Side Notes

Introduction:  This entire post was compiled from posts made by Iskwew, one of our repeat customers and a frequent contributor to our forum.  She raises so many good points that we wanted to share this with the Solostream community through our website.

New To Solostream Themes? Here Are Some Tips For You

If you have just bought a theme, there are a few helpful things you need to know before you start setting up the theme, and discover that you can’t get it to look as nice as the demo you saw.

Make sure you upload the theme correctly to your server

When downloading the theme, it comes in a zipped file. Unzip the file with appropriate software. I use the inbuilt unzip functionality in Vista, but there are programs for unzip as well.

Look at the unzipped folder. Some of the themes will after unzipping have a two folders with the same name i.e. /wp-smooth_ basic/wp-smooth_basic/ Make sure you upload the theme from the lowest level folder. If you upload with two folders, one inside the other, the theme will not be functioning properly.

Read the posts on the theme demo site for your chosen theme.

You will find all the basic information you need to start setting it up. There are a few things common on the demo sites. A get started post, listing any additional plugins you need, and how to do the basic things you need to do to get it working, and information about Featured Posts, Banner Ads, etc.

Reading those posts will get the theme basics up and going (and with Solostream themes, it’s not hard!)

Search the forums

You can either search the whole forum (if you are at the top level) or any of the underlying theme forums (if you are in one of those). What you are struggling with will most likely have been encountered by other Solostream theme users.

Ask in the forums

If you have read the theme demo site, and searched the forums, but still haven’t found the answer, you can ask in the forums. The Soloteam and associates (Martin is a big help) are very helpful and can pretty much solve almost everything. Or maybe other forum users have had the same issues and know the answers.   Be patient and you will get an answer, at least that’s my experience.

Avoid editing php and css files inside WordPress.

Download for instance PSpad editor, it’s freeware and makes working with theme files a lot easier. Download here: http://www.pspad.com/en/. Now all you need to do is to play around with colours in your theme settings page (for the themes that have those) or dive into your CSS.

Thanks Iskwew for the great contributions on this topic.  It is greatly appreciated and helpful.

After careful consideration and attentive listening to customer feedback about WP-Vybe 1.1, we have revamped the theme and are excited to now have a new 2.0 release for you.

WP-Vybe has been a much-loved theme for many customers but there were some concerns about the changes in functionality that were made with the version 1.1 release. Our goal with this 2.0 release was to restore components that were missed by our customers and fix some bugs that have been found along the way. To accomplish this, we returned to the original theme code from 1.0 and rebuilt from there.

The most important changes that you will find with this release are:

• Restoration of original control panel feature controls (fonts, background colors, etc.)
• Revised color schemes built into the control panel
• Integration of the “Recently Popular” plugin to replace “Popularity Contest” (too many customers were having issues with this older plugin)
• Updated FeedBurner code to allow URI instead of ID
• Updated get_the_image code in features.php and post-thumb.php (from 1.1)
• Updated archives and search pages to show excerpts regardless of theme settings (thanks, Iskwew!)
• Updated “Older Comments” and “Newer Comments” boxes to only show up when needed (thanks, Ben and Martin!)
• Added “If you want a picture to show with your comment, go get a Gravatar.” to comments template (thanks, Martin!)
• Added option to turn auto-scroll on/off for Featured Articles
• Added option to hide author bio on single post page
• Added RSS icon/link back to comments template (thanks, Drew!)
• Plus a bunch of bug fixes to improve overall performance

Again, we welcome your feedback (as this release proves, we do listen and respond to what you have to say).

One of our customers sent us the following comment in reaction to WP-Terra’s release:

Must admit Terra is a very nice theme. Very stylish and does not even make the site look like a WordPress powered site.

This in a nutshell described our goal for this new theme.  We would like to push WordPress themes in new directions that change the notion of how people use this platform.

We believe that WordPress is a powerful publishing tool that can help business owners and non-techs harness the power of managing their own web site.  Instead of deploying a standard blog styled theme, we believe there is tremendous potential to create easy to manage web sites that use WordPress as a simple content management system (CMS) solution.

The Solostream team has been working extremely hard over the last month.  We have been aggressively pushing new releases to give you many new theme choices for your blogs and sites.  WP-Smooth was a great release for us earlier in April.  It received lots of positive feedback and some great suggestions.  In immediate response to customer feedback, our designer cranked out a sister theme WP-Clear.  It share the same basic design with the following differences:

• One color/background choice - It gives the theme a very light and clear (Hah!) feeling.
• Lower price - It’s $20 cheaper than WP-Smooth.

Be sure to let us know what you think of it.  And, keep the ideas coming because it is our goal to be responsive to your needs.

