popular posts’ widget you have should have the option to display based on views in the last 30 days etc, rather than just ranked on number of comments.
Thanks for listening – knowing you care what we think is great.
Noted re a different style (static) featured area.
And for the popular posts: the problem (or challenge so to say) with that is it means we have to develop additional functionality that tracks views too and then work on an algorithm to rank according to views + comments. Definitely a worthwhile thing to explore as an addition to the WooFramework though.
Re: views. Can you not tap into WordPress stats to get the views?
This is a great idea. I also like the idea of a fully widgetized static homepage so you can drag and drop items where you want them. A good example of this is http://www.nomadicmatt.com. I don’t know for certain, but considering that Matt’s homepage content changes frequently, I think all the areas are simply text widgets where he places the code he wants to use to display whatever it is he wants to display.
I would vote for a WP Commerce Theme, as a way WooThemes enter the eCommerce “world”.
By choosing a ecommerce framework or elevated your own framework to have it…
making sure that we (user that seek for this) are not seek for a All-Features-As-Magento but rather a simple but yet sofisticate admin area and maybe this points:
– payment integration with several merchants accounts as PayPal, Google Checkout, Authorize.net as main…
– integration with UPS, FedEx.
– coupon codes
– buy as a guest or as a registered user (this last can see all orders)
no need for:
– grouped, customize or bundle items
– re orders
– user points, credits
– shipments to multiple addresses
and, add the ability to developers contribute with their own payment and shipping modules so you dont need to do all the work your selfs
it would be a great start
We’re already working on this and are hoping to release our first theme – WooStore – powered by our new WooCommerce add-on next month if all goes well!
Photography themes. I’m afraid I tried several of yours, and was disappointed with them all. I ended up going elsewhere.
A good photography theme needs to be clean and concentrate on the images. All yours are too fussy, with too small images.
Sorry guys, but you asked for honesty!
Any examples of great photography websites or even great photography themes that we can research?
Sure. I went with AutoFocus+ (http://fthrwght.com/autofocus/).
It has some great layout options for the front page, and when you go to the post it focuses on the image, with minimal clutter.
You can even feature particular images with a slideshow if you like.
You can see how I’ve used it at http://mike-baker-photography.com/ .
I’m glad to see you guys are taking the constructive criticism on the chin – it’ll lead to better things, I’m sure.
Nice looking site Mike!
Note to self: remember to turn caching back on before Magnus comments on your site
Agreed: pretty cool!
So if I understand correctly you want something that is completely toned down (both in terms of design & functionality) to focus on one thing: photography. right?
That’s right.
And allow for decent-sized photos (say 800 wide). A lot of “normal” themes limit you to 500 or 600 px wide.
I think there are two distinct photographer types. Photo-bloggers who use the site as a journal of day-to-day things they see, and people wanting to present a portfolio of work. I think they will want to organise their presentation of photos differently.
For photobloggers like me, displaying the latest or a timeline-based front page is good.
For a portfolio, I would want to categorise my photos and display as categories or pseudo albums.
One thing that no-one has fully cracked (correct me if I am wrong) is a good archive page for photos, that displays images well.
I used to use some software called http://www.pixelpost.org/ before WordPress, that handled this superbly.
Check out http://danishsuburb.dk/ as an example of how this software works.
If I could find a WordPress theme that worked like that – one big latest photo on the main page, great archives, and the ability to toggle the view of comments and exif info, I’d be overjoyed!
Just thought of some more notes. On PixelPost, you can choose the size of the thumbnails used on the archive page.
I’d love to see a list of CSS border effects that could be picked from (sitewide) as part of the customisation. Maybe one for main page images, and another for archives.
I’m just going to add to Mike’s comments (and I agree with all of them):
In all the themes I’ve tested and looked yet (Woo and others), no one has been able to come up with a decent method for handling vertical images. They always seem to break the layout, resize horribly, or generally frustrate the hell out of me.
I believe that part of the problem of photo based themes in general may be that those designing the themes are not “really” photographers. Their experience with showing or sharing photos may not go much beyond posting a quick snap on Flickr, Twitpic, and the like.
As Mike said, there a two main routes one can go:
1) Photoblogging with written text play an important role in the presentation of the photos, or not playing a role at all.
2) More of a classic portfolio presentation.
For each, however, one can go “fun” or “elegant” in the presentation. That is, complex or simple.
In any cases, though, the images need to take center stage. That means all other elements blend into the background. Design, navigation, widgets, typography, layout, these can’t get in the way. As an example: Flash based portfolio site almost always fail because all of the above are “in your face”. Cool effects do nothing for the visitor experience and presentation of information.
My thoughts….
Adii
I’ve said this on Twitter and in the forums, Graphpaperpress are killing you on photography themes.
Would I rather use a Woo Theme? Yes.
Is there one I can use? No.
Take the focus away from photoblogging and make a theme for photographers in business. One that helps generate leads, that puts our work front and center. Large images (950 pixels), Photoshelter integration, Tave Studio integration, ShootQ integration. I mean full integration, use all their API’s. No flash. Simple slideshows you can drop into a post. I suggest you look closely at the work Thad has done and the Prophotoblogs stuff too.
Do it right and you could sell this for $300+ easily. The market needs it badly.
Paul
http://www.prophotoblogs.com/
Watch the video tour, it’s worth it.
–I wouldn’t suggest purchasing it though, as its more of a system than a theme. Meaning modding the theme is cumbersome. I’m pointing it out for it’s added functionality with one-click slide shows and galleries built into the wp-media gallery.
Jumping on to agree with Mike, too.
It’s not a great example, but this is my site currently, and I am still working out how to bring it to WooThemes, and struggling with making it work so far: http://jronaldlee.com
Mike’s site, as it is now, is pretty sweet. Images all over the home page, presented in a way that it is clearly ALL about the photography.
I’m committed to making Woo work for me, but if I had read this first, there’s a good chance AutoFocus+ would have gotten my dollars.
+1 on the Photography portfolio Theme
Ditto on my question to Mike above… Would love to get some more in-depth feedback re our photography themes and how we can improve?
+2 – Although Aperature is certainly a great theme, it’s tough to tweak for someone just looking to “sell someone” on their work. Although it’s a flash site, something along the lines of http://www.thestoryteller.com would be a welcome addition with some sort of built in “clients” page where they could login and view their photos.
Hi Adii,
being only a recent customer, here are some short thoughts from my side.
- The functionality of your themes overall is good to great
- The design is clean and I love clean designs.
- What I would like to see more, is a sense of consistency.
– Your Canvas theme, for examples offers a high level of color and layout customization that I don’t see in the Sealight theme.
– New themes have different page templates to old themes and it would be great to have them across a wider range of themes
- Graphpaperpress has some nice and visual photographer templates, but have limitations in the customization. The customization was my reason to change to Woothemes
- Generally, on the backend of the templates, you are on the right track. You make it really easy to create web sites with a high level of customization
Thanks for this open forum and discussion.
@Adii
http://www.jeffhendricksondesign.com/wordpress-themes-for-photographers/
http://www.thephotoargus.com/freebies/14-superb-portfolio-and-photoblog-wordpress-themes-free/
etc …
Which of those features would you most like to see us integrate?
Firstly Woo is great and the market leader in WordPress.
But, I do agree that recent concentrations on the backend (which is valuable) has left the door open for all of the progress in design to be seen at Theme Forest. There are some fantastic ideas there from designers like (epicera & unisphere) and I don’t believe Woo is giving much option in these areas.
These guys were banging in wide sliders and column shortcodes ages ago, and Woo should call them up for a colab. One feature I’ve been looking for for ages is the ability to swap a header logo from left to right to centre via the options panel. Does Canvas do that?
Be encouraged though. Woo love.
Any specific stuff (inspired by ThemeForest) that you would like to see us integrating here in future themes? Some examples perhaps?
And nope – Canvas doesn’t include alignment of the logo and it’s probably difficult to implement this in an unobtrusive way, since a design framework (regardless of how flexible it is) is always limited.
3 sites I just launched where I went to Themeforest instead:
http://www.penthouseontheknoll.com
http://www.Steamboatpics.com (photography)
dev.saddlemountainranch.com
Would have preferred to use your solutions as your code is better, framework etc.
I’m finding you guys have the backend dialed, but some designers on TF have the front-end dialed.
That said, there’s a lot of junk on TF
Nice sites, Jay! – Hmmm, makes me want to look at TF even if it is just for ideas.
http://themeforest.net/item/vision-corporate-and-portfolio-wp-theme/full_screen_preview/97236
I love call for suggestions. Always brings most (can’t say for sure about the best) out of me since I know you’ll listen extra hard.
