WordPress “Art Direction” Plugin, from Automattician Noel Jackson. Basically allows you to do what Joe Santa Maria does for his blog without all the custom code and template hacking, just a simple plugin.

Leviathan

Leviathan is a child theme available under the Hybrid theme framework. Two column, widget ready, gravatar ready with threaded comments support.

deCoder

Fixed width, 2 columns, right sidebar, widget ready with threaded comments and avatars.

WP-Christmas

Three columns, Widget ready, Adsense ready, Left and Right Sidebar, Fixed width theme

WP-Dodson

Two columns, Widget ready, Adsense ready, Right Sidebar, Fixed width theme

Emplode

A clean and simple two-column, fixed width theme supporting widgets.

Are you a theme author? Read how you can submit your themes to us.

First off, BuddyPress is looking real good these days. Secondly, I’d like to thank Andy Peatling, head honcho for the BuddyPress project for stopping by and lending us an hour of his time to explain exactly what BuddyPress is and does. On December 15th, 2008 Andy released the first beta version of the project. So what exactly is BuddyPress?

BuddyPress is essentially a set of WordPress MU specific plugins. Each plugin component adds a distinct feature to BuddyPress and only handles functionality for that specific component (for example, private messaging). BuddyPress also has a core plugin that all other plugins require, it contains shared functions and performs the basic modifications to the WordPress MU interface.

Tune into the show to hear Andy delve into the feature set of the project as well as taking questions from the audience. By the way, if you don’t have the ability to install WordPress MU and then BuddyPress, you can view and participate in a live demo by registering an account on http://www.testbp.org

Announcements: This was our last show for 2008. Keith and I look forward to creating more great podcasts in 2009 and we both thank each and everyone of you who continue to support the show. Have a happy holiday and a merry new year.

Mark E. Will Be On The Show For January 2nd To Discuss His Comprehensive Security Plugin

WordPress Weekly Forums:
Please join the forum for WordPress Weekly to discuss things you heard on the show, share tips and tricks, give feedback, or to let us know something you think would be great for the audience to know about.

WPWeekly Meta:

Next Episode: Friday January 2nd, 2008 8P.M. EST

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Length Of Episode: 55 Minutes

Download The Show: WordPressWeeklyEpisode34.mp3

Listen To Episode #34:

On Thursday, December 18th, I had the honor of having a fireside chat so to speak with Matt Mullenweg. The chat lasted a little over two hours and then, Matt stayed around after the show for an additional two hours to field questions from anybody that asked them. There are a number of things that I have taken away with this chat with Matt and I’ll be listing those in an article in the following days but without a shadow of a doubt, Matt is a stand up guy. He answered all of my questions, even the tough ones which were submitted by the community. While there is room left to debate the GPL and what is or isn’t compliant, Matt answered the GPL questions to the best of his ability and in most cases, his answers are nothing more than his personal opinion since certain aspects of the GPL would be much clearer if there was a court case to stand by.

I really feel as though this two hour recording is the most important recording I’ve made yet and is the biggest contribution I have made so far, back to the community. If there was one podcast that you should listen to as it relates to WordPress, the GPL, Matt’s involvement with Automattic and the Project, this would be it. Special thanks to Matt Mullenweg for agreeing to come on the show to address all of the issues that were presented to him by me.

To get a sample of the information discussed in this episode, here are the list of questions that I asked Matt. After this list, he took questions from anyone that asked them either by those who called in or sent them in the chat.

Why were those themes removed from the repository and if you look back at the situation now, do you think you made a mistake by not making a public post about the removals?

Can you explain why the new guideline was added to the theme repository?

Why is it that so many people within the inner circle of the WordPress community believe you and Automattic don’t want anyone else profiting through or around WordPress?

In your opinion, do you think that premium themes have actually benefited the community by way of furthering the overall development of WordPress themes?

In a recent conversation, I saw you describe premium themes as propietary and how you felt that was a better word than premium. Why is that?

