In my scenario, I simply wanted to check if it was any template besides the default template, so I was able to use if(!is_page_template('page.php')) and boom!, none of my page templates would get the faux column background.

Thinking about it, now I’m glad the theme designer took the backwards approach to the background image so that I could learn a new trick for the toolbox.

The theme’s original home requires registration to comment, otherwise I’d have added a link there.

Anyone else looking for the theme can download it here.

Over time, more sites started popping up doing the same, concentrating on getting subscribers, gaining in popularity, to the point I felt what I was doing was no longer useful. Eventually, the official plugins section was added to wp.org, as well as the updates directly via the admin plugins page, making my type of posts moot.

Couple all of that with the explosion of development in the WP community, and I simply could not commit the time necessary to continue blogging in the same manner as before. Life also began to get in the way, and the site slowly drifted into stagnation. The reality though was by that point the site was generating enough money via various ads that I couldn’t pull the plug. I was still using WP for work, and would occasionally post something I’d stumble across, thinking that I would start back blogging about WordPress. However, my spare time was moving towards other interests. Still, the revenue was enough to pay for those interests, so I kept the sign on.

Now that I’ve begun working with WPMU, and taking on a roll developing blog networks, I’m beginning to have a clearer vision of where I’m headed professionally, and where I’d like to take this blog. So once again, hopefully, WP Station will be a destination that WordPress travelers will find it to be a useful stop in their travels.

That said, as the author points out, finding free, modern, attractively designed WordPress themes these days is becoming more and more difficult with the inundation of premium themes. Which begets the ongoing, and sometimes heated debate of WordPress, GPL, and themes, which is the subject of another post for another day.

I did find a theme that potentially could be the base for a new look for this site, ZinePress. I say a base, as the color scheme isn’t what I envision for this site, nor am I enamored with the the opacity of the footer background over the body background image, but as I point out in the intro, that’s a subjective opinion, not meant to take away from the overall quality of the design. It also brings out the point that I’ve always thought that by using a “free” WordPress theme, it’s meant to be a starting point for a user to customize for their site, to their tastes, not something that you should necessarily use stock. The whole “why recreate the wheel” thing.

EDIT – heh, I looked closer at the post for ZinePress, and it was released over a year ago, so the list isn’t necessarily of recently released themes it seems. Again, not to diminish the contributions of the theme authors who’ve generously shared their work.

If anyone is bored and wants to work up a logo for WP Station, I might find some way of repaying you, albeit my budget is limited. Certainly links and what not would be included.

I discovered WPlite, which at first glance looked exactly what I wanted. However, due to different permissions issues with roles, it actually wouldn’t block anything for blog admins, which in my case I needed. It also didn’t allow to hide itself, which would have defeated the sole purpose of the plugin. So I did a quick change to hide the menu items from everyone except Site Admins, and allow the blocking of this plugins menu item as well.

As I point out in the Read Me file, this plugin does not physically prevent a user from accessing the page if they normally have permission, it simply hides it in the menu, so if you are using the at a glance widget and want to hide the widgets menu completely, you’ll need to customize this as well. For more stricter control, definitely rely on D. Sader’s plugin, but unsuspecting users not familiar with WP, they will be none the wiser, and you can hide some of the other menu items that might normally appear for blog admins, or others roles for that matter. Note, because I specifically was looking for a way to hide widgets, and didn’t see anything out of the box for Role Manager, I didn’t go that route. For my needs, the combination of this and the Toggle Admin Menu’s I’m completely satisfied with the solution.

Also, currently this plugin must be uploaded to wp-content/plugins, and activated. You can use the built in activate site wide, or use something like Plugin Commander if you are looking for even more control over plugins. Also, this currently requires a site by site configuration, as I wanted more granular control over which blog admins see what. I will eventually look into setting some defaults, possibly via an admin interface, that would be set each time the plugin is active. If anyone wants to help contribute to that effort, I’m all ears.

Any questions or feedback for the WPMU version should be directed towards this post, Muhammad clearly pointed out he doesn’t have time to address the WPMU version. I offered him the changes I had made if he wanted to release a WPMU version himself. That said, all credit for the plugin goes to him, and if you find yourself wanting to donate anything to the development of the plugin, you should seek out the original plugin and show him some love.

This is my first attempt at releasing any kind of WPMU plugin, so certainly, any feedback or suggestions are greatly welcome.

Download WPlite-MU.

Update So I stumbled upon another plugin similar to WPlite that gives even greater control over customization, which seems to work quite well with WPMU, as you can hide items from Admins and Site Admins are not affected. It still is a plugin that has to be configured on a site by site basis, but as I said, gives a far more granular control over many more elements. I will continue to work on WPlite-MU once I get the current project I’m working on finished, but wanted to share my discovery until then. You can check out the Adminimize plugin at WordPress – Extend. The author’s site is in German, but there are English instructions, and configuration is fairly straight forward for people familiar with WordPress.

I’ll also be releasing soon a WPMU version of the WPlite plugin. WPlite allows you to hide admin menu items from non-admin users, the modified version will hide menu items from blog admins, but not site admins. It doesn’t lock down the page, the URL is still accessible, but for the unsuspecting user they’ll never know a setting is available to them. For potentially destructive pages for inexperienced users you can use the Toggle Admin Menus plugin to secure blog admins from doing something they would regret (like delete their blog).

Since WordPress has made the decision that security means staying up to date with the latest release, that becomes a greater issue as time goes by. Potentially, this data will give developers insight into what is breaking popular plugins, so they can either address that in the code, or (purely speculation on my part) adopt the plugin and bring it up to date.

My only concern with the data is that I think most people will tend to find plugins that are broken, and then report that, rather than think, “hey, I should go through my three hundred plugins and go report that they are working fine with the latest release.” The article does mention that eventually they’d like users to be able to report directly from the plugin page, but then that opens the whole “phone home” can of worms.

From a site developer stand point, I think the whole thing should drive home the point of trying to use the core tools as much as possible, and not relying on as many plugins to develop a site. Certainly there are ones you can’t get away from for certain projects, but often times, people will employ a plugin for convenience, which will later bite them on the behind when that plugin breaks an upgrade.

However, I noticed today that you can checkout from the .org URL now, specifically, http://core.svn.wordpress.org. If you have been using SVN, and want to change repos, but aren’t familiar with that command, it’s actually quite simple.

Let’s say for example you last checked out the 2.8.3 tag, and want to both switch repos and update. First you need to switch your repository

svn switch --relocate http://svn.automattic.com/wordpress/tags/2.8.3 http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/2.8.3, then you simply need to switch to the latest tag, svn switch http://core.svn.wordpress.org/tags/2.8.4

If anyone would like more information on how to do the initial checkout, including switching from a traditional installation to using SVN, please leave a comment and I’ll put together a post.