What does it do?

The main purpose of this plugin is to help you monetize your blog, in a smart way i mean. Ad Integration is an all-in-one ad managing platform which lets you create, manage and assign ads to your posts and sidebar as widgets (new feature).

Just as at Custom Widgets 2.0 the management and options panels were tuned up to fit the WordPress 2.7 design, and along with the tune-up we removed useless elements which used up the space. By this way everything got more organized and cleaner.

Assign Ads as sidebar widgets

Did i mention that you can now add your ads as sidebar widgets? I think i did, but eh here’s a quick in-depth look:

After setting the ad location as Sidebar Widget the plugin will automatically create a widget which you will be able to add to your widgetized sidebar from the good old widgets page. And there you have it, you can manage the ads from your sidebar also

How do i use it?

After you’ve installed and activated the plugin a stand alone meu item will appear right below the main menu. This provides quick access to the Custom Widgets management section.

Main Management panel

There are 3 main segments in the management panel: The ads display box, The Options box and the Donation box.

The Ads display box will show all the Ads you’ve setup. Those ads which are written in light grey aren’t public, and those which are written in black are live and running.

The Options box is meant to give you more flexibility and it allows you to define a custom css for the ads and even add html code to appear before or after the ad. The max ad count per page defines  the maximum number of  ads that should appear in the same time on a page.(category pages, tag pages, etc).

Adding a new Ad

Things can’t get simpler than this! Adding a new ad takes just seconds(after a bit of practice of course) and you will easily realize that Ad Integration is a very powerful ad management plugin and it will save you a lot of time and earn you a lot of money(hopefully).

To distingush one ad from an other give a title to your ad(will be visible only to you via the management panel) and insert the html code. The exciting new feature in this release is thge much requested show in sidebar option which if delected will create a widget that will addable to your sidebar from the widget managemenet section.

If you choose to inser the ad into posts you can choose it’s location and it’s alignment. The final step of the new ad setup is the publish function where you can select to publish the ad or not.

Editing An Ad

You can easily edit an ad by clicking the Edit button in the right part of your ad management panel. This will take you to a page where you can edit your ad: rename it,change the code and it contains all the settings which were present on the Add new ad page + EXTRAS.

The extras consist in two handy features:

1) You can choose wether to load the ad automatically or manually. Loading the ad manually means that you will have to inser the generated code() into your post for the ad to show up.
2) By default after adding a new ad it will be automatically activated. You can deactivate it by selecting the No tickbox and saving the changes.

Download Ad Integration 2.0

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Click here to start TS Ad Integration v2.0 download

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Installation

***To upgrade from Ad Integration 1.0 to v2.0 simply overwrite the old files with the new ones.

1) Download the .zip file to your computer and log into your wordpress admin panel.

2) In your admin panel head over to the plugins section and select the Add new segment. Browse to the custom widgets.zip file and click the Install button. WordPress will unzip the plugin and install it for you after which press the Activate Plugin button.

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Support us by donating

We work our asses off to release new plugins and themes for free. Working for free isn’t very motivating as you might know. If you wish to make a small contribution(you will be redirected to a paypal secure page) feel free to use the widget below.Once the donation meter fills up we will release a new theme and a new exciting plugin!

The most significant change you will notice will be the overall design of the Custom widgets options pannel.  We’ve updated the old WordPress 2.6 styled design to suit the new and sleek design of WordPress 2.7. Along with the new design we’ve fixed several compatibility bugs and implemented two much requested features: Widget name display, and more organized management. Click image below for preview.

Your text widgets will now have their title displayed in the widget management section, and finding posts you want to assign a specific widget to just got a lot easier. We got a suggestion from mufasa in which he suggested we add scroll bars to all the widget categories.

As you can see on the management preview we did implement his suggestion to the widgets that are assigned.

I talked to mbogdan and he suggested we don’t implement this feature for posts and tags, because displaying 1000+ posts at a time would put a huge load on the server and database, so to make everything simpler we added pagination to almost all sections.

