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Announcing Uno, a photo gallery child theme for Base

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Say hello to Uno:

Uno photo gallery theme for WordPress

Uno theme for WordPress

Uno is our very first child theme for our newly release Base theme framework for WordPress.  Uno is primed for photographers, artists and bloggers who want to display sleek photo galleries, create a photoblog or simply need a clean, one-column theme.

Back Story

The concept for Uno was hatched after chatting with Will Yurman, an accomplished documentary photographer from New York state.  Will and I were instructors and roommates at NPPA’s Multimedia Immersion Workshop in upstate New York earlier this year.  Will wanted a platform where he could maintain a photoblog, a blog, post galleries, post client galleries, add videos, add multimedia and create pages all under one roof.  For years, Will has relied on a combination of web software to make his current site function: Pixel Post for photoblogging, static files for pages, WordPress for writing and Flash for client galleries.  The new platform needed to be holistic, he said, simple to use and and designed elegantly.  I  knew it was possible within WordPress, but, I told will, I would need a few months to make it happen.

That day has arrived.

Design Philosophy

As with most of our themes, Uno’s design fades into the background and allows your content to take center stage.  We have removed all distractions from this theme so your visitors can focus on your content.

You can choose from one of three pre-built color palette styles:

While the design is simple, the underlying theme framework that powers Uno is both flexible and bulletproof.  You can add custom CSS to override any of the pre-built styles and use your favorite font from the Google Font Directory without touching a single line of code.

Separate Blog

A common request we hear from users is the need to have a dedicated “Blog” page.  This page contains all Posts, typically assigned to specific categories that you select on your Theme Options page.  This way, your photo gallery Posts don’t get mixed in with your writing, or vice-a-versa.  If this isn’t and important feature, no worries, simply don’t create a Blog page or assign a Blog category on the Theme Options page.

HD & Mobile Video

Uno can even be a video blogging theme.  Huh?  Yep, it can.  Uno comes packaged with a built-in HD video player for self-hosting videos.  To serve mobile-friendly video files to users with Flash either disabled or not available, simply enable the Mobile Video option on the theme options page and upload your mobile-friendly video files into the Post (see instructions).

Getting Started

To download Uno, you will need a subscription to Graph Paper Press.  We look forward to seeing what you create!

Introducing the Photo Workshop theme for WordPress

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Jared Cruce website using Photo Workshop theme for WordPressThe Photo Workshop theme for WordPress is finally here!  After months of development, redevelopment and re-redevelopment (you get the point), we are now turning the keys over to all you WordPressers to see what you create.  (Check out Jared Cruce’s new commercial photography website for an example of the Photo Workshop theme live in the wild!)

Photo Workshop is an all-in-one solution for photographers and creative entrepreneurs who want the ability to show a portfolio of images or videos and pitch workshops, events, or products. The theme includes new features that were just released in WordPress 3.0, including Custom Post Types (details below) and Menus and also includes new theme display options including Slideshows with optional caption, thumbnail and navigational controls.  The theme also includes image theft protection (right clicking on images is disabled), iPhone video display options, custom colors, homepage design options and two custom widgets.

Designed for Professional, Entrepreneurial Photographers

If you are a professional or amateur photographer, I have three questions for you:

  1. How good is your website at generating leads?
  2. Do you have interest in diversifying your business model or growing your income?
  3. Everyone has a website these days.  How is your different?

If you are like Jared Cruce, it’s time that you step up to the challenge and adapt your business model to the changing industry demands.  Not only does Jared have killer photography portfolios, but he also offers adventure photography workshops in the beautiful Oregon backcountry.  Using the Photo Workshop theme, Jared can update his portfolio, create private, password-protected galleries for his clients, market his photography workshops, and generate leads (form created using Gravity Forms).

Custom Post Types

WordPress 3.0 introduced a new feature called Custom Post Types.  This feature makes it easier for developers to create custom write panels with additional input fields that are specific to the content that you want to publish.  Think of it this way:  You are no longer limited to using posts or pages for publishing in WordPress.  So long boring tubular post and page templates!  Hello beautiful custom post type templates!  The custom post type we developed for this theme is what we refer to as a “Workshop”.  Each Workshop has a predefined number of fields, such as Title, Description, Location, Date, Price, Testimonial, Sponsor Info, Images, etc.  These fields are displayed using a special template file to create the Workshop (or could be an Event/Product…it’s very flexible) landing page.  Here is a video overview of how the custom post types work:

http://vimeo.com/13658887

Slideshow Options

One of the most requested features has been to add controls for the slideshows in our themes.  Not only did we add controls, but we also added captions, both of which can be optionally enabled or disabled on the theme options page.  You can also control the height of all slideshows, the transition or fading time and the length of time each slide is displayed.  Did I mention that these slideshows even work on the iPhone and iPad?  Yeah.  Pretty cool, eh?

