So I’m there minding my own business, just checking my feeds and I see a familiar sight. Manji was mentioned on Devlounge as one of the single column themes of choice.

That’s pretty cool actually, seeing as it was designed over 4 years ago and hasn’t really been modified since. What’s interesting to me really is that there does seem a severe lack of super simple themes out there. Super simple is fucking hard to do and make stick - but that’s a topic for another time, which I fully intend on exploring.

Oh and btw, this is officially Broken Kode’s 1500th post.

Minimal Design - And here I thought the new ‘Kode was minimal. This site seriously takes it to the next level in certain ways. Might even use his minimal gallery solution.

Switch Display Options - Added to my collection of options I might use for my eventual illustrations category on the site.

Well it’s been a bit too long coming, but I think I’ve found a theme that I can get to grips with relatively easily. I’m going to be hacking Depo Clean, adding parts of Fauna and some K2 in for good measure. I had a look at Sandbox and I’ve got to say that I was pretty turned off by the function.php file that they’ve added in there. It just makes the markup so much more difficult to understand at first glance which is what made me keep looking for alternatives that just did the job cleanly. In any case Depo Clean probably best resembles what I’m aiming for in the end anyway so it helps that I like the markup as well. The next time I do this I’ll be converting this markup into something that can be used with Habari.

I’m currently in Greece for a full 2 weeks. I’ve been looking forward to this break for well over a month now, hell I’ve been looking forward to this break for at least 3 months. I didn’t go anywhere during the summer period, which was probably the worst thing to do for my psyche to be honest. The summer was a very dark time for me with very little bright spots which was clearly reflected in my mood and how I dealt with those around me. Being a traditionally pretty patient person, I noticed myself getting more irate with things and situations that I would normally brush off, or at least see the funny side. Hasn’t been the case for at least 3 months now.

I guess I can attribute this to the situation in Lebanon which seriously hit me very hard. I can probably attribute it to work which has been very far from enjoyable these last few months, or I can attribute it to unfinished business from several areas that kept me down (my list of unfinished projects is pretty extensive). Needless to say, I need a break and a break I shall have. However I’m never happy until I’ve got things off my plate and I’ve been very good at not putting anything new on my plate but actually finishing those projects that I had opened/started/committed to first, after all I’m a finisher, not just an instigator.

Since it’s good to have a list I think I’ll make this list to remind myself what I have to look forward to in getting these monkeys off my back:

Finish the Splash Panel Redesign.

Stathi's and Priya's Websites.

Broken Kode Season One

Broken Kode Prints

Chameleon Theme

Also on a completely different note, I really need to get myself a laptop (any recommendations for small dinky laptops, like the Fujitsu Lifebook or a Vaio would be welcome) as I’m currently using my dad’s windowz install using an ADSL connection that might be a little difficult to sort out on Ubuntu and it’s seriously painful to get anything done (which isn’t helped by the fact that it’s a shitty CRT screen that’s got a tinge of purple going through,…nice), the ‘Kode has never looked this bad.

Just thought I’d give all the crazy cats out there looking for some different Rin and Manji flavours a nice treat. It might seem as though I’ve neglected my little themes, but I have not forsaken them. I’ve had a couple of flavours (different coats of paint) sitting on my harddrive waiting for me to clean them up and release them. I’ll try and sort them out in the coming month and put them out for everyone to play around with them.

The thing is I’ve actually got the ULTIMATE theme in my head. I know EXACTLY what I want to do with it. I’ve got the name and everything, I’ve even got a couple of mockups scribbled in one of my moleskins.

The only problem is that I need a TEAM to create this bastard theme. If I get it done the way it’s in my head I can pretty much guarantee it will become the WordPress default theme. Bold statement maybe, but I’m telling you I’ve got a plan.

So if you’re up for a long burner project, probably 6 months or something (I’m in no rush whatsoever). I need someone that understands WordPress architecture and someone that is a complete whizzkid with Javascript. The could be the same person or completely different people.

I would ask one of my buddies but I really don’t want to overload anyone. We’ve got loads of things to deal with as it is anyway. Just to be clear I intend to stay well clear of the coding as I’ll make a right mess of it. Someone that knows what they’re doing or at least thinks they know what they’re doing would be good. If you’re interested, just drop me a line.

It’s been a long time coming, just needed to find a couple of hours to do the necessary dirty and sort it all out.

• I've brought the php code inline with standard theme mark up. This actually prevented a couple of people from installing the theme. So for all those people that tried and didn't succeed, problem has been solved.
• One of the things I love to hear about Rin and Manji is the when the user comments about the ease of modifying the code. I know exactly what it feels like when you've never seen CSS as structural markup and you still think tables are the way to go etc. So I've tidy-uped the CSS file to have a content in there, and just made it more readable.
• Smooth Scrolling. This is an idea that I'm including in V4 and I found out how to do it from this excellent little tutorial. Easy implementation, but makes things less jarring I find.
• Rin Manual has been updated to version 0.2

Now I’ve included the calander in the archive.php file, using the get_calander template tag, but for some reason it only shows the day which there was a post during that month. When you click on it the link goes nowhere. Anyone know what the deal is there?

I know there’s a slight conflict with a certain spam plugin, but I can’t find the information, so if you know what I’m talking about drop me a line.

Download Rin v1.1

It would seem I’ve finished work on Rin and Manji wouldn’t it? It would seem that way, but that would be a lie. I’ve been compiling information and ideas from people on the Broken Kode Boards, on the WordPress Boards, e-mails people have sent and even reviews people have written. There is a lot of little things that I should have the time to finish in the coming week. Here’s a list of them, I’ll come back to this post and strike them through once I’ve completed them.

<ol>

That’s all I can think of for now. If I do come up with any more ideas, or if anyone has any other points they think I’ve missed out on here, then just post it underneath, if it’s doable then I’ll update.

For those who want a 3 Column Rin RIGHT NOW, then I direct you to Hemisphere Dance’s website and download Rin Tin Tin.

Also before I forget Rin has been localised for into both Persian and German (thanks to Ali and Oli respectively). Go to the Rin download page for more information.

Rin got second place in the Alex King Theme Design Competition!

Well it’s not really an award, it’s a competition I know, but still it’s the closest to an award the WordPress community has so indulge me for a moment while I bask in this feeling, and go through this little acceptance speech, honest it’s not going to be long. (Now if I ever get an Eisner that’s a completely different issue altogether, all bets are off then, but I digress).

First off I’d like to thank my partner in crime Joshua, who came through in flying colours. It took us three days to convert Manji2 into Rin, and another day for me to sort out the actual manual etc.

Rootie for being there at the beginning of the Rin & Manji expedition.

To all the users who’ve posted here and on the forums and sent me e-mails of thanks, support and bug reports I thank you, would have been what it is without you guys.

Honestly I’m not just saying this, after seeing some of the other entrants I thought that at best we’d get a mention, but nothing else really. So it honestly came as a complete surprise to see it there up second. Completely solid competition.

As said elsewhere, the real winners however in this competition where all the WordPress users. I can think of 50 designs that look absolutely fantastic, and they’re all under a GPL license. Sweet.

Okay it’s finally here. After nearly 2 months, and 2000 downloads later, Manji2 has now blossomed into Rin. The major differences between this and the Beta version and the final release is really in the stylings. There have been some tweaks in the code, but those are just falling in line with the developments for Manji. Rin has been submitted for the Alex King Design Competition, but I’ve got to say it’s up against some pretty awesome competition. I’ve got a pretty extensive post in me about themes, their development and the current state of affairs on the horizon, but that’s for another time.

