We’ll cover a wide variety of WordPress topics, but the primary focus will be giving useful and practical tips and code examples that will make your life easy as a WordPress developer, modder, or a blogger.

WP Splash includes a WordPress Design Gallery, where you can submit your WordPress based designs. And also a community news section on homepage where you can submit WordPress related articles/links.

We have BIG plans for WP Splash, so keep an eye on it. Make sure you subscribe to WP Splash RSS feed and follow it on Twitter to stay updated.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

After being in constant development for many weeks, our new WordPress Theme Flexis is ready to beautify your web site.

Flexis is what its names suggests: a very flexible theme that can be used on a personal blog, news site, or any general magazine style site.

Some of the features at a glance:

• Out of the box SEO
• Social media integration
• Optimized ad placements
• Built-in ad management
• Google Analytics and FeedBurner integration
• 6 Color schemes
• Two home page layouts
• Featured posts and videos
• Widgetized sidebar and footer
• Custom Twitter and Flickr widgets
• On the go thumbnail generation for posts
• Threaded comments
• Custom logo and favicon support

And many more in the package.

Flexis has a super cool tabbed AJAX-based control panel that’ll make managing theme features a breeze.

What you’re really going to love is Flexis ad manager. You can add any kind of ads in predefined optimized ad spots, preview, edit, ad delete them with any third party plugin.

I can safely say that you’ll improve your ad earnings with Flexis. Couple that with more visitors thanks to Flexis out-of-the-box SEO and social media optimization and you’re sure as hell going to double your earnings.

Flexis is also highly customizable with 6 awesome color schemes, 2 different home page layouts, different font choices, font sizes, custom logo, favicon, and much more!

What’s more, get Flexis for $20 instead of the regular price $30 in first 24 hours. So hurry up! (valid till March 27 9:00 GMT)

Screenshots and more info | Live Demo | Buy now

If you any question or comments, feel free to drop a comment below.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

It’s hardly been over a week since I launched Spotlight WordPress Theme and I’ve already received plenty of positive feedback from everyone who saw and used the theme  (which also means the sales are going really good).

The good reviews and comments have been very encouraging. So, to continue the good spirit and give everyone back some love, I contacted few blogger friends and asked them to give away 3 copies of Spotlight to their readers.

Well, they couldn’t be happier.

Daniel at Daily Blog Tips is running a twitter contest for Spotlight WordPress Theme. To be one of the three lucky winners, all you have to do is follow Daniel on twitter, and tweet the following message:

Entering the Spotlight contest. If you want to participate, follow @danielscocco and re-tweet http://xr.com/spot1

Daniel will pick 3 random winners on Friday, and will get in touch with them to hand ‘em over a free copy of the theme.

My good friend Steven Snell is also holding a contest on his design resource blog Design Mag. This one is slightly easier. Leave a comment on the contest post and you automatically enter the contest.

Three winner will be picked randomly on Friday.

If you really like the theme and you don’t win a free license, don’t worry. Spotlight is still so cheap, you can get it with the leftover pennies in your wallet!

Stay subscribed for more offers and future themes.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

What do I achieve by cutting the  price to half? First, I want everyone to get this theme because it’s so good. People with low budget shouldn’t be left out. Secondly, it’s good from a seller’s perspective too. The lower the price, the more people are likely to buy it.

So what are you waiting for? Get your copy now. You don’t get such amazing offers everyday!

P.S. A couple of folks who have already bought the theme will get $29 back.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

You heard me right folks! I’ve partnered with my friend Haris and have launched a new site dedicated to premium WordPress Themes over at Theme Sphere.

And the first theme is a very powerful combination of my tried and tested formulas that will make your competitors envy your web site/blog. The theme, of course, is called Spotlight.

Well, to cut a long story short, you GOT to check it out. I know you’ll be impressed.

Here are some of the best features of this powerful beast:

SEO: Be on the top in search engine result pages

With Spotlight, search engines will love your site. Enjoy high search engine rankings, higher click through rates, and exponential increase in visitors all without digging into theme code.

SMO: Pile up new subscribers with social media features

Out of the box social media optimization makes it easier for your visitors to submit your articles to social media sites, thus opening streams of new visitors from top social media sites like Digg, StumbleUpon, and Delicious. Spotlight also makes it incredibly easy for your fickle social media visitors to discover your best content, stay engaged, and keep coming back as loyal users.

Ad optimized: Make more money while you’re at

Whether you use AdSense, other ad networks, or sell ads directly, Spotlight has a solution for all your needs. Ads are placed in key places and blended into the theme in a way that your visitors are compelled to click on your ads. And a very intuitive Ads management backend puts it all under your command.

Take control of Spotlight with its robust backend

You can customize every bit of Spotlight using its powerful backend. From social media optimization to inserting ads on your site, you can activate every feature with just a single click.

Enjoy free unlimited support

Confused on how to install it? Not sure how to perform a certain task? Not to worry. Drop by our support forum and ask for help. Our experts along with Spotlight community will solve your problem in an instant.