First off about the theme. When looking at Sealight I really do feel like it’s not quite on par with the usual Woo standards, but I wish I had checked it out before seeing the comments about it here. Still, there’s something a bit cheap about it. I’ve also seen many similar themes already. The first that came to mind was WPMU Dev’s Product theme.
About themes in general though, I think you guys are doing an outstanding job. When I first became a customer, I bought into the design and I stayed for the functionality and support.
I think I can identify two issues:
Iteration without value
Lately you’ve been tooting your horn about adding value in many forms. This is great, but I think the point got lost somewhere when it comes to extending your themes directory. With themes like this, you’re not really adding value to your themes directory, the sealight theme itself or the customers’ existing product. You’re taking away from all of it.
My suggestion:
Re-market your existing themes instead of selling close iterations of them. Instead of publishing Sealight as a whole new theme, you could have iterated on any of your existing business themes (or a handful of them). Applying the Sealight color schemes (not that they worked out all that great this particular instance) and possibly even including a new alternative front page layout, you could have a “re-launch” for one or more of your themes. Existing customers get value added to their themes, prospective customers see value added to their pondered purchase and your themes directory doesn’t become so thinned out with increasingly indistinguishable themes.
Consider retiring themes
Staying with the problem explained and suggestively solved above, I would also discuss the subject of ‘retiring’ themes. The idea is that when you add a new theme to your theme base (ideally you’d consider this before even starting work on the new theme of course) you always stop to consider “does this theme make any other rather superfluous?”
If its in an already populated category, maybe it should?
Stick to your word: Explore those niches
Just like you’ve blogged high and low about ‘adding value’, the same goes for your niches. Once upon a time, WooThemes was niche themes. I’d say you’re still doing a pretty good job at it, but with Sealight the ‘niche innovation graph’ certainly drops down a long stretch. And that’s okay, so long as you’re planning to pull it straight back up again
I really liked your approach with Estate. You weren’t 100% sure of what customers wanted, so you gave them what you had so far, they told you what was missing and a complete awesome-packed theme came out of it. You should do the same for jobs boards, forums, social networking, project hubs, collaborative authoring and so on.
Thanks for asking.
You make a very valid point with regards to re-marketing our existing themes. Just one problem with that: our club subscription commitment indicates that we should release at least 2 new themes every month. So this becomes hard when spending too much time on extending existing themes (and the WooFramework), as we’ve still got a limit with regards to capacity.
What’s the value of retiring a theme? If it’s there, it’s there i.e. if we retire it there’s no value left. Even if only 1 user uses it, that’s added value imo.
On the niches… Estate definitely fits that bill as you mention and Unite too included some very niche functionality. Our tumblog themes are continuing to grow and we’re getting ready to head into the commerce space (hopefully next month). We’re also working on one or two internal ideas that would further attack a few new niches.
Just an idea… could the “2.0″ release of an existing theme count towards the two-a-month commitment?
What I’m envisioning is a reworking of some of the top sellers from the early days, where the design is more refreshed than reworked, and all the bells & whistles (like Sealight’s post-types, Canvas’ magazine & business options, Unite’s commenting system, the Tumblr-esque themes’ jQuery nav, etc.) get added in.
Maybe that’s something we’ll consider and see how the club members react.
I would hope that people would get excited about it – after all, it’s much easier to upgrade your existing theme to get a bunch of sweet features than it would be to switch themes completely.
I am a club member and would value functionality across ALL themes as a better innovation compared to a new theme release.
I think further development of the WooFramework to add functionality across themes would be great. Commenting, E-commerce, search, custom taxomonies, and custom post type add-ons (among other functionality components) within the framework that can be utilized and integrated into all themes would make your position second to none. This way, we aren’t having decide between different functionality of 2 (or more) different themes.
How about one of those one-page slider portfolio themes?
Here’s an example: http://shapeshifter.makedesignnotwar.com/themes/wp/mu/wpmu/
I’d also like to see more social icons/links integration into future themes. Maybe a new kind of widget with built-in 16×16 and/or 32×32 icons. I know you guys have some themes (even ones I’ve purchased) with this feature, but getting it standard throughout the entire catalog would be pretty cool. Seems like every site/blog I visit these days has social icons. Just a thought…
I like that suggestion and Shapeshifter looks pretty nifty!
I don’t have any specific theme suggestions at the moment, but I do have some suggestions for the framework. I think it might be nice to add into the admin menus options to remove the WordPress, Woo Framework, and theme name Generator metatags. Not because I don’t think anyone should know I use WordPress, but because having a WordPress generator can alert robots to a potentially easy to hack site. And since Woo is a leader in WordPress themes, it does pose the same sort of risk. Currently, I am using Remove-Generator-Metatag plugin to take out the WP generator. More info here: http://www.g-loaded.eu/2008/05/09/remove-generator-meta-tag-wordpress-plugin/
I also noticed that there is some sort of support for TinyURL and Bit.Ly in the admin menu. No idea that support was there or how to use it. Might be an idea to issue instructions. Also, support for http://su.pr shortening service would be nice, it’s at least as popular as bit.ly.
Furthermore, building in an option or creating some sort of plugin to host-your-own short urls with custom shortener would be great. For example, my website is http://www.theinnocentabroad.com. A custom shortener would mean I could post my links to Twitter and Facebook using http://www.theinnocentabroad.com/975x7a instead of using su.pr or bit.ly, thusly increasing my branding. I think such a service would also make Woo the first theming company to offer that service right in the WordPress dash, or if you make a plugin to do this, you could charge for it and it would provide another source of revenue for you.
The first two suggestions should be pretty easy to implement and I believe we’ll be making light work of those.
The third is very hard to implement, as it requires quite a bit of .htaccess work (as far as I know), so technical support on that would be massive. I also don’t think this currently within our “core” focus range. Would be a cool plugin though…
Had no idea custom URLs required that much work to make it work! Maybe in the future.
Remove Generator Meta tags option added
http://cl.ly/df516cb428bcfa9233c2
You’re fast! And thusly, awesome!
Hey, I like your site Melissa. Very timely as I am traveling to Sydney/Melbourne/Hobart next week
Have fun in Oz, Mike. I didn’t post my site link for juice, just to use myself as an example. I’m glad you like it though. I’m not a designer or programmer and I did the mods myself, and I’m pleased with the result.
I come across quite a few clients who want a simple business site that they can update themselves…. people that find even WordPress tricky. I’d like to see a really simple to use elegant theme that has good page control.
Page layouts – Clients find creating pages tricky – particularly the flow of text around images. Going into the HTML and adding clear:both is not really an option for most of my clients. Some kind of page builder – Carrington Build looks impressive, but maybe even this is too complex for many. Maybe some way of picking the page layout and then being able to add widgets to the sidebar without leaving the page you are creating/editing.
I don’t like having to tell non IT savvy business clients to upload photos to the media library, and in the upload box at the bottom of the page and then tell them if they upload some pictures to Flickr they can use this widget here. Not sure what could be done about that?
A couple of different template options for a photo page/gallery pages would be good. I see a few mentions of a full blown photography blog, which would be good. However, given that a lot of different websites have a need to display images I’d rather see this build into the framework as templates accessible to multiple themes.
Quite a few of my clients don’t like having a contact form, but would rather have a page with their address, email, contact numbers etc. It would be nice to have an alternative built in contact template with micro format fields for adding these details, vcard downlaod. Perhaps as a widget also.
The logo area – Most of my small business clients have logos already. Quite a lot of the business themes have the logo sitting directly on top of a wide expanse of background, which is fine if you have a contrasting logo. I often find myself replacing the whole background to fit in with the logo and essentially removing a lot of the themes colour, either that or having to adding a new header region. It is not a massive problem, but just worth thinking about whether a style has been included with each theme that matches both a dark and light logo.
Other things that would be good:
Regions in themes that could be swapped out
A menu region that could swapped with different menu styles from other themes, so if you buy multiple themes you can make use of different menus.
The same for the Slider area – Easy swap out the slider for different sliders 3D, coin, nivo etc without touching code for clients, probably not that easy.
Some of the themeforest themes I have also used recently include:
Prosto – Looks good couple of nice sliders
Awake – Liked the clean style, although menu drop downs are not easy to read
Colosseum – for the portfolios and shortcode buttons
Sleex – Liked the shortcode handling and front page slider style
Carrington Build or IThemes Builder is the future. If Woo had an arrangement with Carrington I’d buy in right away. I use Canvas for most of my sites, fast & fun.
