Here comes another update of SWIFT. I have implemented WordPress menus feature into SWIFT v5.50, added a custom box to the post editor to easily upload thumbnails and fixed the image resize problem which has been there for a long time.

Import / Export options feature added in version5.40 wasn’t working correctly in all cases, that problem is fixed now.

If you are a regular follower of the blog, you should be knowing how the concept of child themes was simplified in SWIFT. Child themes feature in SWIFT theme is dependent on the import/export feature. As there were problems with it till now, I dint promote the child themes concept. Now that the import/export options feature is fixed, it’s time to promote the child themes feature of SWIFT. I’m thinking of floating a contest to design child themes for SWIFT next week. If you have any good idea to promote the concept of child themes in SWIFT, please share it with me.

How to Install and develop child themes for SWIFT

Here are the other changes and improvements in SWIFT

• Added excerpts to the full size image slider and increased the slide display time.
• Fixed the numbering bug, earlier numbering started from 0, now it starts from 1. I also changed the styling of the numbers.
• Add a small jQuery animation to the back to top link in footer.
• Magazine box corners will now be round.
• Changed the options page design slightly.
• Added an option to add links to footer, you can add theme from appearance->menus
• Changed the styling of post meta.
• Separated tags from author biography.
• Improved the calendar widget styling.

Lots of new features will be added in the coming weeks, subscribe to our rss feed to stay tuned.

Note: Navigation links (The links above and below logo) will be deleted when you upgrade to v5.50, you have to use WordPress menus.

{ SWIFT user guide } { Download  SWIFT v5.50 }

Hello Swiftler’s,

It’s been a long time since I made major changes to SWIFT, it’s time to add some cool and fancy features to SWIFT making the best use of new features added to WordPress3.0. Here are what I planned for the update. Please post your suggestions and ideas.

• Fix the image resize problem.
• Separate comments, trackbacks, and pings.
• Change the styling of blockquote.
• Add support to menus.
• A widget to share links of your profiles on major social media sites.
• Some animations to dropdown menus.
• Change the default font of the theme, how do you like the font of this site?
• Styling the calendar widget correctly.
• Custom template for images uploaded.
• Custom meta box to upload post thumbnail on write post page.
• Option to upload background images and logo from the options page.
• AJAX comments. I have been trying to add it since a long time, but couldn’t make it. I hope I can find some good tutorials on how to do this
• Reply with quote option in comments.
• Add style sheet to post editor, so that your post looks exactly the way it look in your editor.
• I’m beginning to dislike the social media icons at the end of the post. I might change them or remove them completely.
• I want to add some useful post types, please drop in your ideas. (One thing I can think of at the moment is a template to publish weekly or monthly roundups)

If you want a new feature or want to report a bug, this is the best time. Also if you come across a blog with beautifully styled footer, blockquote, lists, author template, 404 template, has some cool js features or anything that you like post the links in comments. Lets make SWIFT the best WordPress theme

PS1: I recently changed the name of my other blog, GenisuHackers.Com to TechBU.com and converted it into a revenue sharing blog. I made a BuddyPress compatible version of SWIFT for that blog, let me know how you like it and post your opinion.

PS2: Do you want the BuddyPress version of SWIFT to be made public?

Ps3: Italicized features in the above list are already implemented

Hello Swiftler’s

SWIFT version 5.42 is here with some new options in AD management and some bug fixes reported on the forum.

Here is what’s new in this version of SWIFT

Get live help, SWIFT is the one and only theme with this feature.

• Added live chat option to the option to the options page, so that you can get immediate help in using the theme. SWIFT is the only WordPress theme to offer such a feature.
• Added an extra advertising position, “Between post content”. When this position is activated, ads will be shown on posts longer than 1200 characters, after 600 characters.
• Ad slot after posts title and after the post end will now be active on the pages also.
• Fixed the options not saving on WordPress MU sites bug.
• Different sizes for the site name on home page and inner pages bug.
• Background images bug.
• Made the layouts section on design options page more intuitive.

And finally the big news is SWIFT user guide is now officially complete, it is 3100 words long with 40+ screenshots. I covered everything possible to minute detail, and tried my best to be as clear as possible. I hope you find it useful.

{ SWIFT user guide } { Download  SWIFT v5.27 }

Note: Blog vs Magazine layout setting on the home page and archive pages will be lost with the update, you should goto the design options page and set them again.

Finally it’s time to release the first child theme of SWIFT, Kill Bill. I usually find it very difficult when it comes to picking colors, so I have taken inspiration from my favorite director Quentin Tarantino and came up with the Kill Bill theme. I hope you like it. Instructions on how to install it can be found here

Download Kill Bill Theme

Kill Bill, Magazine and Blog layout (Click to enlarge)

Download Kill Bill Theme

PS: If you are using this child theme, post your URL in the comments.

New version of SWIFT is here with many improvements and bug fixes that went unnoticed since v5.25

Here is a list of bugs that are cleared

• popular posts  listed on error pages were redirecting to another error page, that’s fixed now. (Reported here)
• Slider was always showing only recent posts, that’s fixed.
• Home page not showing any posts, this isn’t a bug, posts shown in the slider are skipped from the WordPress loop to avoid duplicate content on the home page for better search engine rankings. But now, I’m sick of answering the same question again and again. So I added an option to choose if you want skip posts shown in the slider from WordPress loop. This is disabled by default, you should enable it for better rankings in search engines. Note: This new setting can be found at swift options->homepage options.
• Errors in admin-core.php, reported here

Important!! Feedburner ID, wont be carried forward to the new version. You should add it again. Also content shown in slider wont be skipped from wordpress loop, you should update that setting.