So if you want to have a look at what Rin looks like go over here and have a look, I’m sure you’ll be pleasantly surprised. (yeah I know the bloody name is still Manji2preview, I’m working on it, trust me I’ve got some pretty major updates for this place as well in the coming 12 hours or so).

As always my partner in crime Joshua did a great job with the mess I presented him.

Manji2 is NO MORE. I hinted at this before. Manji2 is being renamed Rin. I’ve spent the entire evening sorting out the final release. There has been a lot of stylistic changes to the final theme. I’m currently working on the icons which will accompany it. The first flavour to be released will be Nebular. I’ve got several new flavours up my sleeve, but it’s a bit premature to be talking about that right now. Flipping from Beta to Final release you can see the evolution. The Beta version has been out since the 1st of February, so I think it’s about time I got my ass in gear and released the proper version.

I’ll hopefully release it sometime tomorrow or the day after that, but it’s coming soon, very soon.

First we taken Manhattan, then we take Berlin.

First of all I’d like to thank everyone who’s taken an interest in Manji. It’s been an absolute joy watching all you wonderful people who have taken the code made it your own and come up with some fantastic designs. I’ve got to setup a gallery to set up to showcase all your wonderful designs, it’s on my to-do list I promise you.

It’s taken me 3 months to finally reach this stage where I can leave the code in peace knowning all the fixes that I wanted to get done have been completed and it’s finally the way I want it. This is in no small part thanks to everyone who downloaded it and commented on the theme. (BTW the theme has been downloaded over 4000 times since it was launched on the 5th of December 2004, so again thanks for all the kind words and support).

1. I've tweaked the general font from Arial to Verdana. I'm in that mood right now so I've decided to go with that.
2. The top navigation bar now automatically pics up the pages created. All you have to do now is create them and they'll pop up in your navigation menu. This is using WordPress's wp_list_pages tag.

<li>The template now remembers who visited and commented previously. It's the same little javascript found in action on BK. I like this little script so I've included it in here.</li>
<li>

WP’s nextpage function now works for the individual pages as well. It was just a missing tag really, so can’t really consider that a bug.

I don’t think I’ll be editing the code any more. The only reason the code is ever going to change from my POV is if Root wants to revisit the code and sort it out, in the only way he knows how. Otherwise all my attention (with respect to Manji that is) is going to be focused on the manual, Manji2 and other flavours, oh yes ^_^.

So Monsieur Alex King has begun his second annual WordPress Theme design competition. Interesting. Now I remember a few people got really annoyed with the last one of these, and while I really am with Alex on the reason behind the competition I can see where the apprehension can come from.

Will I be entering the competition? Highly unlikely. There is several reasons for this:

1. The first being that I've got loads of other projects on my plate that take much higher preference.
2. The second and in my opinion much more important is the fact that a good template takes a hell of a lot of time and effort. I mean that. It can take months of proper preparation and hours of testing, for all the bugs and kinks to be ironed out. What you think Manji was the way it is the first time it came out? No it wasn't. That's why we're on version 1.1, and gearing up to version 1.11 (hopefully I'll have some cool news to report on this very soon).

The point I’m trying to make is a template competition can be a good thing, but the judges will have to be able to discard the themes have got some obvious fundamental flaws. Some people might take short cuts, and might not really care about what the CSS looks like or is structured. It took me something like a week to get the structure of the Manji CSS correct and cleaned up in the way it’s presented. I had the luxury of time on my hand. Will the people entering this competition have the same luxury?

Oh don’t get me wrong I don’t claim Manji is perfect for a second, but I think anyone who’s contacted me with regards to a problem I’ve tried to solve it for them straight away, even though I’m not a coder, and generally speaking they’ve not been serious.

Which brings the next point up, what happens to the forums when people start asking questions left right and centre? Are the creators of the themes going to offer support or are they going to be lumped on the poor support forums? When Manji came out I had a forum that killed my site for a day and a half. Sorry that’s not happening again. Until I find a forum system I can trust and update easily I’m not putting another Manji forum up.

So good luck to all those entering the competition, I hope it’s a success, but if you’re thinking about entering be prepared for a lot of work ahead, unless you’re a coding guru ^_^.

This is going to be a pretty large one people as I’ve spent the past 4 days trying to get this to all work nicely together. As you’ll notice Broken Kode has now got a new front page, as I mentioned a little while back. This is about why, how and what I’ve learnt in the process.

All of Broken Kode’s previous derivatives have always been a one column job. Always. The reasoning behind this is pretty simple really, when the site started I only wanted a simple way to update the news section of the site. Using Blogger this was as easy as pie. Needless to say that just quickly spiralled into the wonderful world of CSS and Weblogs as I began to use the feature for a whole lot more.

Now believe it or not Manji is actually the second FULL CSS site design I ever attempt. All previous attempts had css sure but none of them except what I call version 1.0 had css structure in place. The more I got into it the more I realised the full potential of the language.

I downloaded the excellent plugin BAStats which is running on this site right now. The significance of the plugin is two fold. First of all it lets me see what is being read and by how many, but it also tells me what people are searching for, both on google and locally, and that is the main driver behind the two column index page. I get over 1000 local searches a day retaining to shuttle and manji. Erm guys it’s right up there at the top.

Which is why I decided to make them a little more prominent. The second reason was due to the number of completely different people coming to the site, seems Broken Kode is coming up higher in specific searches for the topics I cover. So I take these things a bit seriously and rather than have people come to the site for some seriously unrelated rubbish, I’d like for them to come and get some semblance of information, opinion or whatever. If they want to know what the deal is about this site at a glance I’ve included a tiny description with a bit of my character right there on the index page.

I’ve tried to keep additional items on the side to a minimum, but what you’ll notice is the fact that I don’t have complete posts on the front page anymore. Reason behind that is again very simple, as the focus of this site changes slightly so too should the design. I’m not in the habit of finding great links on the internet before everyone and telling them about it. I write about things. I write long posts, like articles. They might not be the greatest things in the world, but one has to try and try again before they can get better. The way I write now is ultimately much more different to the way I used to write a year ago, and hopefully in a year’s time it will be better than now.

Logo Design. I’m sure I’ll keep tweaking it till I’ve got it exactly the way I want it. It’s a start and been in my head for a while now. Something simple and yet gives this site an identity.

This design also showcases the Iliosnare logo for the first time. Basically this is to get me to actually start doing something with regards to my showcase site. My online portfolio. That will be a reminder for me that I’ve not done that yet. Iliosnare will be 85% Flash with a bit of WordPress and CSS stuck in there for good measure. As much as I love CSS and XHTML, I love Flash and all it’s infinite possibilities. I’m not constrained to much with Flash, and it’s a joy to use.

In trying to solve a few design issues I had to delve deeper and deeper into the world of web design and CSS. There really is an immense amount of information out there, and as it seems there are some key players that set the standard for all of us out there. Some worthwhile resources include the following sites:

Designers Toolbox - Absolutely one of the best resources on the net. I’m going to be downloading EVERYTHING that they offer whether I use it or not, because it’s such a fantastic resources of information. Somethings I’m going to be trying out simply because now I know how.