Vote up menu region swap out. Take a look at Mashable’s main menu.
Much better CSS customization for the Woo sidebar menu, need to crack the books on this.
We’re already discussing this with Alex & the CrowdFavourite team, so will see where that leads us.
In addition to my comments on the other post, may be i am asking beyond the realms here but will try anyway..
I would love completely customizable menus, as a start ability to define menus for a certain page or post even, this is a special consideration for business themes, but I happen to think a feature like this will be great.
I am OK with sliders, but woudl love site wide ones I also woudl love to choose if I wanted a widgetized front or a normal blog type.
I also think EVERY business theme should come with icon set, for things like buy now, shop now and details buttons (you can do them in you base colours, that you supply the themes in) This will mean that the theme will flow..
Attention to detail as pointed out above, ability to integrate javascript coding (i currently use hanna code to do this, and sure it could be handle much better from you guys)
Basic things like sexy table creation if it can be handled within the woo framework great..
The reason why I mention the above is simple..Yes few people who will have your developer subscription like myself will be able to hack codes and get the theme looking like what you need it..BUT majority of people are not great at this..Adding to the existing functionality will mean you will get a lot more user base.
I happen to think the seo section is a bit of a waste.. I have never used it and almost every one i know feels the same, we all rather just stick to all in one seo..
Also as a theme request… how about a true fashion theme/s one showcasing products with user based reviews etc.. and the other being a fashion blog I will post a link of a blog that i loved..as soon as i find it
Just sitting here looking at the business site I am working on and would suggest that many business sites would benefit from a custom post type for – People – with contact emails/numbers/job title basic info – on second thoughts not sure if this should be a custom post type or if this info should against Users? Either way would be useful to output data on a staff page.
Also people need to know how to get to your business therefore for those without satnav a map where you can print out driving directions is useful. Currently using MapPress.
I have been a woothemes user since you guys started out. There are a lot of great theme makers out there, but the reason I always stayed is because there is a lot of focus on growth/backend/framework etc.
The things that I wish for that I don’t see are kind of unhelpful, but this is my take:
-When previewing a different CSS color/graphic of a theme, it just changes the color. I would much rather see a graphical/font change to see more of what extra customization could do. (Keep bringing in and featuring graphic artists but have them create extras if you can.)
-A better way to display contact information. The about/contact page works fairly well but I usually crate a small footer code that has a pop-up vcard.
-Keep expanding on comment/response formats. Your Unite theme is really the way to change that up. Keep that up.
-Possible Gowalla/Foursquare niche theme. This is for a small audience and not sure how marketable, but it would be great to have a Google map (as you guys have done awesome with,) theme that is integrated into one of these social media apps. This is more of a desire than anything else, so pay no mind to it. =)
-Getting your groove back. It seems that you guys have some awesome niche themes, then you fall back on the “old-faithful” recreation of past themes. This may be a business thing, but it’s just something I noticed. What about re-polishing old themes with new styles? I noticed someone mentioned retiring old themes… I don’t think that is necessary.
Seconded on the “update old themes” front. You have some glorious themes that I’d love to see updated with a Canvas like option set. I love Canvas, but I’d love to see you run with the widget-area idea from Geometric.
Our experience is that widget type themes are harder to setup and users tend to not want these type of themes. Geometric was not a big seller either, but maybe that was due to styling?
We could update old themes, but I feel there is more value in building a new theme than updating an old theme and just packing in more functionality.
Adding Canvas functionality is something we are trying to do with new themes, but there is a limitation to how much we want to pack in, but we have started adding background styling and typography styling. We’ll try to add more flexible layouts also in future themes where you can pick your layout like in Canvas.
Geometric was the theme that made me notice you guys, since it was so unusual. I agree on the styling front though, the colour options for Geometric were… interesting.
In addition to a lot of the good ideas about functionality, I’d like to second a request for a more…simplistic business theme. Canvas is great for a lot of my needs, but I start to feel like I’m using the same theme over and over.
Beyond that, I’d love to see a theme geared towards politicians– more in functionality than in design– something “grass rootsy” that is heavy on communication and interaction. THis could easily roll over into a not-for-profit type of theme, too, for organizations that need something catered most to them.
Also, I know some plugins handle things well, and I know Woo has flirted with calendar-type themes, but I’d love for a simple interface for “Events” that can be loaded on the home page and on an archive page. Pretty much all of my clients need this “Calendar” type thing plus their news feed, and I’d love to have a one-stop shop.
Hi there
I’d like to have clean and sleak designs where content isn’t conquered by the theme itself.
I like http://scaffold.tumblr.com/
My favourite wootheme is my stream … i’d like to have as much social (e.g. lifestream, twitter, facebook, disqus …) as possible … like my own personal social network (maybe buddypress will be a solution?)
I’d like my blog to be a place, where all my web 2.0 contents come togehter and have kind of a portfolio.
I also like to see more Unite like features … like futuristic commentig system …
I love Scaffold – it’s glorious! I really like the grid style layout too – I don’t think Mortar did it very well. coolZine on ThemeForest is the one that I’m currently debating about defecting to. But like you, I want something that’s a social base as well, and I haven’t found it yet.
I was reading those posts last night on Sealight and I agree that the recent themes are nothing great. I became a Club Member a few months ago and have bean a loyal WooTheme customer until recently.
Ive read a lot of requests over the past few months of people asking you to do a BuddyPress theme. You keep telling them no, not sure why. It would make a ton of $$$.
All in all your themes were advanced, but now they look dated and are missing so many goodies I look for.
Take a look at “Awake” wordpress theme on ForestThemes. One of the best themes ive used in a long time.
So I just looked up Awake and you were not lying.
The functionality in that theme is INSANELY awesome.
So much detail in everything.
WOW! The theme, Awake, is awesome in everything, except the design, imo.
Agreed. Just had a look myself. Look at all those short codes. Column short codes, button short codes, widget short codes, pricing, testimonials. Really extensive.
Awake has a ton of shortcodes. I think im going to buy this next theme today.
(Breeze)
http://themeforest.net/item/breeze-professional-corporate-and-portfolio-wp/full_screen_preview/118824
I wish Woo would start looking at the competition and taking notes.
This is what we’re doing right now.
I agree with Shnooka on the Buddypress suggestion. This would really be a great asset to me with my increasing use of WordPress Multisite. With multisites come multi-users and Buddypress is a good solution for users, profiles and social networking capabilities.
Agreed. Those short codes are something special! Again though, I’m much more interested in the functionality than the minimalist design.
My favorite theme is Optimize so I think a theme I would really like to see is Optimize with a slider. I know Inspire was very close to this but I think the layout of the home page for the text / content parts works much better for a business theme with Optimize than the layout in Inspire. This is due to there being more text space to write about products / services.
I do like the page layout more in Inspire though with the page title being featured within the page body rather than separate from it as seen in Optimize where the page title is separate. I like this more in Inspire as the page titles are clearer and more obvious to read.
The portfolio section in both Optimize and Inspire is excellent with the ability to separate into different categories butit would be a really nice touch if the buttons for the different categories of work could be more obvious so that they are not missed.
So if a theme was made that blended the best bits from these two themes and then added just a few tweaks I think that would be perfection for a business style portfolio theme. Keep up the good work guys and thanks for the excellent themes so far.
Just in case this got buried in the Sealight comments, I’ll repost here:
I have a couple things I’ve been praying you’ll release….
1.) The email sign-up site where the entire upper slider area is actually a giant email sign up form (could also be done by adding an alternative for the slider section on your business sites)
example: http://10coupons.com/
2.) The Directory. Man do I have a need for a directory theme. Restaurants, hotels, bands, instructors, you name it. Some need Map integration, all need custom post types. Basically a generic/multi-purpose Estate or just some way to search by multiple criteria.
3.) Speaking of coupons, they are really moving into being a huge thing these days. It would be really niche but how about a module/theme that makes downloadable coupons with expiration dates?
4.) Classifieds! Here’s my current site. http://www.musicvilla.com/usedgear
This theme works fairly well but is glitchy and FAR from Woo. You guys would absolutely KILL this theme.
Thoughts?
I’m getting the feeling here that some users want Woo to create a theme for every possible situation. That’s really unrealistic. And it shows that people forget that WordPress is not just a blogging system, but a full content management system. For example, if you need to make a forum, there’s a plugin that will let you do that. You can make classifieds and chat rooms too. While I fully support Woo’s decision to take on any and all projects suggested here, I also encourage everyone who’s contributed a specific idea to look into WordPress plugins, forums, and resources and see if what you need might be better handled in WordPress than by a theme.
