I’ve been pretty busy lately as for the past few months, with a never-ending truckload of work thrown at me everyday. Nevertheless, it’s kind of interesting, and frustrating at the same time.

I’ve managed to squeeze some time to work on Arras Theme, which has been updated to 1.4 with many new features targeted for WordPress 2.9. Do check it out here.

Once the theme is almost bug-free, it’s time to move on and work on a new project. Maybe a new WordPress theme?

I have been actively developing the framework, pushing in new ideas and finding simple approaches to make theme development much easier. If you have actually explored the repository up at Google Code, you would have noticed some additions into the framework.

Minify Support

One of the main features that I have been trying is to add support for Minify, which allows you to combine, minify and cache your CSS and JS files. WordPress actually has an internal caching feature for their CSS and JS files that will be implemented in 2.8, but it will only be used in admin. So to provide support for this app, the theme developer would probably have to do the following things:

• Define the path Minify is installed, with their own configuration.
• Use wp_enqueue_script to add their own JS files instead of echoing out the HTML tags like you would normally do.
• Use a special framework function bf_add_stylesheet to include your stylesheet instead of using @import or the <link> tag.

As long as the path to the installation path is defined, the framework will kick in and add an option into the admin to allow theme users to enable or disable the feature. An additional option will also appear to allow the users to delete the cache should they change anything in their CSS and JS files.

This feature should appear in the 0.6 stable release of the framework.

Let’s just be honest, the theme does not make as much revenue compared to other premium theme forerunners such as WooThemes and StudioPress. So hiring someone to do the job for support, in my opinion, might not be feasible (when I mean hiring someone he/she must know what he is doing).

Another thing is that I have joined the WPSynergy (formerly WPGorilla) team, where we aim to create great free premium themes for everyone to use. The GPL, and the idea of free software really influenced me a lot into making a decision for this theme.

Hence, I have decided to end commercial support for this theme. If you have purchased any theme packages offered either here or the official website, commerical support will end at June 31, 2009. That leaves you about a month and a half to spam all your support requests to me.

Wait! Does that Mean it’s the End?

Nope, this does not mean that it is the end of the theme. I will still provide updates and support whenever I can via forums, email or IM (you can try spamming me every night like most customers do, it might work ).

When I am writing this post, the major update 1.3.0 is completed and ready for release. I will try to upload the theme to the WordPress themes directory, which means getting updates will be way easier now.

What it also means, is that Arras Theme is going to be a free-mium WordPress theme. IMO, this works better. More bugs will be found, more ideas can be thrown around, it would greatly benefit the theme.

What’s Going to Happen in the Next Few Days?

Just to summarize what I have been crapping about:

• Commerical Support will end at June 31, 2009
• Support Forums will be revamped and opened up to everyone (into Community Forums)
• Arras Theme 1.3.0 will be available via WordPress themes directory (needs approval)
• I get no income via Arras Theme (that means if you like it, start donating!) 

I hope I did not drop a bombshell here…

The portfolio page is still being worked on. I have my works thrown all over hard drives and portable devices, so it will take me a while to consolidate them.

This theme, by the way, is created with the Buffet Framework as the parent theme.

Basically, everything is been created from scratch, which means you can edit the background, sidebar, the text and almost everything (except the logo and the RSS feed icon).

The layers have been named and organized into folders, mainly the two: editable and non-editable. The layers in the editable folder are the ones which Twitter allows you to change (sidebar borders, link text).

Download the psd file

You can download the PSD file here: Download

(I created this using Photoshop CS4, but I’m not sure whether this will work well on previous versions)

If you have created a twitter background using this template. Be sure to tweet about it to me (@zyml)!

The idea behind this event is to promote Web Standards. Plain and simple. This includes proper use of (x)html, semantic markup, a good hierarchy structure, and of course, a good ‘ol play on words.