All  posts/tags/pages, etc are organized alphabetically and by this way using the pagination you will easily find the post or item you want to assign a widget to. Cool huh? Also lets not forget mentioning that using the master tick box you can select multiple posts at once. Click image below for preview.

Basically the bottom line is that you will find the new version of custom widgets more flexible and more simple to use. Even a newbie wordpress user can manage it!

Download Custom Widgets 2.0

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Click here to start TS Custom widgets v2.0 download

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Installation & Usage

***To upgrade from CW 1.2 to v2.0 simply overwrite the old files with the new ones.

1) Download the .zip file to your computer and log into your wordpress admin panel.

2) In your admin panel head over to the plugins section and select the Add new segment. Browse to the custom widgets.zip file and click the Install button. WordPress will unzip the plugin and install it for you.

3) Click the Activate Plugin link, after which you will notice the TS Custom Widgets segment in the bottom of the menu. Clicking it will take you to the management panel.

4) Before you can assign  “custom widget” you will have to head over to the good ‘ol widgets section in  the Apperance section and add or create new widgets. Once you’re done head over to TS Custom widgets section and assign your widget(s) to the desired sections.

5) That’s it, repeat the second part of step 4 with all the widgets you wish to turn into “custom widgets”

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Blog about Custom Widgets

You are more then welcome to write blog post about custom widgets in which you may share your opinion and personal point of view about the plugin. To ensure that we also read it please use the following trackback link in your post:

Support us by donating

We work our asses off to release new plugins and themes for free. Working for free isn’t very motivating as you might know. If you wish to make a small contribution(you will be redirected to a paypal secure page) feel free to use the widget below.Once the donation meter fills up we will release a new theme and a new exciting plugin!

Me and mbogdan(he’s betng4u and yes yes he finally bought himself a domain, suggested by me of course ) decided to take a challenge and release 10 goodies every day for the next 10 days, it will be hard, but hopefully we’ll manage it next to college and other projects.

Here’s what we’ve prepared for you:

The order of the releases might change without prior notice, we’ll try our best to keep the order though.

Custom Widgets v 2.0 – fully upgraded to flawlessly work with WordPress 2.7 and packed with all the requested features including naming for the text widgets and the possibility to assign widgets to static pages set as homepage(can’t guarantee anything!)

Ad integration v2.0 – The release of the first version of this ad-management plugin was in august last year. We decided to upgrade it to 2.0 and to make it fully compatible with the wp 2.7 legacy along with some very very nice tweaks.

Post Quote v1.0 – This will be a brand new plugin, something you’ve never seen before! Basically you will be able to include as many posts you want to refer to in your current post. A bar will be shown which will be expandable. After expansion the post you referred to will be grabbed(ajax baby!) and displayed. The best thing is that we already started working on this. Sweet huh?

Siggie 1.0 – TS Siggie will generate an image which will contain your blog title, the latest post and 3 statistics(for example: total posts, comments and tags). The image will auto-update and by this way you will be able to show off your blog stats in your signature on forums you use.

Folio – The theme is already done, we need to make a few revisions on it. It’s a theme specially made for freelancers to showcase their work. It features ajax sliding for recent work, custom lightbox, automatic thumbnail generation and a very very sleek look. The best thing is that its load time is lightning fast! Ehh what the hell, you can preview it at http://mbogdan.com/playground/wp1/?p=29

Comment Ranks – This plugin will make your blog readers want to comment even more. Basically as the number of their comments will rise they will gain rewards like different color name, rel=”nofollow” removal from links and many other features.

7. All of the old themes will be updated to be fully compatible with WordPress 2.7 legacy.

Clouds theme - this will be a fast loadingsleek looking theme. It will have a right sidebar and the main colors will be grey/light brown/white.

Royale theme - a magazine alike theme packed with lots of amazing features and loaded with ajax features. Fluid width, featured posts, featured post switch and many many other features(curreently the index page has to be done, the comments page is ready)

Install scripts without fantastico - ebook will contain all the tutorials i’ve published on my blog. This way anyone will be able to access it anywhere and share the tutorials with friends.