PS not sure why this came out as a reply, was sposed to be a new comment. Wasn’t singling you out just so you know!
I agree Melissa,
Building every possible function into every theme is something we’ve avoided, because it bloats the code, options, documentation and support.
We have always tried to build our themes so they are simple to setup and user. The more complex themes like Exposure and Backstage to name a couple have been hard to use because of all the functionality we added, and we’ve seen that users struggle more with these type of themes.
My rule has always been KISS. I’m not saying we should just build simple themes, but they have to be easy to use and easy to setup as the majority of our users want that.
Hi Guys
Thought i’d add my 2 pennies worth. First up you’ve transformed the way I can build and sell websites so i thank you for that! No more hacking around in Dreamweaver for me!
In terms of your themes I suppose i’m going with the others who suggest that some of your recent themes lack a bit of quality when it comes to design. However it depends how you are positioning your themes.
Are you saying to us here is a theme with a basic design that is easy to customise? – buy it and use your design skills to make it look like a nicely designed them.
Or are you saying these new themes (sealight) function AND look great?
If it is the former then no problem, but if you are saying to us your themes look great too out of the box then I would disagree.
There are some much more polished / clean looking themes over at themeforest right now:
http://themeforest.net/item/awake-powerful-professional-wordpress-theme/full_screen_preview/111267
http://themeforest.net/item/wordpress-cadca-theme-6-skins/full_screen_preview/112409
The type of theme that suits depends if the buyer has the design skills to make your themes look better – if not then I guess some of the themeforest e.gs would be better as they don’t really need anything doing in terms of the design.
Out of all your themes I use The Station over and over again as it is the cleanest business theme you have and I’m now well used to customising it. So a “Station MarkII” would be great!
Anyway, keep up the good work – looking forward to your e-commerce stuff.
Levi Kujala
I’m with you on the directory – I tried City theme at the start a couple of months ago which was good for certain aspects. But I had to move to Canvas as needed other things.
Also I’m desperate for some kind of discussion forum as having huge numbers of comments against posts is causing me database and page loading problems.
And appreciate the need for dev’s to customise but as a novice and not having much clue about the code don’t want to lose the current framework as without it I’d not have a site!
Thanks for all your help and look forward to what’s coming as sounds like it could be exciting
Vickie makes my point perfectly on why we need canvas modules.
City-guide geo tagging is great, but alas, she couldn’t use it and it’s not part of canvas, unless you are really good at code merging.
To be honest I REALLY do hope there are good things to come..and I hope that woo gets stronger as a result. If this does not happen I don’t see myself being a member for longer then few months.
I think your designs are great!
I’m mostly looking forward to WooCommerce.
I know you’re working on it but just wanted to make sure you know people are eagerly awaiting your announcement.
Keep up the great work.
Cheers!
I love you guys for your functionality and the way you’ve always helped me out when I needed it. I’m not a coder, I’m not a designer, I just want to have a good looking blog/social hub that I can tweak without too much hassle.
A lot of people are pointing you at ThemeForest, and I’d love to see you take on some of the design/typography ideas from there. There are some really, really nice themes coming out of there right now and I’m seriously thinking of defecting to cooolZine. (I have a particular preference for grid layouts and big, fat footers, sorry.) Novocane, Flex and Vivi are all lovely too.
As I believe I can handle all design related modifications of your themes, I’d like to see you improve the functionality of them. Here are a few examples I like and would like to share with you. Hope it helps.
1- Slideshows
* http://themeforest.net/item/bosspress/79723
* http://themeforest.net/item/london-creative-portfolio-blog-wp-theme/70613
*http://themeforest.net/item/wordfolio/38723
2- Portfolio pages
* http://themeforest.net/item/bosspress/79723
* http://themeforest.net/item/avisio-business-and-portfolio/113278 (Sortable Portfolio: I know uou have a similar portfolio functionality on Inspire, but it’s not mature enough, imo.)
* http://themeforest.net/item/infocus-powerful-professional-wordpress-theme/85486
3- Flexible layouts
* http://psd.tutsplus.com/
4- Testimonials
* http://themeforest.net/item/cleancut-5-in-1-business-and-portfolio-template/99235
5- Other inspirational websites
* http://themeforest.net/item/shapeshifter-one-page-infinite-possibilities/75759
* http://themeforest.net/item/locus-one-page-template/104009
* http://themeforest.net/item/awake-powerful-professional-wordpress-theme/111267
These are what have come to my mind for now. There are a few more websites with cool and niche functionality. However, cannot recall them now. If I remember them, I’ll be adding them here.
Regards.
I think your designs including the new one look great. My problem has usually been that since I change the design entirely — it’s at times difficult to do so with all the custom stuff in there. A few times I’ve given up and just started from scratch.
Also, is there a way to get rid of the Woo Theme settings entirely so clients don’t see it?
Hey Chris,
To hide theme settings, you can go to includes/theme-options.php and comment, /* … option … */, the options you want to hide.
Great. I’ll see if that will do it.
You have super user settings in Framework Settings to hide the theme options
No need to modify code.
Yeah that’s another way to do it. I totally forgot it =)
But I have a question for you Magnus. Let’s say I use super user thing to hide theme options and all works fine. Will it still work after updating framework and theme? I reckon, it’ll work but just wanna make it sure =)
Yes.
I’d like to see some more comments in the code itself. The CSS files are well commented, but the code is not, infact there was not one comment in my home/index or header.php files. Some of the loops are complicated and i’d like to have a clear idea about what i am customising.
I think the designs of the themes are amazing. It is for the customers to take them to the next level.
Oh, yes. Seconded.
thirded…
I agree! This is always something we strive to improve, and we are going over our “base” theme and framework to improve commenting.
I would like to see the WooFramework having an option to toggle whether or not comments are displayed by default, much like they do on Engadget. This is nice both bandwith like and layout like.
Also, a completely different question: are all WooThemes produced as child-themes, or as “standalone” themes? If they are produced as standalones, why?
According to this post by matt: http://ma.tt/2010/08/syn-thesis-3-switchers/
themes SHOULD be made a childthemes.
Regards
Joel
All our themes are parent themes. He says “Child themes are the only way you should build your site on top of a framework.”
By that he means that if you buy a WooTheme and want to customize the theme, you should make a child theme, so the WooTheme becomes the parent theme/framework.
Can you tell us why our themes should be child themes?
This is a good read to understand problems that arise with using Child themes http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/08/16/frameworks-parent-child-and-grandchild-themes
Here are a few examples that I have come across:
photoblogs: -best of the best
http://www.prophotoblogs.com/demo1/
1. modules added to the wp photo upload for auto creating slide show galleries, pop-up slide show galleries with music, full size image input into post, fancy contact form built-in.
basically the theme really focuses on back-end functionality. The added wp media slide shows are top-notch, and actually built as an add-on ‘to the core’ of wp media uploader, so simplicity is the key.
watch the video demo to really see what I mean: http://www.prophotoblogs.com/
2. from the forum — dynamically scaling themes that work with all browser sizes:
3. another amazing example: (estate remix) ajaxed search example..
Now this site kicks butt!
http://www.cocosuites.com/en/suites/Spain/Barcelona
check out the detail page complete with ajax:
http://www.cocosuites.com/en/suites/Spain/Ibiza/Ibiza-Gran-Hotel-Grand-Suite
Now that is how to use custom taxonomy ‘ajaxed’ search.
This concept would apply to just about any theme model that has a large amount of data behind a custom post-type. (shops, estate, music, vids, you name it)
4. One of the best releases this year for wordpress users:
http://crowdfavorite.com/wordpress/carrington-build/
I think their video says it all.
5. Elastic theme:
http://elastictheme.org/ Koopersmith is working on the visual css for the gsoc project, eventually the two may tie together into a completely new way of designing themes.
6. Focus more on canvas:
I came to woo the week you released canvas because I wanted a great base framework to work off of. I have used the others, and really saw potential in canvas.
One thing that I really don’t understand is why all of your theme’s are not child themes of canvas. It’s like you released a great framework, and then almost abandoned it. I mean what good does a new theme release do me, when I work off your framework?
I’ve talked about modularizing new woo features until I’m blue in the face, and I hope that it’s gaining a little traction.
some examples:
1. city guide comes out with geo mapping… canvas users are left in the dust unless they know how to merge the code together. Why was the geo mapping not simply a module that could be added to canvas? Let us choose what to do with it.