Oh yeah and I HATE INTERNET FUCKING EXPLORER. Please! Please! Please! stop using that pile of shit browser. It’s really pretty bad. It kills my site (and many others) for no reason other than it feels like it. I’ve spent like 3 days trying to sort out bugs that come up in IE. There are alternatives people, much better alternatives. I’ve even written about them. Go, have a look. Just wanted to thank Joshua who came to my rescue again, as I was slowly going insane trying to sort out these bloody IE bugs. Thanks buddy I owe you big time.

I had a pretty quiet moment of clarity yesterday as I finally understood something that had been bugging up my design for 2 days, and it was then that I understood something Joshua said to me. We were talking about Shuttle, and he asked me how I was going to handle compromise. I replied that there shouldn’t be any problem at all, it’s an honour working with everyone on the team. It only occurred to me how quickly Joshua sussed me out though e-mail and MSN conversations. That I’m a stubborn bastard when it comes to my work. He realised this by the way I was adamant about how I wanted to skin Manji2. The good news is that I’ve seen the light and will be sorting that code out in a big way in the coming weeks. The beta phase is over. I like to do this before I release a theme because I get to see what works and what doesn’t. See people’s reactions etc.

Manji2 will get a bit of a rebranding as well, in terms of colour to distinguish it slightly.

I’ve tweaked the Manji code very slightly, just a couple of minor things, I’ll put them in the change log on the preview site, which had something really stupid happen to it after the move. I’m still investigating to see what the problem was and restore everything back to normal.

The major difference is the addition of the HTML manual. This is just information culled from the FAQ and the download page so that you have it all in one handy file.

What I find the most satisfying aspect of the whole Manji experience is seeing how the code evolves over time, as I tweak a little here or there, add some functionality, fix a bug. It’s been an excellent experience so far.

Okay so here it is. I’ve set up a live preview for you to have a look at the theme and so any modifications, additions, alterations, bugs whatever will be talked about it there.

Manji2 Live Preview

If you leave a comment please thank Joshua as he’s 90% responsible for actually getting the code out to everyone. I’d have still been struggling with all sorts of issues, so Joshua you’re the man!!!

This is a 1.0 beta release, however expect only certain files to be changed; as I do want to tweak the aforementioned sidebar elements, and possibly clean up the css ever so slightly. You’ll notice a few hacks in there as well. That’s to make it all work in IE, which is a royal pain in the backside. Cross-browser issues really are a pain in the ass.

As you know very well there’s always more to do, however this release is pretty close. There might be some minor changes in the future, but that’s general tweaks. If we find a way to work around hacks, and a few other issues, there might be some structural changes in the index.php file. From our part we’ll make sure we post clearly what the changes are.

You can go download it now from the usual Manji download page.

A 2 column official Manji flavour is being prepped. Just doing some code restructuring and getting everything as easy to customise as the original Manji theme. It’s the most demanded ‘how-to’ I get (and have gotten in the past) and while it goes against the grain for me, I’d rather have it done properly by Joshua and me.

It’ll probably get released on Sunday evening, as with most Manji releases. It’ll be called Nebular Flavoured Manji2.

It’ll be interesting to see which one is downloaded more to be honest.

Ok I finally got round to it, even though it only took a few minutes to set up, it’s just been on the backburner. So if you’ve got any ideas, or if you’ve got any bugs you’d like to report then go there and give me a shout.

www.brokenkode.com/manjipreview

It’s been a while since I posted one of these, and this is definitely not a slant on all you beautiful people that have been slaving away on your superb Manji designs it’s just that this one as I’m sure you’ll agree truely does deserve a mention.

It belongs to Catonya and Rick, however it was designed by Lisa Fahrmeyer from Cafelisa. From her website it’s clear that Lisa has a distinct style to her work, and that’s something that’s a rare thing on the internet. To have a style that people associated you with. Lisa seems to be of an illustration background and that mentality shows. As illustrators you spend years trying to find your voice. I guess the same can be said of graphic and web design in general.

I promise this is like literally the last time I talk about this. I finally got EVERYTHING clear in my head about this. After the previous post Carthik said,

GPL is a license, and only that. The author or designer of the things you mentioned do have the copyright, and they preserve it. GPL is the license they release their work under, so anyone can use their copy-righted work in the manner specified in the license. The difference is subtle, but important - since they have the copyright, they will always be identified as the rightful creators of their work.

Curious, does it matter who has the copyright. It’s a pretty worthless thing, so I started thinking and talking about it again. I couldn’t get this little thing out of my head. After all I’ve put a copyright in the Manji CSS code, but I only did that because I was following the GPL instructions to a ‘T’ when I released the theme. Turns out that line is (where I put my name and together with the GPL license) the only things you’re not allowed to remove from the code. These lines won’t bloat the actual file size and don’t effect the SOFTWARE in any way.

You see if I said you’re not allowed to take of a link within the template back to this site, the WHOLE software is no longer FREE (in the sense of complete freedom). It’s a line of code you’re not allowed to touch. That goes against the GPL license. The code is meant to be editable in every way.

How do I the creator retain the credit? With the inclusion of my copyright credit line in the comments. Found this directly from the GPL license FAQ.

Yeah ok, but what happens when I modify your code? Aha, very simple, YOU retain your copyright to the CHANGES you’ve made. You just add your copyright credit after my copyright credit and you’re away.

There’s nothing immoral, at least from my point of view, about removing the CODE that retains to my name and a link back to this website. However it is immoral and wrong if you remove my copyright line and the GPL license. And that my friends is GPL for templates. I’ve put a link in there as part of the core code. You have EVERY right to remove it and modify it in any way. If the original creator wanted to retain that one line of code in there, then a creative commons license should have been applied.

Some people might choose NOT to include that copyright line. I suspect that is the case with B2 and wordpress, because Matt hasn’t included Micheal V’s copyright in there, and neither does Matt have a copyright there either, at least I can’t find any.

One of the most common questions on the boards, is how do you add another column for Manji. Now I’d originally decided not to ever release Manji with two columns, and the reason for that is simple, just about all blogging themes have got at least two columns. Some might argue for good reason. I tend to believe that in order to keep Manji unique, I would keep it single column, and that was the philosphy.

Of course even I’ve resorted to doing a two column layout within Manji, and it’s been there since the day I released version 1.0, on the official Manji download page. Is it hard to implement, no not really. So here it is for all you crazy cats that have decided to go to the wordpress boards with this question after I told you NO ^_^, yeah that’s right I’m looking at you, I’ll spill the BIG secret.

Eventually I guess I might release another Manji flavour, but the Nebula Flavoured Manji will always be single column.

In the CSS, add the following lines:

.doublecolumns { }

.rightcolumn{ float: right; width: 350px; }

.leftcolumn{ float: left; width: 150px; }

Where you’re going to have your posts edit them in the following way (I’ve included SPACES so that the code can actually show up):

< div class="doublecolumns"> < div class="leftcolumn"> Where you'll place all your links and other stuff. < / div> < div class="rightcolumn"> Where the entries go. < / div > < div class="clearer"> < / div > < !- - You must have this, otherwise it won't wrap around itself - - >

Pretty simple I know. In fact if anyone had looked at the Manji download page, their problem would have been solved instantly ^_^.