How many of these debates and the way things are done are a result of their not being a court case to go by?

Does it bother you at all to see countless debates on various WordPress theme author sites about the GPL and what is and not compliant with it?

Drupal and Joomla have decided the commercial stuff is okay but why not WordPress?

In November of 2007 hot off the heels of WordCamp Argentina, news came out about a possible theme marketplace where people sold themes through the marketplace and the theme author as well as Automattic each recieved a cut of the profits. Was that your way of trying to help premium theme authors and has their been any progress on the idea?

The Drupal community has debated this GPL/Premium/Theme issue for a while. And a solid understanding has come from it:

A theme is made up of several files - template files (ending in .php), CSS, images and JavaScript. The template files are considered a part of Drupal, which is licensed under the GPL, which means they are not restricted in their redistribution. You are free to share the .php files so others can benefit from them. However, the rest of the theme - images, CSS and JavaScript - is independent from Drupal and owned by us and licensed by you for one website per purchase. You may not publish or share these parts of the themes with anyone else. Please review our EULA for full details. (Taken from a Drupal Theme Developers page)

When the notion of making money by selling themes pops up at WordCamps, you are quick to explain the WordPress.com business model of selling services and building support/value around the prodcut but this model will not work for everyone. What is a premium theme author to do?

I’ve spoken to a few premium theme authors and they tell me that because of the GPL, nothing stops someone from picking up Brian Gardners themes, changing the footer link and then undercutting his business by selling support at a cheaper price. Is that a valid argument?

Redistributing paid themes for free, which is ok under the GPL thus, rendering the business model of selling themes useless, as I understand it. Yet, that hasn’t happened and I wonder if that is because most end users are not aware of the GPL, all they see is the single-use multi-use licenses attached to themes

Is there a way where premium theme companies such as iThemes and you or Automattic can come to a compromise?

Lets say I have a template generator that outputs GPL themes, but has premium features. It could be used to create freebie themes which would be eligible to be in the repository, but since the generator outputs themes with a link back to my site which promotes the premium services, which in turn may be used for creating themes suitable for the repository, but again those themes have a link back to my site.

Is it true that the notion of Child themes which appears to be gaining momentum can be viewed as a loophole as far as the GPL is concerned considering these are themes which are purele CSS and Image based?

At what point do you stop accepting good themes that comply with the GPL because of a connection an author has with commercial themes. How far does it go.

If WP.org is about the community, why are decisions made unilaterally, rather than by the community?

Just out of curiosity, do you get annoyed sometimes by people blaming or mentioning Automattic for the decisions or things that take place for WordPress.org? I mean, Automattic and the WordPress project are two separate things.

What is your role with automattic and what is your role with the wordpress.org project and is their ever a conflict of interest between the two?

In your opinion, how far does the GPL go? CSS, images, phpfiles,

Why have you not used the WordPress development blog to bring forth the issues of GPL and various other aspects of the project?

This whole show has pretty much been dedicated to themes but how does all of this effect plugins, the plugin repository and such?

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Length Of Episode: 2 Hours 11 Minutes

Download The Show: InterviewWithMatt.mp3

Listen To The Special Interview With Matt Mullenweg:

Mastering Your WordPress 2.7 Theme & Admin Area: Tips and Tricks.: Noupe has a nice writeup on mastering WordPress 2.7 Admin and understanding how to use the new features of WordPress 2.7 in your theme. These include

• 1.1. Enhancing Comment Display - Threading, Paging, etc.
• 1.2. Make this post sticky
• 1.3. Post Classes
• 1.4. wp page menu
• 1.5. Logout Link
• 2.1. Keyboard Shortcuts for browsing and moderating comments
• 2.2. Reply to and Edit comments from Admin Area
• 2.3. Edit comments from Admin Area
• 2.4. Allow plugin installations via web interface from Admin Area
• 2.5. Admin’s new Navigation Menu
• 2.6. Interesting Dashboard Modules: QuickPress & Recent Drafts
• 2.7. Quick Edit Option in Admin area
• 2.8. Auto Close Comments And Trackbacks
• 2.9. Bulk Edit Posts

I wish there were anchors or separate pages to link directly to each piece, but alas they are all lumped together. This is a nice read nonetheless.