2. estate comes out with some very advanced taxonomy search capability.
Once again, this is a perfect addition module for canvas. Let the user determine their own post-types and taxonomies, and have the module add the search logic to canvas.
3. Unite comes out with a new comment system.
Once again canvas users are left out unless they know how to merge code.
4. Seabreeze introduces a custom post-type slider
Same problem, why not make it a module for canvas, where we add it ourselves?
I can go on and on…
I think for me at least, I feel left out of the game. You touted the canvas framework, yet every new feature you guys release has nothing to do with the framework.
The problem is now canvas is nothing more than a theme. It’s not turning into the framework that I think many of us were hoping it would someday become.
What it really comes down to is this:
What benefit is there for any of us that are using any given theme on woo for maintaining our membership?
–unless I am building another client site, I gain nothing by any of the new releases unless I work my butt off trying to merge new functionality into my existing sites.
I worked hard on my site and I like it. I don’t want to switch the theme and lose all my custom work. I simply want to add some of your new functionality to it is all.
Get the idea??? –hope so
-this thread is NOT a rant. Proven by the fact that I am still a member. I love woo themes, I only wish you would make my life easier when it comes to merging new ‘toys’ into my existing sites.
I agree, Canvas has so much potential and they should really focus on developing it more.
Any good tips on what you would like to see in Canvas?
Could you have a new home page version with the option of Cu3er or the Piecemaker implemented instead of the existing slider?
What about modules like with Carrington Build — or more shortcodes? Also on the pulldown menus, the ability to add HTML, small pics, short category summaries instead of just links? Let a person preview what’s on the page before having to click there.
Also the twitter feed like on Optimize. I’d second the request for the option of a slider on Optimize. Overall, love those two and Inspire. Keep up the good work and innovations!!
I think Cu3er is under license and can only be used on TF. We can surely use some of the more advanced sliders in future themes.
More shortcodes are on the way for sure.
The custom menu dropdowns are hard to accomplish unfortunately.
I’m messing around with Canvas today and wish it had a Portfolio Gallery option. Plus adding a bunch of shortcodes to it, (Galleria shortcodes, column shortcodes, jquery tabs and toggles would be cool as well.)Outside of that, Canvas is really cool!
It would be cool if if there was a site dedicated to Canvas to show other designer tips. Ive looked at some of the showcase themes, and there are some that I wonder how they did that.
Portfolio is actually a very valid point, and one that is on my to-do list.
All those shortcodes are also on my to-do list
Hi,
Thanks for your feedback
I don’t think we ever claimed Canvas was a framework. Canvas IS a theme, albeit a different theme than our usual ones.
To be honest, if you don’t have use for new themes every month, you are better of having an individual theme package which gives you lifetime updates to that theme.
Yes, I agree, canvas is not a ‘true’ framework per say, but it’s the closest thing we have to a framework from woo and that is how I have been trying to use it since its release.
I actually heard Justin say that you do indeed have a framework, although not public. Is this something you would consider releasing someday so that we have more of a ‘true’ woo framework to base our work off of?
That may actually be the root of all my problems. Trying to use canvas more as a true framework for my projects than it is really intended to be. From most of the posts in the canvas forum, it’s apparent that I am not the only one with this issue.
I think the competition (Genesis, Thematic etc) has the framework very well covered. We might release a basic framework someday, but haven’t got any plans currently. Is this something that is widely requested though?
I don’t see most of the posts in the Canvas forum as being apparent that everybody is using it as a framwork. I think the majority use it for what it is, one very customizable parent theme.
I keep my membership not for the new theme’s but to rip the logic out of the new themes to add to canvas. The html/css part is easy, and yeah, I don’t need woo for that part. What I do enjoy is reading the new functions you guys write that runs everything.
So is it worth $15/month to me to rip the functions? Heck yeah it is. I couldn’t even talk to a developer for that kind of money, much less have source code to read.
the last few months alone have given me:
1. custom navigation system (although replaced via wp3)
2. geo-location -city guide
3. semi usable events system -diarese (still waiting for recurring events 3+ months though)
4. custom post-type sliders -seabreeze
5. advanced comment system -unite
All are great add-on features for canvas, and most I have working already.
Last thing:
Go through your forums and just count up how many posts there are from people asking how to get a feature from one theme to work in another. I think you will be shocked at the number.
Good to hear you making use of the membership
I know there are quite a few wanting to mix and match features from themes, but we can’t just produce a theme that has every single function in it. We will try to make more of our functionality plugin based though, so it is easier to transport to new themes.
That would be awesome!! Making the functionality plugin based or any other way to make it easier to move from one theme to another would be a dream come true.
For example I want to move one of the featured content sliders in either Boast, Spectrum or Canvas to BusyBee and I am sweating it.
Ps. I also think an Estate-esque level theme, in terms of niche functionality quarterly might not be bad…
Making it easier to mix and match some important functionality would be what I call Woo Love!!!
Hey Shawn, do you have the advanced commenting thing working on canvas? If you do any chance on giving us the way to do it. pretty please. Ive had a go myself but its just been a case of switching code and css which hasnt quite worked fully for me yet!
I think that if there was just ONE theme that was continually “upgraded” (even make it more expensive, like the real estate theme) it would be canvas! Totally worth it!
Also, thank you, wooguys, for opening the floor to us. We appreciate it.
Canvas is one of the themes that will get updated continually
I agree.
The only reason that I signed up for a woo-themes plan was canvas. My thinking? Very few of the existing woo themes at that time had any allure for me, but when I saw canvas, I hoped that this was the sign of a leaner direction in woo theme development.
Since I joined up, none of the themes released have even tempted me to use them. In short, I find other woo themes very predictable visually, and only some with features that I would use. Conversely, canvas is minimal on purpose, a perfect base for building.
Why do I continue to pay $15 a month? I guess I hope that canvas will become the receptacle for all of the functionality introduced in other niche themes, a collection of modules that allow me to pick and choose what I include in my site. I applaud the back-end work done at woo themes, but I feel as though canvas has been ignored as the backbone theme that it could be, the perfect starting point supported by modules and accessibility.
So, no ranting from me. But, no great applause, either, mainly because the only theme that I use is not being fully expanded, while new theme releases seem to be clones of each other.
@shwn – Brilliant comment and thanks for alerting me to Coco Suites. That indeed is how to do search filtering for custom taxonomies along with the Query Multiple Taxonomies by Scribu.net
As I’ve said before, there’s a strong case for Woo building a modular system, i.e. a suite of tools that we can pick and choose to build the sites we need.
Hi Guys
Havent really read all comments above, but read last nights comments on sealight and I am glad to see that this call for suggestions post came from it.
I think with WP 3.0 coming out and the new custom post types, you guys are looking to integrate more of the functionality into the themes, and a lot of work is going in to this R&D
I also believe that we will see all of this hard work pay off in future themes and theme upgrades. Not every theme can be everything to everyone – I envision sealight to have its own loyal set of users.
My guess is, everyone was expecting an ecommerce framework for “business beacon”/ “sealight” after the teasers – and found a release similar in look to “apz” with custom post types integration. Whilst I havent downloaded the new theme yet, I will be doing so soon.
What I would love to see is the ability for adding our own custom post types and templates for showing these “posts”/ “pages”
This way, you can focus on the designs and functionality of the themes, and the users themselves can set up what they need – thereby being “nearly everything too nearly everyone”
wow talk about the short post I promised
Looking forward to everything new & woo
Brad
In general, I do find most of your themes to be a bit lacking in the “design” department. I feel like odd decisions are made about layout and certain graphical aspects of the themes. However, they are so flexible that often this just isn’t a concern for me… I change what I don’t like.
To give you an example, I recently purchased a theme from themeforest that – in my opinion – blows away any of the woothemes in terms of design. It is just so crisp and elegant, from type face to layout. But in order to get it to do what I wanted, it would have taken a serious effort. In the end, it ended up actually being easier for me to take one of your themes and make it look like that one. Sure, this also took a good deal of effort… and it would be great if you were producing flexible themes that ALSO look as nice as what some other designers are putting out… but given the choice, I think I prefer the flexibility.
One thing I will say that would have me buying more of your themes is if you kept up with some of the common technologies that are pretty standard with other theme designers. Shortcodes, in particular.
Speaking from an affiliate marketer perspective, there are a lot of niche themes I would love to see on WooThemes. I will name a couple here.
