The Boardwalk Theme Options Panel includes:

• Featured Category - Designate the Category that displays in the featured image slideshow on the homepage.
  
• Highlight Categories- Select the 3 Categories that will display under “Featured Content.”  The latest post within each Category will display under each section.
• Weather Area Code: Enter your zip code to get up-to-date weather reports at the top of your site.
• Feedburner Settings: Add your feed URL (http://yoursite.com/feed/)  to add the “Subscribe by Email” option to your sidebar
• Main Page Settings – Top Navigation (Pages) – Select the Pages that will display on the top Nav Bar.   Choose to include or exclude certain Pages.
• Sub -Category Settings(Categories) – Select the Categories that will display on the top Nav Bar.   Choose to include or exclude certain Categories.
• Advertisement Settings – Add your 125×125 Ads code to show up in the sidebar Ads section.  Also add your 468×60 code to show ads at the top of each post.

Stay tuned for details on the Elements Theme Options Panel…

The Bloom Options Panel includes:

• Homepage Top Navigation (Pages) – Select the Pages that will display on the top Nav Bar.   Choose to include or exclude certain Pages.
• Homepage Sub Navigation (Categories) – Select the Categories that will display on the top Nav Bar.   Choose to include or exclude certain Categories
• Highlight Settings – Select the 3 Categories that will display under “Featured Content.”  The latest post within each Category will display under each section.
• Advertisement Settings – Add your 125×125 Ads code to show up in the sidebar Ads section.  Also add your 468×60 code to show ads at the top of each post.
• Feedburner Settings: Add your feed URL (http://yoursite.com/feed/)  to add the “Subscribe by Email” option to your sidebar

Read More on the Boardwalk Theme Options Panel for Wordpress…

As a result, we’re thrilled to announce the release of our WPNow Theme Options Panels, now available within all of our themes.   These Options Panels host a variety of configurable features including:  color schemes, featured categories, navigation display, advertisements, social media logins, RSS  feeds and more… all with the click of a button.

While this is nothing revolutionary in the world of Wordpress, it is one more step in our mission to make WP Now Themes the most flexible, straightforward and elegant way to use this amazing platform.  We aim to help Wordpress grow beyond its blogging roots and establish itself as a true CMS to rival the likes of Joomla & Drupal.

In the coming months we’ll talk more about what’s brewing in the WPNow Labs (just think… total navigation & widget customization for each individual post/page on your site, widgets that escape the sidebar and a ‘Set It and Forget It’ Complete Ad Management System).   But today, we want to give the spotlight to our Options Panels:

Our first in the series is the Bloom Theme Options Panel for Wordpress…

The theme updates and theme options panel for older themes have been postponed until WordPress 2.9 is out. We plan on experimenting with WP 2.9’s built-in thumbnail system that will be included with 2.9, as well as a few other 2.9 developer features.

If anyone has any questions feel free to comment below.

Another note regarding browser comparability with our themes. Originally we started out supporting IE6 but we no longer support it. IE6 slows down the development process and prevents us from using certain HTML/CSS techniques that would enhance and optimize our themes. IE6 is also a very outdated browser, for more information about why developers are dropping IE6 visit http://www.ie6nomore.com/ As of right now we currently support and extensively test all of our themes in IE7, IE8, FireFox, Safari, Chrome, and Opera.

As always, let us know if you have any further questions or concerns by emailing us using the contact form on our website.

The first thing I want to explain are the color options. Aside from everything that makes this theme so awesome, the color options are what stands out the most. By default, Huex comes with six different color schemes; blue, green, gray, orange, purple, and red. If the color switcher is enabled then website visitors can click on a color cube at the top of the right column and then magic happens. The webpage fades with a dark opacity and with a colored rotating graphic, indicating that the newly selected color scheme is loading. Once the loading is complete, the rotating graphic disappears as the darkness fades and reveals your color of choice. It really is impressive.

But that isn’t everything… Ryan, our programming guru, spent many days and nights adding special jQuery effects to make certain parts of the design animate with user interaction. For example, a colored arrow drops down from the top of the page when you hover over an item in the top menu. Sub-menus unfold from above, color blocks brighten to full opacity when hovered or selected, and the share and tag menus within articles expand to reveal more options when hovered over. Also, some shamanistic things happen within the featured section with fading, expanding and sliding of the main images, thumbnails and descriptions.

Even though we’ve focused heavily on the awesomeness described above, we haven’t let the more common and standard features slip through our fingers. Features like threaded comments, several assorted templates, an easy contact form, customizable ad spaces, and a handful of other useful things. But enough talk about the endless features, let’s move onto the shining star you’ve been waiting to hear about… The theme option panel.

Huex is the first theme of many to be released with the WP Now theme option panel. The purpose of the panel is to make certain tasks and customization options much easier to execute for the blog’s admin (you). Say, for instance, that I did not want users to have access to change the color scheme of my blog that is using the Huex theme. All I have to do to change that is go into Theme Options within the WordPress admin panel. Within the theme options, I can find Color Settings and change Allow Color Change? from Yes to No, scroll to the bottom, click the save button and then I’m all done… no more color switcher… no more messing with files on my local machine and uploading via FTP. WordPress is simple by default and with our panel, and having an awesome design will not compromise that characteristic any longer!

