Shifter is a new direction for our Wordpress themes. With our “Shifter” themes, we will help you put control of your layout in the hands of your user. That might be a scary thing for some of you, but because Shifter is part of our No Complaints Series of themes, you won’t have any problem pulling off this new direction for your blog.
Demo and Download
Demo this version of Shifter here. Download from the Shifter page.
What Shifter Is About?
So many Wordpress theme designers try to pump out themes with an eye catching background here or an artsy header image there. At some point, Wordpress blogs start to look like the same thing. Index pages look like single pages that look like archives pages that look like… well, you get the idea.
Not with Shifter. We are going to continually and regularly update Shifter with so many layout variations it might become obnoxious! We think we might be able to keep it up on a daily basis for at least 30 days if we don’t burn out.
We also hope to make each new update a piece to the puzzle that is your blog layout. By updating looks in tiny increments, we will expose your blog and your users to many different layout looks in a small span of time. With the multitude of layout possibilites we are able to design on top of our No Complaints foundation, you’re bound to find something that will work.
What Shifter Is NOT About
Shifter is about structural purity and functionality. Shifter is not about a bunch of different header images or amazing gradients that make you look that like that other amazing web 2.0 gradient site. We may not change the colors of Shifter throughout the process just to make a point. At some time in the future, we hope to release skins for Shifter that can be switched in and out regardless of what version of Shifter you are using. You’re more than welcome to colorize and beautify as you please but at this point in development, we are concentrating on a solid structure for your blog.
Release 1: Shifter 750-300
The first release of Shifter is a simple 750px two column layout with a 300px sidebar… the catch is that the sidebar can be varied using AJAX. The theme defaults to a nice wide sidebar on the right that will accommodate lots of those trendy 125×125 square ads you see everywhere now.
Users control the layout. You don’t. If a user is comfortable with the standard sidebar on the right let them have it. If they want the sidebar on the left, let the user shift it. It doesn’t matter if the bar is on the right or the left to you because everything is structurally sound and your blog looks great. By letting users determine your blog layout, you have happy users. That’s good a thing.
The Shifter sidebar is widgetized and will be througout the series.
Release Notes And Licenses
Shifter is released under the GPL. The theme contains no sponsored links or malware, it does contain one of our links because we designed it. If you don’t want the link there, take it out. If you take it out, we would at least like you to drop us a note so we could see the theme in action. We may start a showcase or gallery of Shifter at some point. Part of the code is based on the Yahoo! YUI, which is an incredible libary of user interface tools for developers.
Shifter is Wordpress 2.3 good to go. It will also work on all of the lower versions of Wordpress 2.x.
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