Design Controls

We know that not everyone is a coder.  This is why we dedicate so much of our development time to building killer theme options into all of our paid themes.  Photo Workshop contains optional homepage design controls including a welcome message, slideshow, full-page video, featured posts and a widgetized region.  Check out this video overview of the new theme options (complete with AJAX saving and conditional options based on user-defined selections):

http://vimeo.com/13658826

So, what do you think? What interests you most about this theme?

Fullscreen

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Fullscreen is a free one-column photography and multimedia theme for WordPress that can be used for portfolios, photoblogs, videoblogs, and virtually anything else where you want your content to be front and center. It provides visual artists (photographers, painters, videographers, motionographers, illustrators) a better way of presenting their latest work online using a minimalist side-scrolling homepage. Emphasis is placed on your content, rather than on an overly designed theme. If you are a free or paying subscriber to Graph Paper Press, Fullscreen can be downloaded from your member page.

Major Features

  • Side-scrolling homepage packed with thumbnails representing your posts
  • Automatic thumbnail generator with the ability to override the automated thumbnails
  • Built-in HD video player for self-hosting HD quality video
  • Ability to embed video from YouTube (HD), Vimeo, MetaCafe, Seesmic, Google Video, Revver
  • jQuery UI framework for icons
  • 950 pixel wide theme with no left or right sidebar
  • Comments are revealed in a modal dialog window to minimize page clutter
  • Threaded comments
  • Three footer widgets
  • Built-in Gravatar support for comments
  • Drop-down navigation to maximize homepage space
  • Built atop CSS frameworks to speed customization
  • Forward and backward compatibility with previous versions of WordPress
  • XHML: This theme has been tested on Firefox, Safari, IE 8, 7, 6.

Fullscreen examples

Design philosophy

We think your site should highlight your content, not our design. Our design takes a back seat so that your content can shine through front and center. The homepage of Fullscreen is an amalgam of your latest visual content, organized in a hierarchical manner with your latest five posts featured twice as large as the preceding 20 posts. Single post pages are 950 pixels wide, enabling your post large photos, videos, or other work that is important to you. Three widgetized areas give you customization control over the bottom (footer) region of your site.

Modularity Lite

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Modularity Lite is a free multimedia theme framework for WordPress by Graph Paper Press. The theme design was developed with users who appreciate visual browsing and prefer a minimal layout, with their photos and multimedia featured front and center. In the future, we will be releasing “child themes” to provide design alternative and additional applications (apps) that will work with Modularity Lite. You’ll definitely want to subscribe to GraphPaperPress.com to get all the latest developments and enhancements for Modularity Lite.

Modularity Lite includes:

  • Optional homepage slideshow
  • Optional homepage one or two column blog-style layout
  • Theme Options page, where you can define background, text, link colors, contact info, site tracking code and more.
  • S.E.O. optimized titles and alt tags
  • Four widgetized areas
  • Click-down navigation for a compact, minimalist masthead.
  • Built in multimedia custom field support
  • Automatic thumbnail generation. No need to manage thumbnails using custom fields
  • Blueprint CSS framework
  • Valid, clean code

What is a “multimedia theme framework?” It’s actually quite simple. Using Modularity Lite as your base theme, Graph Paper Press will release “child themes,” which will add additional functionality and design features to Modularity Lite. You’ll definitely want to subscribe to GraphPaperPress.com to keep up on all the latest developments and enhancements for Modularity Lite.

Photo Galleria Plugin for WordPress

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Update July 30, 2010

Photo Galleria was just updated to version .0.3.0 and includes some massive changes. Download now from WordPress.org plugin repository.

Photo Galleria is a simple, yet elegant, WordPress plugin for photographers and designers who want to beautify their WordPress photo galleries using an elegant jquery script. The Photo Galleria plugin synchronizes Galleria with WordPress’ built-in media manager. Simply upload photos as normal and the Photo Galleria plugin will create a photo gallery with fade-in and fade-out effects common on flash-based websites. All the transitions happen inline without having to navigate to multiple WordPress attachment pages. Pretty neat, eh?

Photo Galleria displays the thumbnail images that WordPress creates for you and displays the original, high resolution uploaded image. Both are constrained proportionally via css. You can control their display size via the two CSS files included with the plugin. By default, the thumbnails display at 125px by 125px square and the image displays at 950px wide. Virtually every aspect of the presentation of Photo Galleria can be controlled via CSS.

Example gallery

Photo Galleria demo

Resources

Download

Changelog

Version 0.2

Commit date: Nov. 8, 2009

  • Now works with latest jquery (1.3.2)
  • Uses enqueue_script
  • Compressed CSS
Version 0.1

Commit date: May. 31, 2008

  • Initial commit

Tested with Firefox (Mac & PC), Safari, Internet Explorer 7.