Solostream customers have made it very clear that magazine style themes are very popular in the WordPress world.  In response our design team created the new concepts - new glider functionality, new post display options, and great colors - that have been incorporated into WP-Smooth. Plus, this theme offers the web control panel which enables customers to quickly and easily tweak their sites without having to adjust the css or html code on their themes.

Here are some initial reviews from our previewers:

I think the theme looks like exactly what I have been looking for with the boxes suitable for a homepage.  It’s not that I don’t like my other Solostream themes (I use them across my sites, and they look really good).  But Smooth is more what I would like for a web site homepage.

Nice work on WP-Smooth. The 2 column in the posts with the included single column underneath is what a lot of people like nowadays in a theme. Looks like a good cross between Vybe and Magazine! I like the new featured section also!  Well done.

Feel free to check out the WP-Smooth demo site and share your feedback.

We’ve got another great WordPress theme to share with you.  Our team, led by Michael Pollock, came up with new ways to extend our control panel series of themes (which started with WP-Vybe).  The WP-Jazz theme combines some of the most popular features from our older themes with a sprinkling of new ones to offer an innovative theme that can be managed by anyone (even those without in-depth technical knowledge of WordPress).  For details on WP-Jazz features, read this.

Here’s some feedback from our early reviewers:

• Looks and feels like a cross between WP-Vybe and WP-Magazine - love it.
• It’s great to have the static 300×250 window back to the right of the featured glider and glider controls that are now at the bottom of featured window.
• Having the featured article max with an option to 10 is much better.
• The new split right/left feature for the bottom of the sidebar is a great addition!
• Love that all the page control elements are back in the admin panel!
• Really appreciate the 468×60 banner options for the traditional space plus in the header. - A great selling point here is to use that for special announcements etc.
• Nice to have the article and comment RSS feature in the tabbed widget

I must say I’m impressed! I think you guys will have another very popular theme on your hands.

Let us know what you think of WP-Jazz.  We’d love to hear your feedback.

We’re clinking our glasses to celebrate the release of the newest theme in the Solostream family - WP-Crystal.  So come check out our demo site at www.wp-crystal.com.

Inspired by the light and classic feeling of Kubrick, we pushed our team to find new ways to explore the popular magazine concept.   Our team focused on developing design features that quickly style the header and sidebars to create clean designs that can easily incorporate the creativity of our customers to create unique sites.

We hope that you enjoy this new theme and look forward to seeing how it can be used to express great ideas on the web.

After much hard work, the Solostream Team is pleased to let everyone know that WP-Vybe 1.1 is being released today.  Some of our early previewers told us that these changes make the theme look like a completely different product and we should release it separately.  Fortunately for existing WP-Vybe customers, we are releasing the new update to them at no additional cost (current customers will receive an email with download instructions by Feb 13).

WP-Vybe 1.1. Highlights:

10 New Lighter Colors — In response to overwhelming feedback, we have added a new collection of colors including aqua, blush, cardinal, lime, midnight, news, orchid, peach, sage, and timber.  There are now a total of 20 default colors ready to go with the click of a mouse.

Threaded and Styled Comments — WP-Vybe now supports this feature which was released with WordPress 2.7.  Be sure to enable them on your site (Settings -> Discussion).

We also modified parts of the WP-Vybe Theme Settings page to give users more control over the look and feel of the theme.  We attempted to keep it similar to the original look and feel as the WP-vybe 1.0 dashboard.  For advanced users (and only for advanced  users), you can explore the nuances of making changes in the new style.php files.

We thank you for your patience through the process of creating this new release.  While it may seem like it would be quick and easy to just update a few theme files or colors, the fact is that it takes time and careful effort to produce the type of high quality product that you expect from us.

Finally, we are hard at work compiling a list of customer requests and new ideas that we intend to incorporate into a WP-Vybe 2.0 release in the next few months.

IMPORTANT NOTE: Customers who update to WP-Vybe 1.1 will need to carefully note all of the customizations they may have added to their site.  These modifications will need to be added to WP-Vybe 1.1 files before uploading.  Also, be certain to back up all files before attempting any update.

We want to wish Happy Holidays and a joyous New Year to all members of the Solostream Community.

In observance of the holidays, we will be closed on Christmas Day and New Year’s Day.  In addition, we will be operating with a limited support team through the end of the year.

Please be patient in awaiting support responses during this period as we will be spending time with our families.

Warm wishes,  The Solostream Team

We have received a number of inquiries lately about browser display problems like:

My site displays perfectly in Firefox but when I open it in Internet Explorer 7 it is all scrambled. How can I resolve this problem?

First and foremost, we want to let you know that we make every effort possible to quality check our templates before they are distributed for sale. We test them in different browsers and operating systems to ensure that they display properly.