Hmm, ok after I wrote my previous post I strolled over to this link over at podz’s website. For those in the dark, Podz is an incredibly helpful chap. He’s always online answering questions on the wordpress forums and should be given a medal. He was going to help out with Manji as well which was nice, but he got a bit busy which is completely understandable.

After I read through his post and really started thinking about things, the following dawned upon me, Manji doesn’t belong to me. Wordpress doesn’t belong to Matt Mullenweg, and Persian doesn’t belong to Chris J Davis. Wordpress was a derivative of B2 which was originally on a GPL license morphed into Wordpress, does anyone know who the lead designer on B2 was? No, I know it’s easy to find out, but off the top of your head does anyone know? Unless you were using B2 probably not.

GPL basically means NOBODY has copyright of that particular bit of code. It’s there out in the open for everyone to play around with and create something better and bigger.

So when Michael asked people to credit him in the Kubrick code (download kubrick and read the readme file), he effectively had no right to do that, simply because HE made the decision to release Kubrick under a GPL license. People could do that if they were so inclined and wanted to thank him for it. But they have NO OBLIGATION. They can then take that code alter it and release it under a completely different name, without even thinking about including his name or whatever. Not even in the CSS. The only stipulation I see that you can’t do is alter the license. Nothing you do after that make it copyright of you. You don’t own the copyright of the code, and neither does the originator. In fact making people feel like they have to credit you kind of goes against Open Source code. You don’t see php.net in the bottom there, or apache.org anywhere on the site (except now of course). And yet this site wouldn’t be here for you to see without these open source codes.

This seems to be standard practice for most code we all use. Who’s the lead designer for Apache? What about MySQL? PHP? Some projects have a lead developer, since it does take a lot of time and knowledge and resources to keep something like Wordpress going. Matt’s doing a great job, but he could decide to stop tomorrow, he has after all turned 21, (Happy Birthday dude), does that mean the end of Wordpress? Well maybe, but the code might live on with someone else who would probably rename it and not include Matt’s name in there. Then again he might, but that would be a courtesy thing.

Which basically means that if you put the code in the bottom with a link back to where it was downloaded from, well that’s just a courtesy thing really. Nothing in the code stipulates that you have to link back to this site. So what I’m saying about Manji is that, by me releasing it under a GPL license, you’re effectively free to do whatever you want with it. You want to keep a link to my site in there, go right ahead, I thank you kindly and appreciate all your love. If you don’t want, take it out. What you can’t do is then say that the design is YOUR copyright, because no matter what you do with it, it will NEVER be your copyright. It’s out there in cyberspace to live or die. I will continue to work on Manji, tweaking and fixing bugs, because it means a lot to me. Wordpress is a community and in the same way that I have taken so much from it this was one way of giving something back.

So if you want disregard the below post, I could ask you to put the link, but NOTHING in the license I release with Manji says you have to. I include the link as a default, but as with everything else in that file, you’re free to do with as you please.

Free as in FREEDOM.

It’s amazing what a day does, after you’ve thought about things a little.

In my trolls around the internet I’ve seen several conflicting footers with regards to credits to Manji. I guess this is my fault since to be honest I don’t have a readme file that states any of this. I’m going to hopefully finish this off in the next couple of days along with the user manual for all you newbies who would like to understand the structure and how you can go about actually skinning Manji.

I will say that the majority of the sites I’ve been to that have used Manji have left the credits in tack and in some cases gone a bit further and given me copyright of their blog as well ^_^. Needless to say YourSite is NOT copyright of Khaled Abou Alfa. Your site is your copyright. I’ve got to say that I’m really proud of you guys for being so honest and cool about keeping the Manji credit in tact.

Which leads me to my next point. Could all those using the preview version of Manji (around 1000 downloads) make the link back to manji the following:

Many people are getting this page when they link to this site, kind of defeats the object doesn’t it? http://www.brokenkode.com/index.php?p=470

In the meantime I’ll say this about the footer credits. I guess all I ask is that you keep one line in there:

Manji designed by Khaled Abou Alfa & Root.

That’s all I ask (of course and keeping the proper creditation in the css and the GPL license). Which funnly enough brings me to my final point about this I promise. There has been some talk about people releasing their Manji flavours to the world at large. In fact Scott has already released his Flavour for Wordpress Version 1.2. Personally I’m all for this effort. It’s what GPL is all about. Community and people adding to something someone started or whatever. It’s more fun that way.

So what happens then? Well then the footer does change and personnally I’d really like it to be something along the lines of the following:

YourName Flavoured Manji: Designed by Your Name. Based wholely upon the Manji template(or code, whatever suits you more) developed by khaled abou alfa & root.

In the CSS your name gets added to the list of people before you. So my name and Root’s and then yours and then the next person after you. To be honest none of this will ever get policed. It’s just a courtesy thing really nothing more nothing less.

I turn around for like one minute and bam, everyone’s been busy with all sorts of things left right and centre. I feel like I didn’t achieve much this christmas while everyone else was hard at work on various projects here and there.

Don’t believe me, let’s start with Matt, man’s just released bbPress. This is a forum system that runs the Wordpress Support forums. Hmm interesting, only because it seems like it can be integrated into wordpress directly. I do like phpbb, and I love how much progress they guys and gals have made since the last time I used this package. So although I’d like to support your Matty, I’m going to have to wait and play around before the verdict can truely be out on that one.

Erm, we’re now running Wordpress 1.5 Beta? Damn man, I was running 1.3 Alpha not that long ago, how did this all happen? Oh and Kubrick is now the default, comes straight out the box. Is this a good thing? I’d like to think so, as it’s a tad(understatement) bit better in terms of design to original design. I think it’s a good move for the Wordpress community at large. So congrats to Micheal.

Scott’s been busy as well. I think I’m going to go for his gallery solution as well for the Manji Gallery. Glad to see he’s reverted back to his red masthead as well. I’ve been thinking about the wp 1.2 version Manji (since his site is running manji with wp 1.2.2) , and can’t help but feel it would be a waste of time, since we’re so close to WP 1.5 or whatever we’ll end up with. We’re in Beta peeps, it’s close I can feel it. To be honest I’d rather sort out bugs and tweaks for Manji 1.3 than go back; Lava Flavoured Manji and Like Manji: Loaded.

Manji: Loaded what’s that? Heh, wait for it baby, wait for it.

Which reminds me, for all those experiencing a bit of Peek-a-boo rubbish in IE (that is the comment information sometimes shows up and sometimes disappears, again only appears for IE), please modify your Manji code with the following:

add the following line in

p.instructions { margin: 14px 0 0 200px; color: #7b7b7b; font-size: 0.9em; text-align: justify; border-left-width: 1px; border-left-style: solid; border-left-color: #d5d7db; padding-left: 15px; position: relative; }

And a semi-colon after

padding-left: 15px;

Version 1.02 has already been uploaded.

Oh yeah just wanted to thank all the kind kids on the Manji boards that are helping each other, thanks for caring enough to point things out to me as well, much appreciated.

My buddy Franchesco has released the very first iteration of his B/rad program. When I get a change I’m going to help him tart up his website to make it slightly more fun to look at. Open Source doesn’t have to be ugly.

Well here’s the first Manji port I know of. I believe a textpattern version is in the works as well. However Chris over at ichris.ws has already ported Manji over for Drupal 4.5 . I’d like to take the opportunity to thank the man for all his work on it.