Installation/ Update instructions

First follow the instructions given here , and after you install/update the theme goto SWIFT options and SWIFT design options pages and click save changes.

SWIFT is compatible with WordPress 3.0

The much awaited WordPress 3.0 was out yesterday. I have been using RC’s ( Release candidates ) for the development of SWIFT since version 5.25, SWIFT is compatible with WordPress 3.0. There are no known issues, if you find any please post them on the forum.

There were some bugs in v5.28 of SWIFT like

• Problem with subscribe widget.
• Problem with banner ads widget.
• Bug in links appended to the navigation bar.

And the following error, result of accidentally deleting some files and missing file extensions.

Warning: fopen(/home/sdesdf/public_html/wp-content/themes/swift/admin/js-base/slider-lite) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/sdesdf/public_html/wp-content/themes/swift/admin/create-js-file.php on line 19

Warning: filesize() [function.filesize]: stat failed for /home/sdesdf/public_html/wp-content/themes/swift/admin/js-base/slider-lite in /home/sdesdf/public_html/wp-content/themes/swift/admin/create-js-file.php on line 20

Warning: fread(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/sdesdf/public_html/wp-content/themes/swift/admin/create-js-file.php on line 20

Warning: Cannot modify header information – headers already sent by (output started at /home/sdesdf/public_html/wp-content/themes/swift/admin/create-js-file.php:19) in /home/sdesdf/public_html/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 868

all of them are cleared in v5.29. You can download it from the downloads page.

I will be releasing the first ever child theme of SWIFT some time this week, here is a screen shot of it. Feedback appreciated.

Kill Bill, The first ever child theme of SWIFT

I’m very happy to announce the new import / export options feature in SWIFT a feature unique to SWIFT in it’s class. Apart from the ease in carrying your customizations from development server to live server, this new feature opens new doors for SWIFT. Now you can easily share your customizations and color schemes with fellow Swifter’s, release them as child themes.

I haven’t yet styled the import/export options admin page, I will write a detailed post on how to share your customizations once I finish styling the new import/export page.

The new slider announced in my earlier post is included in this version of SWIFT

Download  SWIFT v5.27

PS: Please share the news on twitter and other social media.

Thanks

Satish Gandham

I’m working on adding an option to choose between 2 sliders, I’m half way through the process. It will be sometime before it’s completely integrated into SWIFT, here is the screen shot for those who have been waiting for the slider with large images.

New slider in SWIFT

Here are some cool features of the new slider

• Keyboard Navigation
• Slider pauses on hover
• different transition effects

You can see the slider in action here, how do you like the new slider?
PS: Thanks to Gilbert Pellegrom @ dev7 studios for developing this beautiful slider.

I planned to release the new version of SWIFT with all the features described here in the first week of june, unfortunately my 3 year old laptop ceased to work. So I wont be able to work on the update till I get my new laptop. I’m releasing what I have so far, I hope you like this update.

The new version includes..

• Three column layout
• New footer style a with a link to the top. (Footer design inspired from IntenseBlogging.Com)
• Widget without any padding and borders, this widget can be used in all the sidebars and footer.

The new widget  is ideal for having 160 wide skyscraper ad in narrow sidebars and 330px wide large rectangular in wide sidebars. Make sure you match the borders and background of the ads with the other widgets. For example if you are using the default colour scheme your google ad setting should look like this

Matching Adsense ad units with other widgets

See, how beautifully the AD unit blends with the rest of the site

New footer design in SWIFT

PS: Initially I thought of releasing the 3 column version as a premium theme, but I couldn’t convince myself to release it as a premium theme. For me watching lot of people use my theme is more joyful than money, but I have to pay my hosting and internet bills and get a replacement for my laptop. Unlike SWIFT they come with a price tag,do send a small donation if SWIFT saved you the cost of buying a premium theme.

Download the three column layout SWIFT

Hello Swiftler’s,

How are you guys doing.It’s been quite a time since SWIFT was updated. Last 2 months have been very tough for me ( toughest in my life   ). But  now it’s time to get my controls back and do some serious coding. I have planned some nice additions for SWIFT, if you have any suggestions, want to request a new feature or report bugs now is the right time to do.

Here are the list of features to be added in SWIFT

• Twitter widget
• Option to display links to your social media profiles in the RSS subscription widget. I’m going to add the following sites,let me know if you want me to add any other sites.
  • Facebook
  • Twitter
  • Digg
  • Stumbleupon
  • Linkedin
  • delicious
  • Flickr
  • Youtube
• Width of narrow sidebar in SWIFT is 160px, with 10px padding it doesn’t have enough room for the popular 160px wide banner/text/link ads. In the next version of SWIFT I’m going to add a special widget for these ads, this widget will have no paddings and border and fit perfectly in the space available.
• Option to specify the post ID for full length post on home page.
• Tabber widget and the slider needs some improvement, may be I will provide an option to choose between 2 sliders.
• Option to specify the font size of post content.
• Some default colour schemes.
• I will  try to make the theme translation ready.
• Write a support guide for the new version, 30% done. It’s a boring task , not sure how long it’s gonna take.
• Three column layout, most probably this will be released as a premium version to raise funds to buy a macbook and furnish my work space. ( I’m already using the three column version on this blog )

Thats all for now, I will update the post if I get any new ideas.

PS: 2 Million ( yeah 2 followed by 6 zeroes) pages are powered by SWIFT, thanks to everyone who is using SWIFT.

Check here

Some random post from my random blog “From my Lens“