I was just reviewing some things on the site and made some notes on a few modifications and updates I plan to implement over the next several days. I'm also cleaning up the site's own template to make it more streamlined and will also reorganize some of the site's content a bit more. But what is more important is theme development. As you probably don't realize, designing a theme style for not just one cms platform, but two (in this case, WordPress and Joomla), can be time consuming which is why you often see other theme sites focus on just one platform only and able to put a theme out every month. I decided to go with two but in addition to that, I wanted to make the same style for both platforms and not different ones for each.

I thought I would bring up the subject about Joomla! help within the administrative area of Joomla! because this is often missed by many users. How do I know this? I actually get a lot of people submit questions for help and how to do something or what something means but when I ask if they have used the "Help" menu link within their own adminsitrative area. Most said "what Help link" in the admin?

Got your attention about the end or death of Movable Type themes hey! A slight play on words but it comes in two parts here which I will explain what this means and why I decided to write this article. Now for the record, I don't know how Movable Type from SixApart will progress over time because I do not work for them but I can easily say I had to make a very hard choice to end the ongoing project of hoping to design and add Movable Type 5 themes to the Pixel Theme Studio website download section. So now you will probably be asking, ok, why? ...not to mention upsetting a couple people who were waiting for my first MT 5 theme.

Just a quick little teaser of something special that I will be making available...a pro version of the Free Glowing Amber theme for WordPress (which I've had available at the WordPress.org website) is coming with a few enhancements due to several requests from those who have downloaded it from the WordPress site (an updated version 1.2 is being uploaded for January 22nd). So I thought I would make a quick post here about it and to let everyone know there is going to be a special offer to get this "Pro" version. If all goes well, it should be available here from this very article within the next few days!

I will be adding more details in this article with a screenshot for the Glowing Amber theme for WordPress shortly....

How to make changes to your website without messing it up is something that is taken for granted by a lot of people. Trust me on this because even I've been guilty of creating problems when I've updated or changed something...and I'm a designer! Human behavior I guess is the cause of jumping into something spontaneously so we can get what needs to be done, done and try to save time and hassles. It's common and everyone does it at some point in time - even the most experienced.

I've been asked how I made my home pages on some of my theme demos' while many believe this is part of the theme a person downloads. Actually, it's only partially related whereas the rest is done with WordPress settings. For this to work, the theme should have at least one different "page template" included because it doesn't make sense to use the default page template that comes with WordPress as your home page. In most cases, the page template to be used is often designed in a way that it's unique in one way or another.

As I write this brief, albeit informative, article post for my blog here, I will give you a little bit of insight into a planned framework I am currently drawing out on paper. You will probably wonder what a framework is, so when I talk about here, it's going to be a little generalized. These things can become quite complicated and technical, not to mention very time consuming to develop a workable framework because of the amount of planning that has to go into it.

Before uploading the updated Pixel Theme Studio website, I did something - or rather I prepared to do something - that relates to a Poll that I ran back in the months of November and December. With a 90% positive vote for the question of "Should I offer a community support forum and would you use it?", the majority of people voting seem to want one. However, I have good news and bad news...the good news is that I have decided to implement a community forum for members to share ideas and to help each other with their websites and blogs that use my themes, or just sharing tips and tricks of putting sites together.

I've noticed that some people who are new to themes and templates will sometimes get a shock of their life when they install and activate their theme on a new web site. Why? Well because they will see a very empty blank page and realize that it doesn't look like the online demo that they saw before downloading their new theme. It will probably look like this at first, then after install, and then if you grab a coffee and go through the theme tutorial which should help you get started...

I decided to offer another option for anyone wanting to simply download their choice of theme without the perks of a membership. Basically the Buy to Download option is meant for users who just want a specific theme and that's it...nothing else...just pay, download, and go. There are advantages and disadvantages to this option but it may not be for everyone, so the membership options are still available for accessing all themes, tutorials, support, and with the Premium Membership, Photoshop files as well.