Contribute to new theme & plugin releases

We work our asses off to release new plugins and themes for free. Working for free isn’t very motivating as you might know. If you wish to make a small contribution(you will be redirected to a paypal secure page) please use the widget below(greatly appreciated).

Thanks!

Comfy News theme arrives from the creator of Guzel Magazine theme, Gabfire. As usual the theme design is extraordinary and makes some premium theme designers feel ashamed.

“Comfy comes with many features, some of them are basic magazine features such as dropdown navigation, feedburner subscription, advertisement spots, featured entries, ajax tabs, widget-ready, gravatars built-in, and more. [...] utilized jQuery to make the widgets fully controllable, you can minimize, maximize, or close any widget from homepage.“

As the author states the theme has some awsome features and its definitely worth checking out.

Theme Name: Comfy News theme
Theme Demo: Testrun Comfy
Theme Release Post: Comfy WordPress News Theme is released

Compositio was designed by Elena of Design Disease and as usual released by smashing magazine . Its a cool theme but a bit too clean, lets be serious now, besides the comment section and box there’s nothing special in it. It has the same old structure as the other free design disease themes do.

Theme Name: Compositio
Theme Demo: Testrun Compositio
Theme Release Post: Compositio: Clean, Beautiful and Free WordPress Theme

The Emplode wordpress theme is based on the Emplode website template by the same author. It was a good move to release it for the wordpress platform also. There aren’t many special features i could mention besides the clean look of the theme and how appealing it is.

Theme Name: Emplode
Theme Demo: Testrun Emplode
Theme Release Post: WordPress Theme: Emplode

I can watch movies(long name) theme was made by ACosmin who’s themes were featured quite a few times in my theme relases. It’s a cool theme but still i have a hard time deciding if it’s a retro or a 3d theme. It has a more out-of the ordinary look, and i’m sure many of you will find it appealing.

Theme Name: I can watch movies
Theme Demo: Testrun I can watch movies
Theme Release Post: Free wordpress theme – I can watch movies

Magasin Tres is an awsome magaizne theme. It would have been even more awsome if it’s width would have been 90% fluid, but eh, the fixed version looks good also. Its main features are: Featured Post, Feedburner Email Subscription, Twitter Account integration, Flirck Thumbnails, Automatic Thumbnail Resizer, Adsense ready with advertising blocks easily customizible via an Option Page.

Theme Name: Magasin Tres
Theme Demo: Testrun Magasin Tres
Theme Release Post: WordPress Theme: Magasin Tres

That’s it for this week. See you in next week’s post.

Before i uploaded my plugin to wordpress.org i wrote a propper readme.txt file which is compatible with wordpress.org’s standards and included it in the package. I also updated the zip file located on my download server, so regardless of where you download it from you will get the same package.

Currently i do not have any plans for a next release of custom widgets, but most probably i will have to once wp 2.7 is released(to make it fully comptible).

If your using custom widgets please Rate my plugin Thanks!

September’s Showcase

1) Star Mag

I really like the sleek blue color and gradient combination in this theme. The different blue variations give a great look, and the bright white color gives contrast to the widely used blue, by this way drawing the visitor’s attention.

The theme features 2 columns and ad-optimization, the right sidebar is widget ready. Featured posts function is also implemented.

Theme Demo: Launch Star Mag Live Demo
Theme release post: N/A – Download: Download Star Mag

2) Aquanova

To be honest i have absolutely no idea why this theme got the name “Aquanova”, but what the heck, what matters is that it looks really good although it doesn’t have an excessive graphics use on it.

It features a boxed design with 2 columns. The sidebar is a bit wider than at the usual 2 columned themes, 3 125×125 ads fit in there. The sidebar also has some nice dhtml addons

Theme Demo: N/A
Theme release post: N/A – Download: Download Aquanova

3) MagazinePro

MagazinePro features a cool blue color combination. The header image is a wooden image, did you ever imagine wood to be blue? Well Seeing is believing and it looks great.

