• 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!

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

BTW, I’ve added a CAPTCHA for entering comments. I know it’s a little more pain for you, the good people out there, but I just can’t get rid of all the evil spammers, even using Akismet. So I’m going to try this for a while to see if I have more success.

But here’s a start: a lot of people have been asking me about the problem that they only get the time on their posts, and not the date, when using vSlider. That’s very true, and there are reasons and solutions for that.
First the reason: when I was designing vSlider for my site, I had the intention from the start to use a plugin called Time Since. I was having some problems with it, and it worked much better if I only used one field instead of the usual date + time duo. So, the theme went public with only one field on the PHP code (it was working fine for me! )
Now, possible solutions:

1. Change the Default Time Format on the WordPress options page. For instance, I’m currently using “D j, F Y”. WP is pretty flexible with this, so you can use date and time fields combined.
2. Edit the PHP code and add the missing information (c’mon, it’s not that difficult! )
3. Wait for the next version of vSlider I’m not making any promises on when is this coming out, but I will definitely make this feature better next time around.

Hope this helps.

And Happy New Year!
Cheers.

<blockquote>The first step to getting the things you
want out of life is this: Decide what
you want.</blockquote>

Using CSS, we can assign a distinct look and feel to make the quote stand out from the text, like making it italic and maybe even indent it a little. A very common technique is to use an image as the quote symbol, and by setting it as the background of the block, we can have a rather nice effect, without any messy “img” tags.
I’ve created a custom quote image for the vSlider theme, and the CSS to use it, so the previous example would be rendered like this:

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

Now, the problem is that although this looks quite ok, it would be a lot nicer if we could also have the closing quote as well. And this is where the problems begin, since in CSS there is no way we can use two different images as backgrounds for the same block. If we could, it would be rather simple: the opening quote would be defined in the top left, and the closing quote on the bottom right. Since this is not possible, again we have one of those (unfortunately common) situations where we have to mix semantics and presentation. By adding a “div” tag, we can create a nested block with its own style and that can be used as a placeholder for the closing quote.
In the case of vSlider, I have defined this as a class named blockquote-inner. So, we can slightly change our previous example to:

<blockquote>
<div class="blockquote-inner">The first step to getting
the things you want out
of life is this: Decide what you want.</div>
</blockquote>

And the result would be:

The first step to getting the things you want out of life is this: Decide what you want.

Which looks a lot better, if I may say so. Uglier code, true… but nicer result
If you are using the vSlider theme, you can give it a try.

Some people have asked me how to change the header image, or how to get the effect they see on iRui.ac of getting a different image on each page refresh. It’s really, really simple. If you look to the folder structure of the theme, you will notice that the default image is located in \vSlider\images\headers\vSlider.jpg, but there is no direct link to this image on the HTML code. That is because I’ve added a little bit of PHP code that selects randomly any image located on that same folder. That is, just dump all your header images there, and they will be immediately picked up – you don’t have to change any code. They should all be the same size as the default one, of course.

I would also like to ask for some feedback on how well the theme works in other browsers and operating systems. As I mentioned in the download page of the theme, I only know how it looks and behaves in IE, FireFox and Opera. If you can leave some comments about this, I would appreciate it.
Also, if you have suggestions for improvements, feel free to shout them out!

As an end note, a curious fact: Verso claims that there is a lot of “hate” for Skype, because of its business model and usage of the network, but curious enough, they “love” Vonage, and even plan to make profit from selling some of their products.
What was that word again? … ah! yes… hypocrisy.

Check out my cool stuff page for details, and have fun!

<rant>

I care a lot about standards. I really do. Standards are the essence of communication – both for people and machines. If it were up to me, the world would be one big standard (ok, that might be a bit exaggerated, but you get my point). Another concept I’m also particularly keen on is on the separation between content, presentation and behavior when building a web page (i.e. HTML, CSS and JavaScript). I’m on the camp of those who defend that HTML should be just semantics, and therefore putting “font” and “color” attributes, mixed with a couple of “onclick’s” all over the code is really not a good idea – it is only going to make a big mess out of your page, and make it REALLY hard to make large changes to the design (trust me, I’ve been there).

When I first started the design of the theme for this blog, which eventually became the vSlider theme, my intentions were nothing but ambitious. I was going to be relentless, tireless, aiming for web design nirvana – pure XHTML, pure CSS, not one single table for layout purposes, the works. For a moment I even considering using the XHTML Strict Doctype… imagine that!
Then the long hours came, fighting against browser inconsistencies, quirks, different box models, inheritance rules, and so on and so forth. But I wasn’t giving up… no, I would be resilient – no stupid floating div was going to mess up my immaculate CSS layout!
And it was going to be fancy too - sliding boxes, with no JavaScript on the HTML, only using behaviors, handles and all sorts of cool tricks. Oh yes, this was the piece de resistance. I was proud of my work.

But then, to my surprise, the W3C validator said my page is not XHTML compliant anymore! WHAT!? This can’t be… I’ve done everything by the book.
Well, it turns out that the XHTML standard doesn’t allow the usage of custom attributes in the tags. How the hell I’m supposed to keep my code pure, if I can’t define the properties of my object?
I found these excellent articles - JavaScript Triggers & Validating a Custom DTD - that explained exactly what was going on, and, to be honest, I became somewhat disappointed. My belief in the standards was shattered. I mean, honestly, wasn’t the X in XHTML supposed to mean “extensible”? What’s extensible about it? I can’t even “extend” it with my own attributes….
So I stopped caring – vSlider is not pure XHTML anymore, and I’m even proud of it – it’s better than if it was. I’m happy with a “nearly XHTML compliant” status.
Heck, I even turned three nested DIVs that were giving me a hard time in FireFox to a table with three rows – it took me five minutes to accomplish the same result that took almost an hour with those DIVs… there went the “tabless” design out the window :D.

</rant>

(if you have absolutely no idea of what I’m talking about, just ignore this post entirely – your life is probably way happier than mine anyway. If you DO know – then “cheers, mate!”, misery loves company…)