1. Product Review Theme: There have been product review themes built before, but none are ever as polished as what I need, so I end up hiring out for coding anyway. What I want is a graphically customizeable theme that would be easy to change headers, and other elements. It should be simpler, and focus on the main items, like the actual product.
Basically I want something like Uncrate.com or Playgrounder.com, but with user review functionality, as well as admin backend for product review management, oraganization, etc…
Another different, but also good one is…
http://auto-loan-service-review.toptenreviews.com/
2. Simple, Customizeable Theme like Playgrounder.com: Even if you don’t build the review functionality, build a simple, yet elegant theme like this for basic product blogging. Basically everything that Playgrounder.com offers, is what I want in a theme. I just want to be able to customize a graphic header, and nav style. So I can use the theme for all my product blogs.
3. Coupon Theme: RetailMeNot.com
4. Price Comparison Theme: PriceGrabber.
5. BBPressIntegration: Integrate a customized version of bbpress into a theme for a social theme.
6. PLEASE DO THIS ONE: Magazine theme with customizable homepage and SlideShow type product galleries.
Think…
http://www.parenting.com/gallery/Child/Best-Backpacks-for-Kids
I think it is a good idea for Woo Themes to build these niche themes. If you build it, they will come. I can’t tell you how many affiliate marketers like myself would buy themes like these. You have more resources and staff then most theme companies/designers. I think you should branch out more.
I would LOVE to be able to upload a font in the framework, and have it apply to all headers.
Like the @font-face attribute? I’m new to developer lingo, but this would be a cool add-on feature that would (IMO) get a lot of milage.
If you don’t know what I mean, you can find font-face kits here: http://www.fontsquirrel.com/fontface
I use these in all my themes but to just have the ability to upload them without messing with code would be nice.
(Not sure this is even that big of a deal to consider, but it’s worth a shot!)
We could make functionality for that, but there are more than font-face… Typekit and Cufon for example. For now we have integrated all Google Fonts into our typography selector, and I’ve already added it to our framework so it will be available for new themes.
I’d like there to more modularity between themes.
I’d like to take widgets from one theme into another.
For example the tabber with pix from canvas into therapy.
I’d also like full explanations of what each woo widget was designed to do and best practices in how to customize each – specifically the woo-video widget which I think has great potential but comes up short because of the way it frames the video or its post link without easy recourse to amend.
I’d like the control of video frame size I have in wootube to carry over throughout all themes.
My tests in the playground have not gotten that to work. I want to be able to post 4:3 and 16:9 videos in any theme and not have that theme automatically present them in the wrong aspect ratio producing ugly black bars on either side.
I’d like the additional video post navigation from groovy video to be available in wootube and be able to determine which posts it is showing (related, recent, popular etc)
I really appreciate the existing documentation but it needs more. It needs explicit instructions as to what happens when a video or image is embedded in a given theme.
I’d like to combine the large, playable video front page of wootube with a natural blog under it like therapy.
I was expecting canvas to be the theme that would allow me to mix and match wootheme elements in such a manner. That’s not what you designed it to be but, for whatever reason, that was the initial impression I got of it before launch.
Perhaps an expansion of the showcase and/or the featured users that appear in the blog posts that could tie into theme documentation that show explicit use cases and how the user approached preparing content and posting/updating on a regular basis.
Overall I really love woothemes and will purchase more of your work. I just think you need to refine the communication of your goals for each theme.
“I’d like there to more modularity between themes.
I’d like to take widgets from one theme into another.
For example the tabber with pix from canvas into therapy.”
I second this! It would be very helpful. I have had some success moving elements around themes, but if elements were more modular and inter-changeable it would be completely awesome.
All our widgets are modular in the includes/widgets/ folder
We have made our widgets modular now, so they will work between all new themes, and are included in all new themes.
The embed widget in all new themes has sizing ability http://cl.ly/fb315786b0132f6dfe56
Most of our themes have the “embed” field in Custom Settings panel which allows you to show the video above the single post.
Fantastic about the widgets being modular between new themes. Does that mean there’s a barrier to taking them into old themes?
I’ve been playing with various themes in the woothemes playground and attempting to resize video and have had mixed results. Maybe this is a result of the playground environment, not sure.
I see the custom embed field for video for Canvas but would love the ability to swap its end location. Like in the WooFramework an area that lets me position the video either above or below a single post. Also canvas tended to stretch the video wildly when used on a post with the Full Width setting.
Again these could be flukes of the test playground world but I’d appreciate the a better explanation of these things in the theme documentation.
Thanks for the reply.
Older themes will use includes/theme-widgets.php so not exactly modular, although you could pop the code in there.
There are posts in the forum on how to position the embed in canvas via functions.php
It’s already been mentioned, but I too would really be interested in a woothemes E-commerce theme. I have been using a few services lately that have me frusterated, scratching my head wondering “what would woo do?!”
I have used WP E-commerce plugin… HORRIBLE documentation and service. Shoppluggin is decent, but has me underwhelmed. I have bought my fair share of themes from you guys and your woostore theme will def. get my money!
Coming next month hopefully
Yeah but an e-commerce them with search functionality that of AT LEAST estate..
Why would you want that advanced search functionality for a e-commerce site? All of the top e-commerce site have simple searches (narrow down to department/category)…
You have to understand from an Affiliate Marketing point of view, Its no good having a data feed and then thousands of pages etc created from that data feed. These pages will never rank, and will never be indexed probably as well. This is where unique content comes in where I hire people to write product descriptions
Process goes like this:-
1) Acquire Date Feed
2) Data feed outpust posts (usually)
3) Each post description is made unique tags, and relevant categories added..
And then if you add the advanced search functionality like estate… then is a great site..
I’m with every one on developing canvas. I really does have so much going for it. I really hope you continued to update it regularly with the latest stuff available in the wordpress field.
Like adding in some of the latest things you have been adding to other newely release themes. e.g latest commmenting system.
And also to a point your other themes…. you have like 70 which cover a wide variety of designs and funtionality. But they do start to become outdated. maybe an area to consider would be making 2.0 versions of different themes.
Take Groovy video for example. A great theme but now missing alot of the latest features and design. A 2.0 version of themes like this would definately something to think about.
Canvas will continue to be update for sure
We always consider making 2.0 versions of old themes (we have already done that for many of them), but that mostly goes for the code and not the design. But I can clearly see a need to update our old popular themes with new functionality. Sadly we can’t update every single theme, so we have to stick to those that still are popular.
Hi,
I have lots of WooLove – being a fellow South African might influence that a bit but I think you guys do a great job. Some of your themes are not my cup of tea but there are loads that are really nice.
I have a few comments. Some of it has been touched on and some of it hasn’t.
Unity comment system – I can’t stand that comment system on Unity. I’m not sure if you can turn it off and use a “normal” comment system or not but if you do more of this type of thing then give site owners options.
Child themes – I think you are missing a trick with regards to the child theme idea although my idea is not strictly related to child themes. Think of it like this: You have your WooFramework which has a load of stuff in it – your core theme functionality. Take this and make child frameworks for your main theme types. Business, Blog, Magazine / News, Multimedia etc. You would then develop these child frameworks to have specific functionality that only applies to them. For example the business child framework would have a custom post type called “slides” and “products” and perhaps specific options and widgets that only appear in that child framework. The magazine child framework would have different features, options, widgets and custom posts types. Then, make all your themes child themes of these child frameworks. Sealight, Inspire and so on are themes / skins” attached” to the business child framework. Coda, Canvas and so on are “attached” to the magazine / news child framework. Your themes esentially become skins sitting on top of the base framework for that theme type. In this way, when you come up with super cool functionality for business themes like what you have done with Sealight (the custom post types etc.) you give all your business themes /skins the functionality – I want it for Inspire and over Easy. When you develop a widget, you choose if if applies to all themes (core framework) or if it only applies to a theme type (child framework). Doing this will translate into a few things from a business perspective. Firstly it will give the customer who bought a theme updates for life – updates that take advantage of all the new awesomeness that you or the WordPress crew come up with which is AWESOME value. Secondly, you extend the life of your existing themes (or skins) by constantly bringing new features into the mix for them. Thirdly, you create another option for your customers in that you could sell packages for a theme type – I may only want to buy a subscription to your business theme type for example so you could possibly create theme type packages for customers. Finally, when we as an end user switch themes within that same theme type, we don’t have to go an redo some things. (I recently switched my dads site from Over Easy to Inspire and it was a pain in the ass to go into the options and setup the sliders and whatever else). I am not sure if all I have come up with is technically possible but you guys are WP gurus and I am sure you can give this some thought.