A cool feature is the date-stamp and the out of the ordinary apparel which make the theme look really unique.

Theme Demo: Launch MagazinePro Live Demo
Theme release post: N/A – Download: Download MagazinePro

4) True Elegance

What i really like about this theme is that it looks really fresh and revitalizing. It’s really pleasant to surf on a blog which has a soft-colored theme.

The theme is Ad, Video,  and Entertainment optimized, so if your planning on having a fun yet professional blog this theme is the right choice.

Theme Demo: Launch True Elegance Live Demo
Theme release post: Click to visit the Author’s website
Download: Download True Elegance

5) Puteulanus

I really like the new themes that Lorelei releases. This theme has a really neat and fresh look. The lime green looks sick on the blue.

The theme is ready for Adsense, 125*125 ads, and has a special division for a small paragraph about yourself and a neat, smooth web 2.0 design.

Theme Demo: N/A
Theme release post: N/A - Download: Download Puteulanus

6) BizTheme

This theme would have looked a lot better if the designer would have put a black/dark grey wooden background, not just a simple black background to the HALF of the theme.

IT is a 3 columned theme with 2 widgetized sidebars along with a footer section which is split to 3 parts: Custom links, Recent Blog Posts and Flickr images.

Theme Demo: Launch BizTheme Live Demo
Theme release post: N/A – Download: Download BizTheme

7) Aeros

What mostly got my attention at this theme is the background which is represented by a golfing yard wallpaper.

The elements that overlay on the background have a 30-50% opacity, this meaning that they are transparent.

The theme has a really great concept, too bad that the background image is blurry.

Theme Demo: Launch Aeros Live Demo
Theme release post: N/A – Download: Download Aeros

8 ) Bt Extended

3OneSeven made a great job on this theme also. At this point if we take a look at her portfolio we can easily say that she’s the queen of free typography styled wordpress themes.

BT Ex consists of a fluid five (!) column outfit with a js clock/calendar built in: widgetized sidebar and footer columns, built in are recent comments with gravatars, related posts, social bookmarking enabled.

Theme Demo: Launch Bt Extended Live Demo
Theme release post: Click to visit the Author’s website
Download: Download Bt Extended

9) Google Chrome

I expected more from this theme. It has the Chrome touch, but it also has a huge lack of possible features like ajax navigation, structuring,etc.

Anyway, if you want your blog to look like the Chrome browser go ahead and download the theme.

Theme Demo: Launch Google Chrome Live Demo
Theme release post: Click to visit the Author’s website
Download: Download Google Chrome Theme

10) Greyville

Lightweight,simple,cool. With this theme you can get a loadtime below 2 seconds at your blog. It has a great css backend and some nifty features like:
Grey minimalistic boxed design
Ajax powered sidebar fully and easily customizable
Additional sidebars (left and right) fully manageable through the widget panel at your wordpress installation
Seo ready titles, descriptions and keywords

Theme Demo: Launch Greyville Live Demo
Theme release post: Click to visit the Author’s website
Download: Download Greyville

11) Desk Space

Last but not least, Desk Space. This theme is my favorite from Septemeber’s showcase. It has a really pleasant look which captivates you starting with the point when you enter a blog which uses this theme.

Desk Space is a premium free and feature rich WordPress theme. It comes with a robust set of built in features and plugins, including the ability to switch out the background wood finish color to one you like.

Theme Demo: Launch Desk Space Live Demo
Theme release post: Click to visit the Author’s website
Download: Download Desk Space

After 3 hours of researching, thumbnail creating, post writing, testing September’s showcase is finally done! See you at next month’s showcase!

Hey, and welcome to the montly WordPress theme releases post, this month wasn’t more productive regarding high-quality wp themes than last month, in this post i’ve included 11 themes, and trust me there are a few themes that will blow your mind .