Main Spotlight information page

Live demo

Buy Spotlight

P.S. Please help spread the word about Spotlight WordPress Theme. Need motivation? You can become a affiliate and earn money every time someone buys Spotlight from your referral link.

Your feedback is most welcome.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

Do you like the simplicity of default WordPress (Kubrick) theme but wish it could be a little prettier? If so, Blue Ecstasy is for you.

Blue Ecstasy is a simple, usable, and customizable (and did I tell you it’s blue!) widget-ready theme that takes after the famous Kubrick theme, but is slicker and lighter than Kubrick.

And that’s it for the description. If you have any questions, ask away in the comments.

Live demo
Download

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

WordPress magazine style themes have been all the rage lately, and everyone seems to want some aspect of their WordPress blog to have a magazine-y look and feel.

So if you have been around blogosphere recently, you must have seen those cool image thumbnails with short excerpts displayed on many blog home pages.

Today I went around searching for the easiest post thumbnail method, and was surprised to see how unnecessarily complicated some of the code junkies make something as simple as adding image thumbnails to posts.

So I hunt around a bit more and came up with an easy as pie way to add pretty little thumbnails to a WordPress 2.5 powered blog.

What you need to know: You need to know how to copy and paste.

What you don’t need to know: You don’t need to know how to open Photoshop.

So let’s get started.

Step 1: Adjust thumbnail size

WordPress 2.5 has a very handy new feature. It lets you specify custom thumbnail size for your uploaded images.

To adjust the thumbnail size to your liking, go to Settings > Miscellaneous and change the thumbnail width and height under Image sizes section. Let’s set the width and height to 80×80 for this example.

Also, make sure the Crop to size option is selected, and confirm the changes.

(With Crop to size checked, you don’t have to worry about what size your original image is. It will be adjusted to fit your specified size)

Step 2: Add a CSS class for thumbnail alignment

We want our thumbnail to be aligned to the left while the text flows around it. To do so, add the following code to your style.css file:

1. .thumb {
2. float: left;
3. margin-right: 7px;
4. margin-bottom: 7px;
5. }

(Feel free to change or add to the code)

Step 3: Instruct index.php to display post thumbnails

Next, we need to modify some code in index.php to correctly display the post thumbnails.

In your index.php, locate the part that is responsible for displaying your post content. It must be the following line or something similar to this depending on which theme you are using:

1. <?php the_content(); ?>

Replace it with the following snippet:

1. <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>">
2. <img src="<?php $values = get_post_custom_values("thumb"); echo $values[0]; ?>" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" class="thumb" />
3. </a>
4. <?php the_excerpt(); ?>

(This code snippet retrieves the custom field value that we’ll add in the next step)

Step 4: Add thumbnail image

Now that everything else is done, it’s time to add the image.

1. Click on the Add an image button and upload the image.
2. When done, right click the image thumbnail and select Copy Image Location (in Firefox) and close the upload box.
3. Move down the page and expand the Custom Fields section. Enter “thumb” in the Key field, and paste the thumbnail URL in the Value field, and click Add Custom Field.

Done! Write the post as usual, and don’t forget to enter a few lines in the excerpt field to be shown next the thumbnail.

Bonus step

Do you want to display regular content in case there’s no thumbnail image? No worries. David has come up with a code snippet that does just that for you.

1. <?php
2. $thumb = get_post_meta($post->ID, "thumb", true);
3. if ($thumb != "")
4. { ?>
5. <a href="<?php the_permalink() ?>" title="<?php the_title(); ?>">
6. <img src="<?php $values = get_post_custom_values("thumb"); echo
7. $values[0]; ?>" alt="<?php the_title(); ?>" class="thumb" />
8. </a>
9. <?php the_excerpt(); ?>
10. <?php } else { ?>
11. <?php the_content(); ?>
12. <?php } ?>

Read on David’s post for more detail.

If I missed an important detail, or if you know of a better, easier way to add thumbnails to posts, let me know about it in the comments.

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design

I designed this theme for personal use, but used it only for a month before I decided that I needed to change it. So I am making my old theme available for download for a very low fee of… $0!

The theme I am currently using is actually a slight variation of Content Cream, but this one is more traditional.

Here are some of the features of Content Cream.

• AdSense ready – You can put you two AdSense ad blocks in very prominent places. If you blend your ads (as shown in preview) with the background, they’ll appear to be a part of your content.
• Widget ready – Though I prefer not to use widgets because directly modifying the code gives me much more control over customization.
• Pretty Icons – Some pretty icons here and there to guide the eyes to the right places.
• A feature box – A featured box right under the navigation bar that can hold three items of your choosing.

Other than that, this is a very minimalistic and content-oriented theme.

Download Content Cream 1.0

Do you have a suggestion or an idea to improve Content Cream? Please leave it below in the comments.

Credits

• Built on top of Upstart Blogger Minim.
• Icon design by Jonas Rask.
• And thanks to Robert for urging me to make Content Cream available for download.

If you want to leave the credit in the footer, that’d be great!

Link Code: d1928 - © Blogging Bits | Blog writing, marketing, and design