You can test this for yourself by going to the many demo sites that we host and view them in different browsers for yourself:

WP-Vybe - http://www.wp-vybe.com
WP-Magazine - http://www.wp-magazine.com
Zeke 1.0 + Widgets - http://www.themes.solostream.com

If the demo site displays properly and your site doesn’t in the same browser, the most likely causes are:

1. Plugin Incompatibility - You have incorporated a plugin to your site that has created a compatibility problem. It’s like mixing ice cream and steak. Both of them can be very good by themselves but they are not the type of ingredients you want to mix on your plate at one time.

To resolve this situation, we recommend you deactivate the plugins one by one until you isolate the specific plugin that is causing the problem.

2. You may have mistakenly modified the code - This can be a true pain in the neck since there are so many places to look within the site’s code.

Our best advice in these moments is to try the following tools:

- Go to http://validator.w3.org/ to validate the HTML and check for errors
- Go to http://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ to validate the CSS and check for errors

We’ve all heard of Spring cleaning sessions. Well, for whatever reason, Solostream customers have created an equivalent phenomena right now — Fall Update/Upgrade/New Plugin season. Perhaps this is being triggered by the soon-to-be-released WordPress 2.7.

The rash of activity has triggered an important conversation with our team that we need to share with you. One of the most painful (and frustrating) experiences in working with technology is the moment of a major crash when installing an update or the unintended disruption of a feature or service when a new plugin is installed on a site.

The best technology users we know are all paranoid. They expect and therefore plan for the worst to the fullest extent possible. It is their preparation that saves them from setting off a bad situation or makes it easy to quickly resolve a sticky situation.

We encourage all Solostream customers to follow a few basic steps when working on a project for their site.

1. Carefully research the project you want to implement. The Internet offers tons of information and helpful people who have already implemented your type of project. Take advantage of this knowledge!

2. Whenever possible, do not perform work on a live site. Using a back up site will only impact yourself and anyone else who is viewing your test efforts.

3. Become familiar with how to revert your site in WordPress in case you encounter a problem within an update or plugin. You’ll save yourself a lot of stress if you know how to do this before you really need it.

Implement these steps and you’ll become the confident high wire acrobat with a safety net instead of one who goes splat and gets carted away by the clowns.

Yes, you read the title correctly. Believe it or not, the wait is over and the Solostream team has finally launched a forum that all members of our community may use to post support questions, issues, and anything else (General Discussion). Why did it take so long? Well, our security standards had to be met and we wanted to ensure that there is a support community available. SMF exceeded our expectations.

All WordPress and Theme Tutorials from www.solostream.com, www.wp-vybe.com, and www.wp-magazine.com have been carried over. It is now possible to easily find what you’re looking for in the posts. And, if something you need answered isn’t there, you can just create a new topic under the board.

Read More

From inside Solostream, the addition of the new members to the team has gone off without a hitch.  Michael Pollock has provided strong guidance for maintaining the courteous and professional service.

As I considered the comments from recent posts about the significance of maintaining a high level of customer support, I realized that we can “talk the talk” very easily.  However, it is only when you “walk the walk” and let your actions speak for you that you demonstrate true commitment.

I thought our customers and prospective customers would find it interesting to see some of the feedback we have received since Alistair Barnett and I joined Solostream this month.

First there is a complete post from Randall Miller about using WP-Vybe on his site at http://randallhmiller.com/welcome-to-randallhmillercom/.  Thanks Randall.

Here are a few more comments that have been sent to us recently:

I recently purchased another premium theme and I have been very frustrated with how much work/code is required to get it to look or work anything like the demo site. I’ve basically given up because I don’t want to hire someone to make it work and their support is lacking.  I’ve been all thru your demo site, tutorials and Q&A’s and I’m very impressed with the responsiveness and attention to detail that you are using – I hope it continues!

-Dusty E. www.tek-media.net

You are awesome…thanks.  I appreciate the return in helping a novice such as myself.  This awesome customer service is the reason I will be buying a developer’s license in the near future.  I’m glad I bought from this company.

-Corey O. www.worldgonemobile.com

I was up all night trying to figure the subscription, and in 2 minutes, you resolved it.  It now works.  Thank you kindly!

-Gary M. www.seicorp.net

And last but not least, the “personal touch” from a new customer overseas.

Alistair, I want to hug you as it is now fixed! Thank you!

-Natalie L. www.budgetbambinogoodies.co.uk/

We encourage everyone to keep the feedback (positive as well as constructive criticism) coming.  It helps us improve and know that we can make a difference for our customers.

We have great news to share with all of the members of the Solostream community.  Solostream has been acquired by Jigsaw Group.

Jigsaw Group made this purchase because we believe Solostream, and specifically Michael Pollock, has built a great foundation for making significant contributions to the WordPress community.  We are big believers in the value and benefit that WordPress premium templates provide to people and organizations that want to publish on the web. Read More

Via Johnathan @ Premium Wordpress: Win a Premium WordPress Theme from Solostream