Photo galleries – I want more. Exposure could have been nice but it’s way too complicated to use. I want something simple, elegant and easy to use.
More Tumblr. I want more Tumblr themes. Posterous too!
Theme variations – I don’t like buttons that have big rounded edges. Other people don’t like square buttons. Other people don’t like buttons at all. Give us these options when you create a theme. A few people have spoken about theme variations and this type of thing could go a long way to what they are talking about.
Don’t be afraid to change – 2 themes a month is your promise to your subscription customers. Maybe look at that and see if it is still relevant in this day and age. I am sure your customers would be open to new ideas if it meant they where getting quality instead of quantity – don’t get me wrong – I am not saying you deliberately push out stuff that is not quality but I do get the impression that you are releasing themes that are very similar because of this promise instead of taking your time to come up with fresh new ideas. BTW – I am not a subscription customer, I prefer buying my themes directly. Also, don’t spend 80% of your time developing features and themes that only apply to 20% of your customers unless you know you can make it profitable and sustainable.
Personal site – I would like to see themes that don’t need a blog at all. Just life stream / social functionality. Take something like your Therapy theme and instead of the blog being there, just shove a life stream feed in the main page.
bbPress and BuddyPress – it’s time you supported these as more and more blogs are going to have these plugins enabled. Look at the WordPress roadmap and you will see that it’s going to be as simple as pushing a button to get bbPress. BuddyPress is already like that. Charge is extra for them if you want but consider it.
Finally I want to say that I think it is great that you guys are so open to receiving feedback and ideas from us.
Good luck with whatever you end up doing.
re: the child themes. This sounds really good on paper, and the framework would probably work good for different types of themes, where all biz themes used the same updated framework. The problem comes in then having a child theme for that, and then having a grandchild for that if you want to customize it. I don’t think the majority of our customers is ready for that type of setup yet, but may be easier in the future when most grasp the concept.
Update existing themes vs two themes a month, the trend here is to upgrade existing themes but the business case supports developing more themes for sale. I switched back to Woo because the promised upgrades from another developer never appeared. As far as I know they still haven’t appeared.
Hi
I would just like to add to this debate from the prospective of a non theme developer, it seems to me that although the coding and functionality of your themes is excellent, the consensus is the design does not matter that much as buyers can modify the themes to their own requirement.
This is great if you have the tools and the talent to do this but if like me you have limited Css and php knowledge, and without the software to achieve it, coupled with limited funds to employ a third party to customize your theme it is a very disappointing perspective.
Sure you can purchase great looking themes on other websites, but these tend to be very buggy and carry very little support and few upgrades, where as your themes have a great admin back end, well written code and are continually upgraded.
So to sum up I just feel you could be missing out on a market of people looking for a great design they can use straight out of the box for their own projects. Don’t take my criticism to seriously as I am certainly no expert in this field and it could be that I am just to fussy when it comes to the look of a site, it is just my own feeling on this subject.
You’re not the only one Alan. I feel exactly the same way, and I do have some coding/photoshop experience.
I’d like to see the code base lighter & more optimized to make use of external files. The themes give great flexibility but that comes with a certain amount of overhead. I don’t like seeing js or CSS in in the head.
A few of the designs are getting kinda similar & formulaic.
Themes like City Guide & Cinch caught my attention as they have a unique slant to them. Note I am also not a 1 time customer but use your themes on a variety of projects.
Sorry for the repeat… but I read the blog after posting to the (wrong) forum, so thought my comments would be useful here. I think this should be added at the framework level so all WooThemes could get this excellent functionality.
Category and Tag pages are boring. They show our content packaged in similar groupings, but without any reason to look at them. They’re not compelling for readers, and less compelling to search engines.
What if we could customize the following:
Title – Instead of the category name, the ability to easily replace it with a SEO friendly version of that name. “Community” might make a great category name, but if we’re looking at search engine results, the following example might grab the traffic I really want: “Chester: Our town, our community”
Custom H1 – Because what we want to show up for SEO doesn’t always match what we want to display on the page, the ability to tweak the first H1. Instead of “community” I might customize this to “The Chester Community.”
Meta Description – Something geared toward search engines, not designed to be read on the page, but read in the Google (Bing, Yahoo!, whatever) results.
Meta Keywords – I know, Google doesn’t use them. Yahoo! does (or at least they did a few months ago, who knows, maybe it has changed). I get a lot of traffic from Yahoo!.
Robot Tags – Maybe I want to add noindex, nofollow, or noarchive to some of my category pages to further sculpt my site.
Introductory Text – Rather than using a category description, I’d like the ability to throw a small amount of HTML here. Add a photo, perhaps?
Slider – Perhaps more compelling than introductory text, some users might like the ability to have a custom slider for their category pages. I’m thinking high content volume sites here… if your site is a news site, and 15 posts are being published every day, the ability to focus the category page with a slider might be amazing. This isn’t something I would use personally, but still could be very cool.
Here’s a sample of this in action on a site I haven’t ported over to WooThemes yet:
http://flickrmsh.com/category/monthly-list/
Another reason this matters: Making search engine category pages gives us a much better chance of generating SiteLinks. I accidentally did this by having my tags as do-follow, and the pages were so bad I removed the tags from that site. If I could really customize my category pages, I would be thrilled to have those as SiteLinks.
Oh… and what about the ability to use hooks to remove elements? For example, if I could have a hook to add the nav bar above my logo, and use another function to remove the nav bar where it is currently being served below my logo?
You can do this in Canvas
Mmmm… okay, off to look for it.
Thanks!
Not a fan of the so-called ‘business themes’, for example your Estate theme. Sure, it has some nice features but not everyone will want to use it for real-estate sales, and besides, many established real-estate merchants already have a decent web presence.
I already gave you some valuable feedback on this, but never got a response.
I would love to see a collection of tools and modules much like the guys at YOO Themes have done for Joomla. Totally plug’n'play, enabling us to build the sites we need.
Personally, I would not buy a predesigned theme because I would rather design my own with the content I’m trying to build in mind from the outset.
I can see loads of great elements in all of your themes, and themes by others, such as:
- Object Theme: Great photo gallery per post. I love how it works, very subtle. But I don’t like the design of the theme overall – too restrictive.
- Estate: Custom post types with custom categories – great. But many other aspects are not applicable for my needs, i.e. vacation rentals (never a good idea in this field to mix sales and rentals). For $200 it falls short as it doesn’t allow me to sell listings on the site.
- Real Estate Theme by Templatic: Much better that Woo’s Estate theme in many aspects, such as ability for agents to pay to list, create and manage listings, but the theme falls down badly in its information architecture. E.g. the way it handles geographical values is beyond a joke – it has to be seen to be believed!
- Classipress: A decent classifieds theme with ability to pay to list etc, but uses custom fields to store geographical values which means you cannot build relationships between countries, regions, towns. Also, no ability to filter and display results. Not a problem for most of the people who have bought this theme because they will never have enough listings to justify search filtering
I could go on with more examples but I think you get the picture.
So, I could spend time and money taking all the best bits of these themes to build the site I need, or I go totally custom which is what I am currently having to do.
Or, I could hope that someone will forget about ‘designing’ pretty themes and forcing everyone into a box, and build a collection of modules and tools to enable us to build the content we want – then we can worry about the design afterwards.
I’m more interested in a theme, or framework, which enables me to build, organise and maintain content how I want.
Sort of like a Custom Content Kit like the stuff they’ve done over on YOO Themes (which now support front-end submissions)
Two things.
First, both yootheme.com and rockettheme.com produce fantastic product. However, a high percentage of their themes are for sub-25′s and for sites that are into music, gaming, web design etc. A typical business user, photographer or blogger isn’t so interested in fancy gimmicks and over-designed sites – it’s all about functionality.
Second, I’m at the opposite end of the spectrum. I am looking for a theme that I can implement with the minimum of change – a) because I haven’t got the time, b) because I haven’t got the in-depth knowledge of WP, and c) because I don’t want to have to learn how WP works, I just want it to, well, work!
So from a WOO perspective, I guess you guys have the difficult job of building themes that suit everyone – and that’s just impossible!
From my perspective, your themes are solid industrial strength product that are more mainstream in design that YOO or Rocket, which suits me fine. Of course, improvements can always be made, and I would suggest that something like Awake and Prosto (both on Themeforest) are worth looking at.
Jim, I think you need to look at yooThemes in more depth, less their themes and more at their Zoo builder and yooTools, not to mention their Warp framework. Very, very modular.