The page with all the information is located here www.ichris.ws/drupal/themes/manji

Damn no matter how hard you try there’s always something you miss. I honestly don’t know why this didn’t show up on the radar when I originally released this. The problem is very minor and is found in the about, links and archives pages. Seems the code is causing an extra gap in where there shouldn’t be one. Thing is I tried this on two different machines and it didn’t turn up, so I don’t know what the deal is exactly. However please if you’re one of those that is having trouble with your static pages giving you gaps download the upgrade or go to the forums for an explanation.

This marks the official release of Manji. I released the Preview version a little over 2 weeks ago. I think the preview was a great idea because I got so much feedback of what was broken and where. Somethings I was fully aware of others I was a bit in the dark about, so I’d like to thank everyone who’s downloaded it and said good things about it and used it. I really appreciate all the love.

I’ve sorted out those permalink pages now, so the official Manji download page is www.brokenkode.com/manji as you would generally expect it to be. Could I ask all those who’ve made lists on their sites etc to just point to this location now. I do appologise for the inconvenience but at least now it’ll be easier to find in the future.

Gratitude First things is a big shout out to Alphaoide who’s come into the dev side of things to help me out, since to be completely honest is a godsend, as I’m no coder. He’s been a ROCK and I’d just like to thank him for all the help. If you guys bump into him on the boards or wherever please be sure to thank him as well.

So what’s been fixed? Loads of things, here’s a list:

• Xhtml validation on main page (this was very minor and stupid mistake on my part, but hey it did get released).
• CSS validation on main page.
• IE funkiness has been sorted out. This was specifically in the comments form section and general spacing in the footer area.
• Comment edit buttons now look the same in IE and FF. Originally pngs they're now gifs.
• The comments underline used to break if there was a long name or a pingback. That's not an issue any more.
• Spacing of the actual naviation menu sorted out.

What’s new?

• About page now gets edited from the static page menu rather than hand coding it in the about.php file.
• No need to edit the file to activate the comment buttons. They'll activated automatically.
• Hovering over the comment edit buttons also tells the user what they do.
• Masthead is now clickable by default.

What about the code? Did you clean it up you lazy bastard? Well once you look under the hood, you see that a lot has been modified:

• The css has now been completely sorted out into structure and typography. Each section of the page has also been clearly labelled, so now skinning and modifying the actual look of your site could not be easier.
• The php has been streamlined big time and again given a bit of a polish so you now know where something begins and where it ends.

What’s next? Loads. I’m not as anxious to get the rest of my ideas out there as I was to get this release, mainly because soo many people seemed to be using the template, and I felt that I should give them a more rounded product. I’ve still got Lava Flavoured Manji to release sometime in the future, which is basically a darker version of Manji for everyone that’s not into the white space.

A 1.2 version is still in the works believe it or not, and I’ll probably work on that next (as far as Manji is concerned).

I have one final idea that needs some serious development but I think it’s a pretty neat idea. Alphaoide came up with the name, but I’ll see how much that idea flies and I’ll talk about it more if I think it’s something that would be useful.

That was a pretty good evening actually. Went to my most favourite place in Camden (and currently in all of London as well) Tupello Honey, had some fantastic carrot cake straight from the over, PLENTY of icing on top, and a nice cappuccino. So I’m sitting there with Alfonso and we’re discussing our ‘other’ lives outside the office. See the fonz is a kindred spirit in that sense, he’s got just as much crap going outside of work as me; due to being older however he’s mastered how to deal with a lot of it… I haven’t…yet.

Wrote the list of things to do. I don’t know about everyone else but I’ve write loads of these, sometimes I make a dent in them, othertimes not really. The thing is though, wrote all of them and started prioritizing the items. Strange but everything’s kind of fallen into place. I do know exactly what is required at this point in time for me. It’s very clear to me, at the same time it’s going to be hard to stay on the actual direct line of action I’ve drawn up.

Development of Manji is actually only for tonight. I’m pleased to say 98% of it is complete. In fact I can probably go live pretty soon with version 1.0, however as Alphaoide (more on him later) pointed out, some more work needs to be done in cleaning up the php files, to fit into the theme structure that Ryan Boren has set up through his example of Kubrick.

So the question I have to ask myself is this:

• Does it validate? Xhtml and css? Yes on both accounts.
• Does it look the same in Firefox and IE? Yes completely and utterly (really happy about that).
• Have I sorted out all the little bugs and gotten it to have all the features I wanted it to have in the beginning? Yes, all comments from the boards etc have been integrated more or less.
• Is the CSS clean and clear for editing purposes? Damn straight. A lot of work in cleaning this little baby up making it soo simple to edit. Once you see it you'll all understand.

So what’s the problem? Well while the php works fine, there is the problem that it’s not as polished as I would like it to be. This last part can be what’s on for the next stage of development as we get closer to a wordpress 1.3 release. More questions will be asked about the template system and so it will get more clear to me what is required and what is not. Please bear in mind that until 6 months ago I’d never really dealt with php, so I think I’ll need some more time to get my head around it all. It’s damn powerful stuff, and I wish I understood it more but hey I’m going on small overload here, which is why I had asked Root to help me out originally.

Which brings me back to Alphaoide (see told you I’d get back to him). Behind the scenes the man has been an absolute gem. He’s been answering all my dumbass questions and solving all the problems that I’ve had, which has prompted me to ask him if he’d be interested in joining me on my next project. I’ve also asked Chris Davis to join in on this little project as well, which he seems keen on just seems the man’s been pretty busy lately, but I’m hoping he’ll join in as well because I think he’d be great to have on the team.

So what is it I’m talking about you ask? The tentative title of the project (and most of you know that I’m pretty bad when coming up with names), is Shuttle. What is Shuttle? Simply, it’s going to be a brand new spanking interface for the Wordpress Admin Control Panel. I’m sorry Matt, I love you, but the Wordpress interface is something to me that is sorely lacking in style and sometimes functionality. I don’t think there are that many people (except if they’re serious coders and really don’t care what it looks like) that really love the aesthetics of the Wordpress Control Panel.

I’m going to admit something, and that’s the fact that I nearly didn’t go for Wordpress over Textpattern due to the weak interface. What can I say I’m a shallow designer, who places a lot on the actual appearance. What actually kept me was the fact that the Wordpress community was absolutely buzzing. I just had one look at the boards, and knew that if there was a question I needed it would be answered, and that was reassuring, however I’ve never liked the Control Panel, and well I don’t think it’s really on Ryan’s or Matt’s minds right now, so it’s up to the rest of the community to sort it out. That’s where the Shuttle Team come into play.

What’s the ETA on this? Don’t ask silly questions, you won’t get silly answers. To be fair I think it will be at least 2 months down the line, hopefully less, but I’m being realistic about all of this. So why mention all of this now you ask? Well as this is something that is effectively user based I’d really like to hear which plugins, functions whatever you use, used to use or whatever from other blogging systems (just name them) or whatever that you think would be perfectly suited to the admin panel. I’ve created a new section on the boards for this so if anyone has any ideas/thoughts about it please just drop in and give your thoughts.

I’m going to do a little bit of Manji work, and decide tomorrow whether to release it or not. Also Manji has been downloaded over 500 times since it went live 12 days ago. Again thanks to everyone for their interest and support.

