A couple of days ago, I posted about a new theme I’m working on. Today, I finally have something to show and announce.
The following is a partial preview. Screenshots were taken from several live demos. For those not digging the black and yellow design, it’s just the base style. Soon after the initial release, I’ll work on more designs or child themes for you to pick from.
You’ll get to play with the real thing come 6:00 AM (ET), Tuesday, March 13, 2012. I tried to push it for a release this week, but I still need to prepare promotional materials and documentations.
12 Optional Layouts
By default, Fanwood is a two-column layout with a right sidebar, which is typical of any blog. However, if your WordPress powered site is more than just a blog, if it’s a magazine, message board, online store, social network, events manager, or even a real estate property listing site, turn on the other 11 layouts. Below are previews of only the most important or visually significant options.
The 12 layouts are all mobile compatible. You may set a global layout for the entire site then set custom layouts for selected posts and pages. Integrated plugins like bbPress and BuddyPress are able to use the layout options too. There are global layout options for bbPress and BuddyPress as well.
- Here’s a different look at post formats on the front page.
- Full-width or 1 Column Layout: this is probably the most requested layout option. You may use this layout globally, per post, per page, for bbPress, for BuddyPress, and for other integrated plugins. The same is true for the rest of the layouts shown here.
- 2-Column Left Sidebar
- 3-column Centered Content
- 3-column Left Aligned Content
- 3-column Right Aligned Content
- Header Left, Right Aligned Content: Fanwood is the first to offer more than 6 layouts, including this exclusive one. Even the most recent, fancy drag and drop page builders out there cannot offer this layout concurrently with the 6 most typical layouts. If you don’t like to use the horizontal header layouts, you can place the header on the left or right side of the page using Fanwood.
- Header Left With Right Sidebar: This is a variation of the layout above, and again unique to Fanwood only. This is different from your typical 3 column layout. Notice the left aligned header.
- Header Left With Right Aligned Content: This is another variation of the header left layout available to you.
Drop-Down, Fly-Up, Fly-Out, and Mobile Compatible Menus
Fanwood has seven usable menus. All of them are responsive or mobile friendly. Are you tired of me saying that yet? Everything about this theme is mobile friendly so I can stop saying that now right?
- Fly-out Menu: For all Fanwood menus, depending on what tool you’re using to view the site and what layout you’re using, the menus will adjust themselves to dropdown, fly out left/right, or fly up.
- Fly-up Menu: This one is a menu at the bottom of the site. Obviously, a drop-down approach would not work here so it drop-up or fly-up.
- Mobile Friendly Menu: For menu locations where it makes sense, the entire menu hides itself under a generic “Menu” tab then opens itself once tapped on.
- Header Horizontal Menu: You didn’t think I was going to wait for you to request for this did you?
- Header Widget: This isn’t a menu, but the most appropriate place to present it. You can place anything in the header via the Header Widget area. And here’s the Header Widget in a tablet or iPad portrait view.
bbPress Preview
bbPress integration in Fanwood uses no tables. This is good for consistent content presentation, mobile compatibility, and future proofing. bbPress 2.1 (to be released) will be using un-ordered lists to display information. Fanwood is hip to this, wink, wink. Now, you can start a flame war on your own message board while you’re on the go.
- Forums Listing
- Topics Listing
- Single Topic Page
- User Profile: This is one of the reasons why you need to separate bbPress and BuddyPress while testing. When you install the two plugins together, bbPress user profile template is hidden in favor of the BuddyPress profile template.
BuddyPress Preview
BuddyPress integration in Fanwood alone is worth the price of the theme ($1.29). Developers, please show your support in the comments! I’ve tried as hard as possible to leave no stone unturned. It was a tedious process, but I did it. I’ve even styled the compose message acfb-holder and ac-results if you know what I’m talking about.
Again, this is a partial preview. I haven’t even showed you the 18 widgets area, widget stacking, Jigoshop integration, Anything Slider integration and the features list goes on. It’ll get even more crazy awesome when I start releasing more designs for Fanwood.
So many features make for one bulky theme you say? Not really, the stuff you use is the stuff that gets loaded. For everything else, it sits there until it’s activated.
Everything I’ve learned and all of my ideas in the last 4 years have been put into Fanwood. Next Tuesday, you can get it for $1.29 (as cheap as an MP3 file on iTunes). Fanwood is a the first of its kind on many fronts. It’s a special project so please show your support in the comments, on Twitter, and etc. to make it a success next Tuesday, March 13, 2012. Thank you!