In fact, their cck enables you to build directories, product catalogs, recipes sites, knowledge bases etc. It’s all there.
Btw, rocket themes aren’t in same class as yoothemes in terms of what they’re offering.
I’ve beat this drum a few times – and really, it’s not a huge deal as I’ve been able to implement changes pretty easily – but support for various font directories would be nice. Google’s font directory, in particular, would be a nice addition to the framework. Having the option to use Typekit, etc. would also be nice.
It’s really refreshing that everyone at Woo is so open to suggestions. Not too many businesses would open themselves up to criticism – especially in public! – but you guys are the bee’s knees.
Wow, never seen such a Woo-thread! Great that you’re listening. Here’s my two-penneth …
1. Ecommerce (great to hear that it’s coming)
2. Close integration with small business CRM, eg Highrise
3. Close integration with online billing eg CannyBill
4. Member plugin integration (as mentioned above)
5. User ratings on posts
6. Combination of above so users can add posts, rate others and update their own records in CRM (eg contact details)
7. Close integration with MailChimp / Campign Monitor (although Highrise already does this)
– The above will transform WP into a truly useful online system for businesses –
Photography themes would be nice, but do some or all of the above and you will have revolutionised WP
Keep up the good work
What is the rationale in wanting something that is integrated to that extend? Most of that integration is just backend integration combining all the admin tools into one dashboard; so the benefit isn’t great (especially not for the end-user) imho.
My list above wasn’t for one theme, it was a wish list
I have a few larger clients who use Access and other databases, which are managed manually (cut n paste) and aren’t integrated with their website. The ‘holy grail’ for me would be to know that I can give them a site which is joined to an easy-to-use web-based CRM. Without too much custom coding required (hey this is a wish list!
). If users could update their own records then all the better. eg CiviCRM. I mentioned Highrise as it has so many plusings/add-ons with other services. When these customisation/expansion options are available it becomes much more flexible, so relevant to more businss types.
One more thing — what happened to the development of that WooThemes iPhone app?
More news on that next week.
i’d like to see you create a mobile wootheme theme or plugin that works with the woo framework, as well as the custom post types in your tumblog themes, such as used in retreat and cinch.
for instance, right now, most mobile plugins, such as WP-Touch, do not recognize the custom post types, and only return a title and blank post.
I’ll echo a comment I saw in the other discussion. The need for an amazing “directory” niche theme:
“2.) The Directory. Man do I have a need for a directory theme. Restaurants, hotels, bands, instructors, you name it. Some need Map integration, all need custom post types. Basically a generic/multi-purpose Estate or just some way to search by multiple criteria.”
That sounds like exactly what I need (plus the ability to have upgraded listing with priority placement). If you make it generic enough (with the ability to add custom post types that are easily searchable…sort by price range, sort by feature, sort by rating), it be a niche theme that fits a TON of niches.
We’d be honored to have you include Carrington Build in an upcoming WooTheme. Please get in touch if you’d like to explore our royalty edition, it’s designed for great theme developers like you guys.
Though Alex is doing a bit of self promotion here (nothing wrong with that!
) But Carrington build would indeed be a great addition and possibly answer to most of your problem…
One criticism is that new features are not available to club members… please CHANGE this.. increase the price if you need to (not by much mind!!) but make everything available to us club members..(expression engine etc….)
Consider yourself e-mailed kind sir.
We’re taking this to the next step… I’ve compiled the most concrete ideas here: http://woo.uservoice.com/
Feel free to jump in there, comment & vote on your ideas.
An update will also be forthcoming early next week.
More magazine style themes! How about a Magazine style theme with great ecommerce features, especially a magazine theme that looks as good as Mimbo Pro? -:) I’ve seen several references online to Mimbo Pro’s classy design, but purchased Woo Themes instead, mostly for their more frequent updates and support…
New here, looks like you are a very innovative company that listens to its customers… much appreciated!
Oops! looks like the 1st part of my request (more ecommerce features) may be answered by your announcement about a “generic add-on (WooCommerce) to use in any other WooThemes themes.”
A Membership site would be a good addition. More an application than just another theme.
Workable newsletter subscriptions would be a good general inclusion, and the ability to sign up members, take donations and or membership subscription payments and auto emailing reminders for renewals.
I think your recent shortcodes for buttons and alert boxes were great, but the colors I thought were not as bright as they could be. e.g bright reds, orange, green and blues. [Contrasting with the themes rather than being themed into the site. You don’t want to lose sales, because the submit action was not clear enough.
Also the buttons would be great with a padding element so you could make massive “Submit Now” buttons for call to action areas on your site and to move people through the sites.
I like the fact that you guys are retro fitting some of the new elements into older themes. Great work.
I’m pretty excited about the upcoming e-commerce themes to say the least. But what I’d like to see as a feature on these themes is the ability to have the ui of the product detail page be as simple and easy as possible. I’m a bit fed up with shadowboxes popping up for close-ups of product and want to minimize the amount of clicks a visitor has to make. Here’s an example and inspiration; http://poketo.com/shop/living?product_id=1131
A nice big image, clickable or rollover thumbs and I’d be a happy camper! : )
@ralph I totally agree with you, I’m also fed up seeing lightboxes popping up, they’re annoying and unusable and how many times have you clicked one to find the image in the lightbox isn’t much bigger than the thumbnail you’ve just clicked on!
The YooTheme guys, who develop for Joomla, have some nifty tools, including a gallery one which you can decide if you want to display your gallery as a lightbox or slideshow.
Woo has developed a nice gallery in their Object theme.
Well all ask for is more business templates and the eCommerce plugin. Hopefully, we will be able to turn off/on the shopping cart option and just use the plugin as a simple catalog just showing the price, details, images but not add to cart option. I would like that very much like VirtueMart for Joomla. thanks..
Also I forgot to mention, the ability to migrate the plugin to other sites in a multisite environment. For instance if upload 100 products on one site. I would like to easily migrate it to another site without having to upload all products again. In others share the shopping cart accross multiple sites. Not sure how difficult this can be. thanks again.
Another dedicated photographers theme……
When getting into WordPress for the first time, I initially purchased a Woo Themes theme. Was attracted by the simple layout, and more so by the openness of the developers and the communications with the users. But I never used it as I quickly began to think that it’s style looked outdated. I’ve kept an eye on the themes ever since, and none have ever grabbed me. Guess I agree with others that say the front end design seems to just not be that interesting and unique.
For comparison, I’d look at Rocket Themes and YooThemes, specifically their Joomla templates. I realize part of the differences are in the platform, but they have really neat typography and layout – some are just leagues above what is available for WordPress. I realize that Yoo also creates many of the plugins (tools) that their own themes use – perhaps that’s the way WordPress template designers should go instead of spending time on frameworks?
@Schmitty, I couldn’t agree with you more. I’ve never purchased a Woo theme but that’s not to say I don’t think they’re any good, on the contrary.
YooThemes is a great example of them creating a framework from which users are free to build their own functionalities etc via their tools and Zoo framework.
I guess the guys at Woo have been smart to realise that template designs just aren’t enough these days, hence why they are now crowd-sourcing for ideas – rather desperately it seems too judging by their uservoice site.
Don’t spread yourselves too thin; and understand the business problems you’re trying to solve. Estate is nowhere near worth $200 in its current state, which is not to say it won’t be worth that (and more) in future, just not now.
I’ve been looking closely at the work by the guys over at AppThemes and they’re wisely focusing on function with their themes.
Hell, even Spencer Finnell, who has some indirect association with Woo as the other half of WPBundle, questions the ‘premium’ theme model in this post:
http://spencerfinnell.com/2010/08/25/on-premium-themes/
How about make things “dragable areas”
The CSS Box Model, to make boxes where ever we like. FOr example, if i want to move the “title” of the post, i just drag it and move it on the position i like!
I don’t get what the super user id is. please explain. and what happens specifically when the “framework settings” are hidden. please translate into plain english. thanks!
Please post in our forum and we will help you out
All sounding very exciting and looking forward to it!
People have mentioned documentation and more videos on using the theme with examples would be really helpful – the 2 currently there on Canvas are great, but there is so much more you can do (which I’m only just discovering) without needing to touch any code.
Also the firebug video still doesn’t really help me understand how to use it although I am a complete novice at all this so maybe it will make sense soon. I’m sure there must be some good ones out there already so maybe doesn’t need Woo to do one but brilliant if anyone knows of one and could post the link somewhere. Sure it would cut down the forum posts from beginners
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