Right this is the last post I make regarding Manji until I’ve released version 1.0. There has been development on this. Most of the issues I had have been sorted out to be honest. I had this massive list of around 15 things that I had to go through, that to be honest some of which I noticed after I went live with the preview. I’m kinda glad for this little period because I got to actually see potential problems arising from the various blogs that have been popping up here and there. Don’t think I’m not watching. I’d like to really thank everyone who’s downloaded Manji, talked about it with such kind words on their blogs and who have embrassed it for what it is.

I really want to include everyone’s flavours in the spotlight but I think that would be counter productive. So the gallery is forth coming so that everyone can have their spotlight of sorts.

The official version of Manji will come out towards the end of this week, begining of next week. I’ve also got a couple of other announcements but I need the perverbial ink to dry and contracts to be “signed”. I’ve got to get confirmation that I can talk about these things openly really.

For all those that have customised their blogs already, fear not as I’ll be posting all my changes after a fashion (where I deem it necessary) on the forum that way you can go back into your edited code and change it accordingly. I’ve kept track of everything really so it shouldn’t be much of a problem.

It’s a three point play and Manji is on fire. The latest spotlight is on James' rendition. James is actually one of the beta testers, which is why in the footer he’s got the name Chameleon rather than Manji, but that’s because he has the pre-preview release of it (and you thought I ran into this unprepared). I’ve got to say the man’s excelled himself again. What I love about seeing all these versions is what way they’re actually using the open space provided in the background. Each spotlight so far has taken the background and used it in a different way.

Also one of the things I’m seeing more about is the use of the top space before the post as an area for a static (or changing comment) that puts people in the mood for what they’re about to read. Nice touch that.

I could spot Jame’s style a mile away it’s very unique in all his previous renditions; the computer screen really is his canvas and it’s an honour to have his rendition as part of the Manji family. He hasn’t named it yet so once he does I’ll be sure to update this post.

Question 1. Does anyone have any nice ideas for a gallery I could set up? I’m not really keen on flickr as the pictures really don’t do the work any justice, or at least that’s my impression. Ideally I’d like something that has a button to show thumbnails and then more details. Fade in and out effects are also welcome. Question 2. One last bit of news, I’ve got only the comment box rendition in IE to deal with before I can release Version 1.0 of Manji. There have been several fixes and a couple of new features added, but I’m having trouble sorting it out, soo if you’ve actually worked it out and can make the comment insert box look the same in FF and IE please drop me a line and save me some hours work.

Now see this is interesting. Basically it’s a javascript you install on your server and link up your header to it. Dumbs everything down so that the way it was coded for a web compliant browser shows up on IE.

The website is courtesy of one Dean Edwards. I would have loved this for version 1.0 of Broken Kode.

Thankfully Manji doesn’t have too many cross-browser glitches. I know full well of 3 of them and I’m trying to resolve them right now. I’ve already sorted out a couple of glitches thanks to the guys on the forum and just general tinkering. If you’ve seen any others just give me a shout on the forums, or e-mail me.

I’ve built the index page for the 1.2 version as well, and now it’s a matter of getting all the other pages sorted. Hopefully an alpha version of 1.2 will come out this sunday as well.

Also I’m going to start spotlighting Manji themes that I come across that make me smile. I’ve already talked about Paul’s This is not a love story, thought I’d include:

What I love about it are the colours actually. They’re so muted and yet vibrant at the same time. And while he says he doesn’t like the header I think it gives the entire site a certain painted feeling, tying everything in. Subtle, but he uses all that space given in the default to his advantage. Using his space like an open canvas.

Before anyone gets confused I did say that the downloadable theme is actually a preview. That being said I’ve more or less hammered all the validation and cross-browser issues associated with the theme. It’s been a pretty productive night to be honest. I had nine points I’d jotted down that I needed to go through, now I’m down to 3.

Don’t worry I’ve kept a good track of what changes I’ve made so that all those already gotten into their skinning will be able to pick up some of the points from the previous release and sort out those issues (unless you’ve already sorted them out).

Quick question does anyone know why the hell my 508 validation doesn’t work? I can’t for the life of me sort it out, or understand the criteria, so if anyone can help me out here, that would be really appreciated (also bringing the problems/issues down to 2/9).

Once that’s done I’ve got to actually start thinking about how I’m going to skin broken kode. I’ve been soo preoccupied trying to get Manji off and out I’ve had no time to properly think about it, although I’ve got a couple of ideas,…that’s what the weekend is going to be for…

Man, I’m completely overwhelmed by the response Manji has received so far.

The critics have come back If this was a movie this post here by Chris would be considered a ‘GLOW REVIEW, THUMBS UP!'. Aaand my head’s just exploded. So I’d just like to say thank you to everyone who’s said really nice things about Manji, I truely appreciate it, honestly it all makes it worth while. I love how the he’s taken the mastheads and put them in the post, just makes them look oh soo much more pro.

How many times? At around 15:00 this afternoon (roughly since I checked the number of downloads around then), Manji preview had been downloaded more than 100 times. Again thanks to everyone for their interest. Just want to thank Chris for providing the tools to get a system to actually quantify the downloads, fantastic stuff, thanks Chris.

Clarifying the relationship with Root I would like to try and give a bit more information on the actual design process for Manji. On the 1st of October I contacted Root. I ended that conversation with this:

I see this project as a plugin that may eventually have it's own interface, or even because there are plugins I'd like to incorporate into the design.

I’ve come up with a name, which I’m more than willing to change if you’re on board and hate it :). The name I’ve chosen is Manji.Again this is a long shot, but if you’re up for it I think this could be something really cool.

I’m still keen on the own interface idea but I think the WP dev team has done pretty great job in sorting out the theme manager. Now bearing in mind that Root had only seen the previous version of my site, his response was this:

I am in 100%. Tell me what you need.

For the next two months Root would work absolutely tirelessly on the template with me. It was one of those amazing moments where I found someone that could match me for the amount of time we would spend on getting the actual design correct. The first Sunday we worked on the template from jpg to working theme (kind of) we must have spent 12 hours straight, and 60 comment posts later.

So from my point of view the man was nothing but an absolute joy to work with. Of course I was aware of what was going on with Micheal but I decided to stay away from that whole thing; in fact this is the first time I discuss it on my blog. I just want to say that I love Kubrick. I think it’s a great design, and I think Micheal has a great writing style. I believe the strength that Wordpress has over other software is the community. It’s the people in it and it’s the main reason I love it so much, and ultimately chose it over other software out there that do more or less the same thing.

Basically from our original e-mails it was originally thought that I would lead this and Root would come into it as and when that was needed. Once I started getting into the code it was pretty apparent that he should take care of that side of things. Root went in and I’d basically ask for something to be done and it would be done before my eyes in the most amazing way. He’d come up against a couple of bricks every once in a while and he’d have the resolution in a few hours at the latest.

I took care of how everything looked and would go in and tweak the spacing the typography, the colours the overall design while Root would make sure it validated and was easy to modify. I really hope I can recreate that level of collaboration in the future with other people.

On Flavouring Reasons behind a Flavouring system comes from the fact that I draw a lot. This also means I take pride in a something after I’ve finished with it and sign it. I think it’s such a saticifying end to a piece of work you slaved over. It’s not always possible on the internet. By naming a tweaked version of a template I think it puts your signature on it. Then show it off at What’s your flavour?

Future of Manji I might have some news on the coding front but I’m going to wait before I make any announcements.

