Finally, after a few months in the making, here is the new 3 series! Yes, it look a very long time, more than I thought at the beginning, but a lot of stuff happened in the meantime, and one can only go so far without proper sleep
What’s available now? New and improved cool stuff for latest & greatest versions out there:

• vSlider 3 for WordPress 2.2
• vSlider 3 for Gallery2 2.2.1 (using WPG2 2.x and 3.0 beta)
• KBurnalizer 3 javascript library
• KBurnalizerG2 module for Gallery2 2.2.1

See? Can’t be more up-to-date than this!
You see it running on this website, so I guess its working…

So, what’s new? Tons of things. For a complete list, check the specific download pages on Cool Stuff, but here are the highlights:

• New and expanded Theme Administration page
• Full pixel-precise control of the width of theme
• Option for fluid layout! Fills your entire browser, whatever the dimensions. Everything resizes automatically (this one was tough… )
• Complete control over colors without coding. You can use one of the provided color schemes, or create your own. You can create as many as you like, and select individual colors for every visual element.
• Place the sidebar on left or the right of the page.
• Administration page for all the nice little icons - sliders, RSS feeds, quote symbols, etc…
• Several options for the header, including auto-rounded border. Yes, that’s for all the people that kept asking for the Header template Now you can just use normal rectangular images and the theme will create a nice round border for you
• The Gallery2 theme has been redesigned with a more consistent look and LightBox support.
• Everything done using CSS and Javascript - no images used for either layout or graphical backgrounds. Not even for the rounded borders. This gives you the most flexibility for customizations without coding.
• Aahh… just check the download page for the full list….

I tested as much as I could, but there were so many changes and new features, a few bugs are bound to appear. If they do, please let me know and I’ll try to fix them ASAP.
Also there were a couple of other features suggested by some of you that I thought would be cool, but didn’t make into this version (you have to draw the line somewhere). They might make it into version 3.1 later on…

I also take this opportunity to present another side project I started with my wife - OneWorldToSee.com. No, it’s another WP theme or another nifty tool. It’s kind of a “life project” - a plan to travel around the world and see *everything* worth seeing. The OneWorldToSee.com website is a blog about this plan and the passion for exploring in general. I invite you all to become members and even post your own texts about travel experiences.
It is also a way to finance it, since we decided to “sell” the world in order to see it - you’ll understand once you see it

All the stuff I’ve been making here in iRui.ac is free and will continue to be. I used to have a donation page and even an Amazon wish list, but that’s all gone now. Instead, if you feel compelled to show your appreciation and help us in process, hop over to OneWorldToSee.com and see how you can contribute.

Have fun with vSlider 3!

Categories: Tips 4 Geeks, Way of the web, Maintenance
9 Comments »

Yep, it’s almost there. Crossing the T’s and pointing the I’s and all that. I need to do some more testing in different browsers, since I recently discovered that vSlider 3 was badly broken in IE6. To be honest, I shouldn’t even bother, since everybody should just use Firefox anyway. But unfortunately, according to the stats, IE is still the most used browser in the world, so I can’t just ignore it. I’ve already used some pretty horrible hacks, and I still need a few more to get everything to work nicely.
On the good news, IE7 seems to be far more standards-compliant (no big complains so far) and Apple launched Safari for Windows, which enables me to actually test stuff in Safari for the first time

Categories: Maintenance
7 Comments »

Following the input I got from the vSlider RFI (btw, thanks for all the feedback), I’ve been a busy little bee and started coding away. What started as a few improvements turned out to be a major redesign of the entire thing… I went back and looked to what were the main obstacles to implement the most suggested features, and it turns out I had to completely rethink the way the theme was built.
The result is a new and improved vSlider - version 3! I don’t want to go into details just yet, but I’ll leave you with two “teasers”: flexible widths and color schemes

Oh, and I can’t promise yet when it will be ready, but it will be soon…

Categories: Maintenance
20 Comments »

Well, adding the CAPTCHA in the comments to prevent spam wasn’t such a great idea after all. It seemed to be working great - my spam was reduced to 0! But unfortunately it also has problems generating a proper image, so it was preventing legitimate comments from being created. Sorry!
And when I just about to start looking into the problem, I find out that it also has the nasty side effect of preventing trackbacks. So, I guess I won’t be using this anymore. If anyone has a good suggestion on how to best fight comment spam, please do share

Categories: Maintenance
5 Comments »

Hurrah! First post written on the new WP 2.1, code named Ella. It has some pretty cool improvements and as you can see, vSlider 2.1 is still working perfectly
Had a bit of a trouble with some of the plugins though… word of advice - check carefully if the plugins you are using are compatible with this new release before upgrading.

And don’t forget the previous post! The vSlider RFI is still ongoing…

Categories: Way of the web, Maintenance
7 Comments »