These 11 themes were selected from a total number of 287 themes from Digitalpoint Forums and WeblogToolsCollection

Here’s August’s Roundup

1) E-storage plus

The theme looks great, I really like the overall concept and mostly the sliding images and the lots and lots of color schemes.

Of course the structure has its value also, but the thing that takes down A LOT from the theme’s value is the empty header(which can be replaced ofc).

Theme Demo: http://www.zinruss.com/demo234/
Theme release post: N/A – Download: http://www.zinruss.com/themes/download-manager.php?id=253

2) Reformasi

The thing that makes Reformasi a valuable free theme is its structure nad element combination. You can easily ad-optimize your blog with this theme and in the same time make it look fun and appealing.

The image slider is javascript powered and the  News in Photo section is just brilliant!

Theme Demo: http://www.blogger-template.info/reformasi
Theme release post: http://www.blogger-template.info/reformasi-theme
Download: http://www.blogger-template.info/wp-content/uploads/reformasi.zip

3) Vibrant

There’s only one main sentence i can say about this theme: Light green looks damn good combined with blue.

The posts are included in rounded cornered boxes, and the color combination is a variation of grey/blue/green which makes the theme look really sleek!

Theme Demo: http://test.webfrap.com/?theme=WordPress%20Vibrant
Theme release post: http://www.webfrap.com/vibrant-wordpress-theme/
Download: http://www.webfrap.com/wp-content/downloads/vibrant.zip

4) Acosmin Tech

I think the main reason why i like this theme is the funky top part and the huge advertising box which makes the theme different from the ordinary ad-optimized themes. 3 columned themes are getting more and more popular nowadays.

The comment page also deserves my appreciation. I really like they way Cosmin integrated Gravatars in the posts, good job!

Theme Demo: http://acosmintech.acosmin.com/
Theme release post: http://www.acosmin.com/acosmintech-v1-free-wordpress-theme/
Download: http://www.acosmin.com/download/29/

5) Guzel Magazine

Okay, now really…this is THE HOTTEST free magazine styled theme i ever saw in my life. This theme makes people who bought premium themes regret their decision.

This theme has lots of cool features like Thumbnail Support for Stories, Video Spot, AJAX tabs, & many more, and is IDEAL for a magazine blog. If i would have to rate this theme i’d give it 11/10!

Theme Demo: http://www.customthemedesign.com/guzel
Theme release post: N/A
Download: http://www.gabfire.com/wp-content/plugins/download-monitor/download.php?id=5

6) Global Mag

Yet an other magazine styled theme. The combination of red and blue on a white background makes the theme very appealing and gives it a fresh look.

The theme features a featured article spot, snippets from recent posts from each category and of course ad-optimization.

Theme Demo: http://test.bloggingzone.info/?preview_theme=meg3
Theme release post: N/A
Download: http://bloggingzone.info/globalmag.zip

7) Wp Coda

This theme is so sexy, it’s almost undescribable. When i first saw the preview i said to myself: HOLY SHIT!

WP Coda has lots and lots of jQuery features implemented like sliding, cool hovers, popup bubbles, fancy box.

Trust me on this: This theme will DAZZLE you!

Theme Demo: http://wordpress.bustatheme.com/coda/
Theme release post: http://bustatheme.com/wordpress/wp-coda/
Download: http://bustatheme.com/download/wp+coda+latest

8 ) Wp Coda Orange

WP CODA ORANGE is based on the fantastic theme by Greg Johnson – WP CODA. WP CODA itself was created to “mimic the functionality of the very popular Coda website – created by .Panic to market their web development tools and services. As Greg states, “Every aspect of the Coda website was duplicated and this theme works in every major browser.”

Theme Demo: http://wpcodaorange.kerrywebster.com/
Theme release post: http://wpcodaorange.kerrywebster.com/
Download: http://kerrywebster.com/?download=WP-Coda-Orange

9) CrzyRedBinks

This is a really simplistic theme, but for some reason it looks damn good. I think the grey/red combination and the sidebar elements arrangement makes it looks so good.