• I want to finish the code for Manji off properly get it polished.
• There are a couple of annoying things that happen that I'm starting to see for myself like how it deals with Pings and trackbacks; amongst other things.
• Finish that manual I've been writing for a few weeks now out there (although as more questions start cropping up in the forum, I might wait until I've gotten a few more questions/problems fixed so I don't have to keep updating the manual)
• I've still got loads of plans for Manji. I've got another 3 flavours sitting on my hardrive ready to be released, when I get a change to skin them properly.
• Sort out a version for 1.2. Hopefully I'll get that done tonight, although testing is going to be a bit difficult.

As promised today sees the release of Nebula Flavoured Manji Version 1.0 preview. I do apologise that it’s not the official final 1.0 version but I’ve come to accept that the design on Manji is going to be fluid in nature. I’m pretty confident with this release. Is it perfect? Not yet, but I think given a bit of time it will be as close as possible in this crazy world of cyberspace.

If you would care to sample a small taste of Manji please go to the download page.

Also the Manji forums are open for any help you might need. I’ve already written a couple of questions for the FAQ which should help you guys out initially.

What’s even crazier is that a new Manji flavour has already appeared courtesy of Paul over at This Is Not A Love Story has released Sideshow. Does that make it Sideshow Flavoured Manji? Personally I love the name Nicotine Flavoured Manji.

Is about to be live for the final time today. I’m going to be switching to the default Manji theme and Wordpress 1.3, please excuse the mess while I upgrade.

Update: That was a lot easier than I thought to be honest. I’m going to be show casing Manji for the first time right here. I’ll hopefully release a beta version for people on Sunday and as the months go by I’ll eventually get it all out there. To be honest I’m tired of the secrecy, it’s a work in progress I might as well accept this. Two months of preparation are a lot.

Manji Introduction. The first time I talked about Manji was in this post right here. That was on the 28th of September. The name of the theme changed to Chameleon, however I quickly realised that the name was common in it’s use on the internet for various programs, so I had to rethink my name, and in the end Manji just sounds better.

What is Manji? Manji is a template for the Wordpress blogging software. Effectively it’s a skin for your website, that is easy to modify and while you customise it to your own needs will hold down the fort in style.

Flavouring System. One of the first ideas that came to me as I was doing the design was to actually have something called a flavouring system. Since I always intended Manji to have a GPL license, I thought any derivatives could have their own unique name as well, chosen by the person who did the mods. That way people could put their own signature. So when eventually you download the theme and change it around a nice and uniform way of naming would be “Something” Flavoured Manji.

Manji History I originally contact Root (an active member of the wordpress community and all round CSS and XHTML guru) on whether he would like to work on a template together. I would do the design he would do the coding parts. This was back on 1st of October 2004. At that point in time I’d actually made a draft copy of the final design. I knew it would change significantly but the original thoughts that I had would remain throughout the design.

We talked about the logistics of working in completely different cities (same country) and eventually I set up a secret installation where we begun work in ernest. It became pretty clear to Root earlier on that in terms of coding I was a complete monkey and that he best take over completely from that side of things. The way it would work is that I would draw mock ups in freehand and photoshop and he’d set everything up for me, I’d then go back in and tweak the colours, fonts, text sizes etc.

We completed around 85% of the template before he disappeared off the internet. None of this would have been done without him and so he is credited completely for contributing to the design. I can’t put xhtml and css by Root, because I’ve made a mess of it since he left, if/when he gets back we’ll release an updated version of the template that will incorporate how you’re meant to do code it correctly. Any validation errors you get are of my construction as Root left it validating 100%.

I will admitt with Root gone, my motivation and confidence in the project did fall. Thankfully David Prince stepped up for both moral support and helping out with the code whenever he could. Without him I might never having finished what we started. So thanks David.

Reason behind Manji. The reason behind Manji is to provide a template under a GPL license that is both asthetically pleasing while at the same has valid xhtml and css and is as accessible as possible. I decided to do this because I wanted to give something back to the wordpress community. I love to support open source projects and this is one that I’m very proud to be a part of. In my mind this is the only way I can contribute to it constructively. The main draw the wordpress community had/has over other open-source blogging software is the community that surrounds it; at least this is how I came to my decision.

Philosophy. The main idea behing Manji is as simple as it’s mark up. The most important aspect of a blog should first and foremost be the content itself. It should take centre stage. All additional elements can be considered a distraction. The issue is however that these elements are generally useful if they are required. That issue is addressed by having links to these main important aspects right at the top in the navigation section of the template.

I’m also a firm believer in less is more, at least with respect to design. In terms of words I do find it more difficult.

Manji Version 1.0 Beta will go live on Sunday, and I’ll update and tweak it till I get the perfected version 1.0 sometime down the line. Hopefully with feedback and ideas it’ll grow bigger and better. Of course you could just copy the css etc, but have patience and you’ll have everything in a tidy little download in a few short days.

Just in case you were wondering how it’s going, I can happily report that we’re sooo much closer. I say we as I’ve brought David Prince to help me out in the final stages of the project. It’s been a pretty productive week I’ve got to admit. The core pages are all working fine in Firefox and so far so good on the validation front. We’ve got a couple of things to deal with to complete it. I don’t know what kind of numbering system I should be employing for it though. It’s not a 0.1 release since it’s more complete than that, the thing is I can see myself sorting out things in the future. The thing is a 0.1 release implies it’s not finished, when in actual fact it’s not exactly that far off.

Also I think I’ll be changing the name. I’m not sure to what, and I’ll be explaining the reasoning once I’ve actually decided on another name. I’ve been working on this for the past 2 months, and I can finally see the end of the light. So in keeping with the theme I’ll post another section of the cover.

About 2 weeks ago I saw a link on pixelsurgeon. It was relating to a promotion Epson were doing for their new range of printers. Basically the idea was for you to put your prefered piece of whatever, drawing/photo/design onto a cd in the resolution they required etc, and they would send you a print of your drawing in the end. I was all over this promotion, the thing is I didn’t expect the results to be as stunning as they turned out to be. I mean this thing is an absolute beauty. I can’t stop looking at it. The colours are exactly like I imagined and put them onto my screen.

I’ll post a picture once it’s framed. The thing is though I’ve decided that I’m going to be getting into the limited edition prints business. Any one of my illustrations will have a limited print run of 10 prints maximum, and no more after that. I say 10 because I doubt I can afford to stock any more than that at any given time. This will also make sure I do one illustration a month. They’ll probably be at A2 size as it really does show off the artwork in the best possible way.

It’s an idea I’ve had for a while now. The reason I haven’t acted on this is that I’ve never seen my digital work printed in large on good paper, except that one time 6 months ago. Iliosnare will go live sooner than I thought.

In Chameleon news, I’m slightly more confident about the final product. I’ve tweaked the size slightly and sorted out the javascript as an original exercise to start with. The list has increased since the last time I thought about it, but baby steps and I’ll get there. And just because I’m a complete tease here’s another snippet of the cover, from a completely different section of it :).

Update: Oops, erm didn’t realise I’d closed the comments, erm if you’d like to add a comment please feel free to :).

Been a pretty productive weekend to be honest. I’ve really hammered through a load of ideas that have been floating in my head for a while now. The good news is that I’ve completed the cover to the Chameleon Manual cover. Here’s a small teaser of it. Just to clarify that’s not the whole image, just a small part of it :).

