Ben
Ben is a lifelong Nintendo fan who likes to build websites, and make video games. He buys way too much Lego.
WordPress and Games
Earlier this year I said I was ‘back in the swing‘, posted a few times, and then vanished.
The reason isn’t that I have nothing to say (although I have less than I used too) but that I am in the middle of redesigning this website… which will also include a server move. I moved over all the files and databases about 2 or 3 weeks ago, and now I don’t want to have to update everything again.
Unfortunately I can’t leave Binary Moon empty for this long without posting something so I thought I’d talk a bit about what I am working on and the development of the new version Binary Moon.
To cut a long story short the new design is actually going to be a ‘child theme’ of my own WordPress framework – and it’s a bit of a beast.
Named Elemental, I started development about 6 months ago. I wanted to make something incredibly flexible that would give me, and anyone else using it, the ability to do more out of the box than they can with any other WordPress theme.
As such I incorporated all sorts of cool features that I thought would make a bloggers life easier. The result has been me learning a heck of a lot about both web development and WordPress in particular.
About three months ago I downloaded Thematic and discovered that many of the ideas I had ‘invented’ were also in Thematic. The code was different but the concepts were there, and that encouraged me since it showed I wasn’t the only person thinking in these ways.
Now that Elemental is nearing completion I am working once again with Darren Hoyt on a visual design for it to – making it both functional and gorgeous.
I did have a design of my own but it was becoming big and clumpy. Somewhere in the middle I lost my way so it’s been put to one side and will hopefully live on as a child theme some time after release.
As I mentioned above there are some great new features in Elemental. Without getting into specifics (there needs to be some surprises) the features include:
I’m not going to show Elemental – but here’s a sneak peak at the new Binary Moon layout (and there’s plenty of content missing, hence the empty widget in the sidebar).
Currently the plan is to release Elemental as a premium GPL theme on Pro Theme Design, however I also plan to freely release a lot of the brand new code (ie stuff you can’t already get as plugins elsewhere) in the form of GPL plugins. I must admit I am not sure what this will incorporate, but I like to share so I’ll work something out.
The redesign of Binary Moon is the first time I have used Elemental to build a site so I am finding various things I can change and improve as I go. As such development is taking longer than planned… so I am going to start posting here again – at least a little more regularly. Don’t forget though, that you can follow me on Twitter if you want to find out what I am up to.
Lookin’ good. π
elemental sounds promising and interesting
Looking forward to it mate π
Very nice look. Sometimes I notice a lot of high profile sites snap the theme all the way to the left as this one does. Is that for the millions of smaller width monitors? I don’t do it myself but maybe I’m missing something. Any feedback on that would be welcome.
Thanks,
Rita
I left aligned the designs for this website because I think it looks nice – there’s not much to it beyond that π
In the real world I don’t think it makes much difference whether you left align your site or center it. Monitor size shouldn’t affect anything as the content is the same width regardless.
Hi Ben! Can you give a timeframe when you will release Elemental?
Kind regards,
Marc
Hi Marc – I am afraid I tend not to work to schedules when it’s my own projects, however we are aiming for sometime towards the end of next month… but I won’t promise anything π
Hi Ben! I know it was an inappropriate question … sorry for that. Keep up the good work and I will return to see the outcome.
It wasn’t inappropriate – I know people like to see cool stuff and I’m really please you’re interested in the theme. Hopefully we will make something that is worth the wait π
When when when… I’m so eager to get my hands on Elemental.
Congrats with your own new design – it rocks!
Ben, is there allready a screenshot available for the Elemental theme?
Hey Marc – I am actually working on a post that gives a bit more detail about Elemental right now. Should be published in a day or so π