A great plus for this theme is the load time, it completely loads under 2 seconds, also the footer isn’t filled with sponsor links . The theme uses PHP files for ads, so ad management is a bit eased.  The bad part of Crzyredbinks is that it doesn’t have an options panel.

Theme Demo: http://demo.slimmity.com/index.php?wptheme=CrzyRedBinks
Theme release post: http://www.slimmity.com/crzyredbinks-v1/
Download: http://www.slimmity.com/download/6/

10) Star Press

There isn’t anything fancy about this theme, i decided to add it because it would fit a teen/gossip blog like a glove. Unlike most themes this theme doesn’t use FAMFAMFAM’s icons which makes it stand out a bit more .

Theme Demo: http://www.onewaylinks.co.uk/themes/star-press/
Theme release post: http://www.onewaylinks.co.uk/star-press-free-wordpress-themes/
Download: http://www.onewaylinks.co.uk/downloads/star-press.zip

11) Web 2.0 Pinky

Definitely for a girl blog. The theme has very few images but the overall concept looks good. The theme could use a bit more elements but even this way it made it to this month’s showcase.

The one thing i really don’t like about this theme is the logo which looks like it was put there because the author didn’t have any other alternatives.

Theme Demo: http://ourfather.co.cc/index.php?wptheme=Web+2.0+Pinky
Theme release post: http://www.teckitech.com/08/wordpress-theme-web-20-pinky/
Download:http://www.teckitech.com/08/wordpress-theme-web-20-pinky/

Okay, i wrapped up August also(2 minutes before the feedburner email delivery, Woot! ), c ya next month

As it’s name ” Ad integration” says the plugin’s purpose is to integrate ads in your posts. It doesn’t mattter what ad you want to ad: Google Adsense, Bidvertiser, or just a link to an image this plugin can handle it, and just as every plugin it comes with a cool options panel.

1. Requirements

1.1 WordPress 2.2 and above
1.2 Administrator account
1.3 Ftp acces to “wp-content/plugins” directory for upload

2. Options Panel

The options panel is divided in 3 main sections:Ad Integration, Donate to Development and Options section.

1. Ad integration section

To add a new ad  click the “Add Ad” button which will take you to the add code page. There define the ad’s title and code. Advanced users: You can define your own HTML wrapper.

“Ad name” = the name of your ad. It isn’t publicly displayed anywhere, it’s just so that you can make the difference between the many ads you will ad.

“Ad HTML Code” = your ad’s html code(Google Adsense for example)

“Use default HTML wrapper” = the plugin can conjure the ad in a custom HTML wrapper which can be defiened in the options section. If you don’t know what this is just leave it on default.

“Max repeat count on same page” = This value defines how many times the ads will appear on the same page. The higher teh value the more times the ads will appear on the page(for example a category page)

“Ad position” = The position of the ad inside the post.

If you want to edit your ad click the edit button next to your ad. This will take you to an advanced options page where you have even more flexibility.

“Load type” = The way the ad is insterted in the posts.

- auto: the ad will be automatically inserted in the posts
- manual: the ad will be shown only in the posts in which you add”<!–slayer_Ad_Integration_[AD_ID]–>” .There’s no limit on the number of ads  you insert in a post.

“Public” = you can set an ad to be visible by your readers or not. This feature is great if you don’t want to delete an ad for later usage.

To delete an ad locate in the “Ads” Section your ad and click the “Delete” button. Remember that this is undoable.

2. Donate to Development

Although i doubt that someone will donate i added a donation section(saw it at many plugins), who knows maybe Bill will start blogging, use my plugin and perhaps make a $ 1mill donation(lol).

3. Options

“Default HTML Before Ad” & “Default HTML After Ad” define the wrapper for each ad. You can owerwrite this by selecting “Default html wrapper”

“Custom CSS” gives you the possibility to add css styling to your ad.

“Max ad count per page“  This value defines how many times the ads will appear on the same page. The higher teh value the more times the ads will appear on the page(for example a category page). This doesn’t apply to manual ad inclusion.