How’s the development of Chameleon going? Well pretty slowly to be honest, my partner in crime Rootie has gone AWOL for the past week and a half and I can’t seem to get through to him. I hope he’s ok but he’s not answering his e-mails and he’s not posted anything on his blog for a while now. I’ve got the following list of things to do before I can release Version 1.0 of the template:

1. Incorporate some icons for some pretty simple javascript.
2. Write the part of the manual relating to the CSS and the code itself.
3. Bring into play the additional php pages that make up the template, i.e the search page, archives page, links page etc.
4. Sort out the main menu at the top of the page since it seems a bit borked right now.
5. Have a small little play-around with the footer, I think I can make things work slightly better than what they’re being shown right now.
6. Continue and NOT screw the perfect validation that’s been established by Root so far.

I’ll hopefully get down and dirty this week to be honest. It’s going to be tough as I’ve got loads of other things that need to be done this week as well.

Anyone interested in being a beta tester when we get there?

So the release date is:

So yesterday was a very significant day in the development of Chameleon. We more or less finished it. Rootie put the xhtml tag to check the validation and it came back with ONLY 7 errors the first time out the door. This for me was a massive achievement, as it’s something that was without a doubt 100% Rootie’s doing. If it was down to me we’d be enjoying the coding mess that is brokenkode with it’s 141 errors. Within like 10 minutes that was down to like 1 and now I can say that both the CSS and XHTML validates 100%.

That is a very important milestone to be honest, as Root’s kept to his end of the bargain and provided a rock solid foundation. Sure there’s going to be tweaks but it’s pretty encouraging going into the tweaking stage knowing you comply with web standards.

The thing is now the pressure is on me to make sure the design and the colours are actually working nearly as well as the code itself. This’ll be a busy weekend for graphics and design in casa brokenkode as I go a bit mental with the design. It’s going to be good fun. So when is Chameleon going to be released officially? I’m a natural born optomist and I’d like to say next week, however I’ve been giving this a lot of thought and I’d rather go live when all the ideas we’ve got are completed and will only be revised slightly in the future. That means that ideally next week, however realistically it won’t go live till the week after that. For everyone scratching their heads asking ‘if you’ve completed the design what’s the problem?’ Once you finally get the end result I think you’ll understand why it’ll take another 2 weeks before we release it. I don’t want to say too much right now, but needless to say it’s something unique that I haven’t seen in any templates I’ve downloaded.

A few people have guessed what Chameleon is, so for all those in the dark about a month ago I contacted Rootie over at atthe404 asking him if he would like to join me on this idea I had for a wordpress template that would be slotted in no fuss no huss when Version 1.3 came out. For those scratching their heads asking ‘What the hell is wordpress?’ it’s the system that runs this site. What you think it’s all done by magic? Anyway, we’ve been working on this thing for 2 weeks solid. It’s been arguably one of the most rewarding experiences I’ve had on the net. The idea was to have both design and code come together as one. I would worry about how it would look like, and why; while Root concentrated on making sure the code was lean and mean and to the point, and ultimately wasn’t broken.

It was a bit jarring at first working with someone where the only method we’ve decided to communicate with each other was through the development site we set up, however those issues got ironed out very fast. That way we’ve got a complete account of absolutely everything we ever had a problem with. I think when I chose to contact Root (yeah I know his name, but to everyone else he shall remain as the entity known as Root :) ) I couldn’t have imagined how amazing the collaboration actually would be. For a start I’ve got to say I’m a complete obsessive perfectionist. I have to have it perfect to the pixel so that I can be content, and I don’t mind spending the time to get it there. Root matched me hour for hour, and probably a lot more in trying to get this sorted out. The man just doesn’t get tired…ever.

So what does it look like? Hmm I don’t want to give it away just yet but what I will be doing is actually running the default on my site for about 2 weeks after it goes live, and then I’ll be skinning it for brokenkode appropriately. We’re going to be releasing it under a GPL license, and that’s always been the case.

There are going to be several features that distinguish it and hopefully people will get a kick out of it once we’ve released it officially.

I guess it’s a new chapter for the site as we go into Version 2.0.

You are a chameleon; very changeable- as the chameleon changes its hue to that of contiguous objects. “As the chameleon, who is known To have no colours of its own, But borrows from his neighbour’s hue, His white or black, his green or blue.” Change your opinions as a chameleon changes its colour.

It’s been a few days, yes I know, but hey what can I say it’s been unbelievable couple of days. My computer has completely taken my mind away. I know it sounds geeky but to be honest I really could give two shits about whatever anyone says. My computer is my portal to the world, and it’s my tool for creativity. I’ve been waiting for it for 3 weeks solid now, and now that I have it I swear it’s like I’m in love. The reason is very simple: it opens up the roads to creativity and the doors to expression are blown open. I’ve been waiting patiently to begin so many projects that it seems like an eternity, ok maybe 6 months :).

So what does it feel like having a 20 inch screen? I tell you what now that I’ve tried this it’s extremely cramped at work, still stuck on a 1024 x 768 resolution. I can see why many web designers are getting more and more frustrated with the limitations of 800 x 600. So in that little time I’ve redesigned the look of Broken Kode. The template has been changed from ‘Broken’ to Manji, and in contrast to what was stated before it’s Version 0.1.

What is Manji going to be? Well much in the same way that Kubrick has made web logs seem asthetically more pleasing, I’m hoping Manji will do the same only for a different kind of asthetic. Basically one of my pet peeves is that weblogs traditionally look like weblogs. When that happens they traditionally look a bit boring or standard. You’ve got the text on the left hand side, and a few links on the right. Don’t get me wrong there’s a good reason why that’s all there, but I can’t but help that it’s actually rare for anyone to look at the gumph on the side, it’s just my opinion, and as well all know they’re like assholes,….everyone’s got one'. The content should be everything.

Believe it or not Broken Kode is up to version 3 right now, it’s true in less than a year I’ve changed the look of this site 3 times, and I’m at it again. The first time round was my attempt at a three panel type arrangement, and seem waay too cluttered. Got that streamlined, then Moveable Type decided to change it’s licensing and I ditched that template even though I liked it because it was easier to do one from scratch than try and hack that one into a Wordpress equivalent. So we’re now on version 3.

Version 4 is going to come out under a template system, Manji. Everything before was training. I’m going to write most of this stuff from the ground up, so my original estimate of a week is highly optimistic as I’ve got loads of things going on right now. What I can say is that the mock up of the Manji has taken me 3 days, inspiration just hit and I think it’s pretty cool, while keeping very closely with what has been established before. I’ve taken a lot of inspiration from Michael and Kubrick, but only in so much as how he’s gone about a few things which I generally like, such as the data at the bottom. I also like the fact that the css is clean. I could do with that, some nice streamline, clean css.

On a completely unrelated note I’d like to wish my brother good luck on the begining of his adventure. His Uni shut down in Greece due to mismanagement. He’s got two options in front of him. Either go down to Lebanon and continue his studies there where he’ll be able to pass on his credits and get a decent degree from a respected Uni in Lebanon. The alternative is to go to LaVerne California, in California, as they realised the remaining students have been screwed, so it’s the least they can do. They put forth their affiliation they should make sure the students can walk away with a degree. It’s an opportunity he didn’t expect when he began at this Uni 2 years ago. Personally I’m not sad for him, I think this could potentially be the best thing to happen to him. Good luck buddy.