New Plugins

WP AutoSuggest

Search on my blog by typing in a keyword rather than waiting for the results page to load.

PostRank

This plugin adds the PostRank Top Posts Widget & Analytics to your blog. PostRank measures the engagement with each story by analyzing the types and frequency of social media interactions. The more interesting or relevant the story is, the more active your readers will be in sharing it.

WP Lifestream

Lifestream displays your social feeds and photos much like you would see it on many of the social networking sites.

WordPress Video Solution Framework

Video solutions framework, including player, transcoder and administration interface utilities as wpmu plugin. It powers wordpress.com video solution.

wp2blosxom

Exports all your posts to a zip file containing a blosxom style directory hierarchy of posts.

Sliding Post - Slides latest posts with Carousel effect

A plugin for WordPress which shows latest 10 posts with carousel sliding effect which is SEO friendly. User can set the height, width, and the time duration of the slide show.

Paginator

Adds the “paginator3000″ paging navigation to your WordPress blog.

wp-mailfrom

Allows you to configure the default email address and name used on email sent by WordPress.

Quick Admin Links

Widget to add useful admin links on every page, allowing you to add new posts/pages, edit existing posts/pages, go to the admin, or log out.

Hide Update Reminder

Hides the Update Reminder in the Admin for all non Admin users.

Google Custom Search Plugin

Google Custom Search plugin for WordPress replaces the default search engine with Google’s Custom Search for websites.

Updated Plugins

Kimili Flash Embed

The Kimili Flash Embed is a plugin for popular open source blogging systems that allows you to easily place Flash movies on your site.

TDO Mini Forms

This plugin allows you to add highly customizable forms to your website that allows non-registered users and/or subscribers (or any flavor between) to submit posts. The posts can be kept in “draft” until an admin can publish them (also configurable). It can optionally use Akismet to check if submissions are spam.

HeadMeta

HeadMeta is a simple plugin to help with SEO and other purposes that require customized ‘meta’ and ‘link’ tags in the header of your theme.

Advanced Category Excluder

ACE can override your search results, your RSS feed listing, your category listing, your recent post, and recent post widgets and also your entry page, or even hide whole categories of posts from web crawlers if you want to.

Blibahblubah

This plugin allows the blog owner to customize the tag cloud so that any reader mousing over the tag cloud will see the words in the tag cloud flicker with a customizable effect. This is just a fancy bell and whistle to add to your blog.

Facebook Posted Items

This plugin fetches posted items from Facebook and displays them in an unordered list with proper links and comments.

Simple Tags

This is the perfect tool to manage perfectly your WP 2.3, 2.5, 2.6 and 2.7 tags.

StatPress Reloaded

This plugin shows you real time statistics about your blog. It collects information about visitors, spiders, search keywords, feeds, browsers, OS etc.

Popupper

Popupper is a plugin that enables a blogger to add popups of images and text into their posts.

If you are a premium theme developer or have an interest in WordPress themes, you may have heard that over 200 themes were removed from the WordPress.org theme repository. The reasons behind the removals have yet to be made public and there is more afoot than just the removal of themes. Over the course of the past few days, debates and discussions have been taking place on numerous blogs regarding WordPress, the GPL, themes and much more. Matt has agreed to appear on WordPress Weekly on Thursday at 1 P.M. EST to set the record straight so to speak. My goal for this special episode of the show is to get an explanation as to what happened with the theme repository, the new guidelines, Matt’s stance on the GPL, the entire issue of premium themes, what will happen with plugins and a whole lot more. This episode is really important to me as I try to clear up as much of the muddy waters as I can.