3. Download Slayer’s Ad Integration v 1.0

Slayer’s Ad Integration v 1.0 (Primary Download link)

Slayer’s Ad Integration v 1.0 (Mirror link)

Slayer’s Ad Integration v 1.0 for PHP 4.X

4. Installation Instructions

2.1 upload the slayer_Ad_Integration directory to wp-content/plugins
2.2 activate the plugin (dashboard -> plugins -> find “Ad Integration” -> click the activate button
2.3 eat a cookie
2.4 drink some milk
2.5 you are done, now go enjoy the plugin.

Thanks again for using my plugin Feedback and suggestions are as usual warmly welcome!

Maro theme is the first of this month’s theme series. The theme features a 3 columned design and has a sleek brown background which is pretty pleasant to the eye.

Lets take a closer look at its features

The header image just as at the Chameleon theme is automatically generated, but this time it doesn’t matter what php version you are running. This was BETng4U’s idea, i wanted to include the psd in the package but he kept insisting we do it like this, so here we are.

To change the text simply go to your settings page and change your Blog Title and Tagline.

Maro has 3 columns. I decided to make a 3 columned theme because that is what all people want: mroe space for them to put widgets,gadgets,banners and other stuff. Both sidebars are widgetized so you won’t have trouble filling them up .

All latest wordpress theme features are built in including tag cloud, tags display in post, etc.

As usual the theme is XHTML and CSS valid(although the XHTML validation will be ruined once you start posting, happens at each and every blog)

The theme is fully compatible with WordPress version above WordPress 2.2.

Because the WordPress.org theme viewer doesn’t support the upload of themes which have plugins in sepparate folder we integrated Brian’s threaded comments in the theme. They will be automatically activated once you activate the theme.

NO SPONSORED LINKS! As usual you will NEVER find sponsored links on my themes, just a small link back to my blog .

Maro theme has a Theme settings page. Once you activate the theme you will find the Maro Theme Options at the Design section. There you will be able to edit the links displayed on the right top part of the page. On the settings page you will find a Dinate section, so if you enjoy the theme feel free to donate a few bucks .

Download and Live Demo

Live demo: Launch Maro v1.2 Live Demo
Download Link: Download Maro v1.2 Theme

Installation Instructions

Simply extract the maro.zip archive to your computer, upload the “maro” folder to /wp-content/themes/ folder after which head over to your admin panel and activate the theme. That’s it. No more long install instructions like at the other themes .

Other Mumbo Jumbo

If you wish to further develop the theme or add new features to it feel free to contact me at tom@thaslayer.com

If you find any bugs/problems please post a comment here and they will be solved in the next release!

I checked out a total number of 347 themes, 257 being from DigitalPoint Forums and 90 from WeblogToolsCollection. “Luckaly” the selection was easy, because damn!, there were lots of crappy themes… i can’t figure out how can people release such ugly themes and still put 3-4 sponsored links on them. The good thing is that this month there is 1 more theme included in the showcase than in last month’s roundup!

Let the showcase begin!

1) Gablog Magazine theme

The thing that i like about this theme is that its very tech looking, and perfectly fits a tech/gadget blog.

It features an advanced menu system, Ad optimization, pagination and auto-excerpt along with a great spot for a youtube/metacafe video.

Theme Demo: http://www.gabfire.com/demo/index.php?wptheme=GabLog
Theme release post: N/A – Download: http://www.gabfire.com/downloads/Gablog.zip

2) RemixMag

This theme looks GREAT! The wood background gives it an extra touch of smoothness and expresses the smoothness of the theme.

As you can see on the preview image this theme is also a magazine style theme. It has ad spots and featured post section. You can presonalise it by writing a little about yourself on the sticky note(you will find some great handwriting fonts at Dafont.com).