Including the color settings, other theme options included with Huex are settings for the featured post, connect with us section, articles, main / page menus, the more articles section, and advertisements. Even if you’re a newbie with these kind of things, our panel will really make everything painless. Most of the settings can be set by choosing yes or no, copy and pasting, or selecting radio buttons or check boxes. It’s that easy. For more information regarding the WP Now theme option panel, visit the post that we wrote that goes into the details. For more information about Huex, visit the detail page or check out the demo. And remember – all of our themes are only $29 now, so there is no reason to be shy!

In the past, certain things like setting the featured category and editing the advertisements had to be hard coded into a theme option file. Then that file required you to overwrite the existing file via FTP… and nobody likes saving files, opening an FTP client, overwriting the old file, and so-on. The WP Now theme option panel now streamlines these tasks by adding them into the WordPress admin panel, so there is no more messing with that theme option file or FTP. We’re trying to build as many options into the custom panel as we can. Every theme will have its own specific set of options to simplify all tedious tasks just for that theme.

Our custom panel will be included at no extra charge with all of the new WP Now themes. And all of our already released themes will be getting the inclusion of the panel within the next few weeks. So pretty soon, no matter what WP Now theme you have, you’ll also have our theme option panel.

Huex is the theme that is closest to being released. This theme went through an entire catalog of names until I finally settled and became pleased with Huex. The title of this theme comes from all of the six different hues  you can choose for your color scheme… Including blue, green, gray, orange, purple and red.

As you can see in the mid-right section of the preview image above, there are six different colored cubes. Clicking on the cubes is how you change the color scheme of the theme, and having the cubes display on the page at all is optional. The design of Huex is rather simple, but it does contain some nifty 3-dimensional styles and effects. For one example, colored headings in the right navigation wraparound the light gray content boxes as they become slightly darker.

Even though Ryan hasn’t quite finished integrating the Huex design into WordPress, I’ve been working pretty consistently (and finished) with designing the next theme that will arrive afterward. And that theme is Modesto, our first stab at portfolio-oriented design and functionality for WordPress. Along with all of the standard blog post, category listing, and index page designs, we are also integrating all of the necessary portfolio pages and elements… Such as a listing that includes all of the portfolio items and a page dedicated to the full details of a portfolio item.

The portfolio item page will have all of the project details, up to four different screenshots, and a section for a fully written description. In addition, we’ll be integrating the popular, simple and elegant JavaScript Lightbox application to display larger screenshots of the portfolio items when a user clicks on a thumbnail. Overall, we’re very excited to release Modesto to the public, as we can’t wait to see what our creative customers can do with it.

Despite how eager majority of people become to go on these vacations, trips, and holidays, it’s always nice to return home. Once settled back into your place of residence, friends and family usually ask how the trip was and they usually interrogate you about practically everything. But what if you could just setup your own blog online and handout the URL to all of those people who want to know about your trip. Then you could write-up articles and post them to your blog, where your family and friends can go everyday to catch all of your vacation updates, photographs, and tweets. Wouldn’t that be cool?

What I just described has always been possible ever since WordPress has been around, but with the new Boardwalk theme you can finally blog about your vacation with some style. That’s because we took the time to give the Boardwalk theme a beach-like atmosphere… with a blue sky in the header that randomly shows a variation of objects such as hot air balloons, rainbows, kites, silhouettes of seagulls, and a bright yellow sun tucked behind some cotton-like clouds. The wooden boardwalk stretches to the footer, where the sandy shore gives way to the ocean. Like the header, the footer has sets of objects that randomly displays… like coconut trees, crabs, wooden tables with umbrellas and chairs, and beach balls.

All-in-all, the entire atmosphere of Boardwalk has been tweaked to set the absolute perfect theme for a vacation; relaxed, easy-going, and above all else – fun. The great thing about this WordPress theme is that it can be used for so many things… Use it for blogging about your vacation, or apply it to your cruise company’s WordPress website. Maybe you own a souvenir shop in Ocean City, Maryland or perhaps you provide traveling tips and discounts to vacationers. So many businesses and activities revolve around traveling and vacationing, and just about all of them would be appropriately fitted with a theme for WordPress like Boardwalk.

Before I rant about our new theme for too much longer, you should checkout the Boardwalk detail page or jump right to giving the Boardwalk theme a test drive. The price of this theme starts at only $59.00, but if you decide to purchase it, don’t forget about our 50% discount code “WELOVESUMMER” which will bring the cost of the theme down to an extremely affordable and worthy price of $29.50. Enjoy and have fun on the Boardwalk!

As an end-of-summer promotion, we will be offering all of our themes at 50% off. To get 50% off all of our themes, just use the promotional code WELOVESUMMER at checkout. Enjoy and thanks to everyone who made WordPress Now’s first summer one to remember!