Theme Demo: N/A
Theme release post: N/A – Download: http://stylishlabs.com/wp-content/uploads/remixmag_premium_theme.zip

3) Luvin’ Grunge

Luvin’ Grunge is most probably the most beautiful grunge styled wordpress theme that i’ve ever seen. Although the base background and many elements are grunge styled the fonts give a clean look to the theme.

The big RSS button also looks great, and jumps in your eye starting from the point when you enter a blog using this theme(great way to get more subscribers).

This theme would look great for a personal blog(maybe an emo blog?).

Theme Demo: http://www.paddsolutions.com/wpthemes/switch.php?template=luvingrunge
Theme release post: http://www.paddsolutions.com/wordpress-theme-luvin-grunge/

4) Softpresence

Softpresence is this month’s sleekest blue wordpress theme. The combination between the different blue variations along with the yellow and white combination make the theme looks extremely appealable and pleasant to the eye.

Theme Demo: http://freewordpresslayouts.com/index.php?wptheme=Softpresence
Theme release post: http://freewordpresslayouts.com/?p=94

5) Probama

If you live in the US and you are a Barack Obama supporter than this theme may be for you.

The theme features Subcategory dropdown menus, Custom archives page, Control panel options for Flickr, Youtube and Feedburner, and many more nifty features.

Theme Demo: http://www.category4.com/wpthemes/probama/
Theme release post:http://www.category4.com/2008/03/11/probama-theme-for-wordpress-released/

6) Positivenoize

This theme got my attention thanks to its simplicity. It doesn’t have many images and lots of extras, but the layout gives the user a clean and easy to navigate layout.

Theme Demo: http://wordpress.positivenoize.com/index.php?wptheme=PositiveNoize
Theme release post: http://www.positivenoize.com/positivenoize-wordpress-theme/

7) Scruffy

If your a teenager in high school/college and  have a personal blog this theme will fit like a glove to your blog.

The theme isn’t very complex, but i really like the color combination and the arrangement of the elements which make the theme fun, but still keep the notebook feeling.

Theme Demo: http://fresh01.co.za/preview/index.php?wptheme=Scruffy
Theme release post: N/A Download: http://fresh01.co.za/downloads/scruffy/

8 ) Typography

This theme exceeds expectations. It’s a high-quality newspaper theme which has comment subscription built-in,built in smart archives,news slider along with a theme options panel.

The design is really clean and fast loading, there’s a lot of css work on the back end, but it surely was worth it because this is just an amazing theme.

Theme Demo: http://wp.3oneseven.com/index.php?wptheme=typo
Theme release post: http://3oneseven.com/12/typography-wordpress-theme-2/

9) SuperFresh

Superfresh is a 3 columned theme with a sleek green color. It features 2 widget-ready sidebar along with a spot for a featured post.

The layout of the post itself is really cool with the gravatar incorporated and the author and comment data acting as a sidebar for each post. The author most probably got inspired from wpdesigner.com‘s layoyut.

Theme Demo: http://themetation.com/demo/superfresh/
Theme release post: http://themetation.com/superfresh/

10) BlueSensation

Enough talk about green themes. Let’s get down to serious colors like blue! Blue is one of my favorite colors, and the blue used in this theme makes the theme look really sleek.

The top and the footer of the theme are great, but the middle section is a bit rushed: elements are disorganized, there are lots of graphical elements that could have been added, but there’s nothing that can’t be fixed with a little work.

Theme Demo: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/demos/index.php?wptheme=Blue+Sensation
Theme release post: http://www.dailyblogtips.com/bluesensation-wordpress-theme-released/

11) Portfolio

This month’s post features once again a theme made by Sorel Mihai From dailywp.com. This theme is unique and one of a kind. It’s ideal for web designers or showcase artists.

The main color is brown, and it can be characterized by sleekness and to the point objectivity. The theme features a theme settings page where the user can edit all the data displayed on the theme(it’s like filling out a resume form)

Theme Demo: http://www.sponsoredwp.info/portfolio/
Theme release post: http://www.dailywp.com/portfolio-wordpress-theme/

Alright, this about wraps it up for July, see you next month