Post Thumbnails

StuartWider.com gets the Thumbnail Feature makeover!

Its now super easy to add thumbnails and images to your posts and pages using the Post Thumbnails feature. Just set the thumbnail image in your WordPress Post Editor and the image will automatically be sized and included in your Recent Posts Plus sidebar Widget, pages or posts. You can also choose to automatically align these images left or right from the HeatMap Theme options page (this is feature only available in 3.0.2).

You can see this feature in full effect on stuartwider.com.

Hide either post details or the comments count (or both!)

Some Heatmapsters wanted more from the Hide Post Details Feature that was introduced in 3.0.1 and now you’ve got it. You now have the option to hide the post details (eg categories, tags, date, author etc) but still have the comment count showing!

Again you can see this in full effect on stuartwider.com. Note the neat looking comment count where normally the full post details would appear on the home page under each post.

Bugs Eradicated

Child Themes now correctly pull their favicon from the child theme itself.

Support and Extra Goodies

The supported version of HeatMap Theme version 3.0.2 is available from the HeatMap Insider Forum.

Visit the HeatMap Theme Store

but… how about if I told you that HeatMap Insider members can be upgraded to Lifetime membership?

No, I do not want your money. I’m not even going to sell you this. All you have to do to receive a lifetime membership to the Heatmap Insider is (1) Become a member, and (2) actively contribute to the forum (just like you do on other forums!)

So…make 10 active contributions to the forum within the space of 3 months (thats all!) and I will be more than happy upgrade your membership level to HeatMap Ninja. HeatMap Ninjas receive complimentary lifetime membership to the HeatMap Insider Forum.

So what counts as an active contribution?

• Posting a correct answer to a question from another member, or being genuinely helpful
• Posting a really useful tip or customisation
• Genuinely welcoming a new member
• Introducing yourself properly on the Insiders Cafe
• Adding your details and avatar to your profile

Asking support related questions which require answers from me does not count (for obvious reasons)

So basically you just have to do the stuff that normally happens on an active forum in order to become HeatMap Ninja and a lifetime member! (the above are just guidelines to give you an idea of what being active might look like)

Ready to become a HeatMap Ninja?

When you feel you’ve reached the 10 contribution level, PM and I’ll be happy look at upgrading your account to Heatmap Ninja status.

The fine print

• Lifetime membership means I will be setting your membership expiry date 10 years in the future in the first instance.
• Heatmap Ninja is an honorary status, and as a Heatmap Ninja you understand that you should always play nice here and stick to the rules, so that the Heatmap Insider remains a safe and happy place for all.
• Heatmap Ninja status is a reward for genuine contributions only
• Gaming the 10 contribution level by making non-useful posts is not what prospective Heatmap Ninjas do anyway
• Heatmap Ninja status is for a lifetime (as described above) but this specific offer will not last eternally… get in quick!

• HeatMap Theme is about to pass 24,000 downloads on the WordPress Free Theme Repository.
• We’ve just welcomed our 200th paid member on the HeatMap Insider Forum.
• There are now more than 1100 posts on the forum contain useful hints, tips, customisations and general HeatMap Theme advice.

That’s a whole lotta HeatMapstering!

Another highlight of the past few months is that HeatMap Theme is  now listed in the WordPress commercial themes directory (which was one of our ambitions – now fulfilled!)

So its onwards and upwards for Mappy Mapster and the HeatMap Theme!

Many thanks to everyone who has sent their kind words of encouragement, support and praise. They are very much appreciated.

See you on the Inside… the HeatMap Insider Forum that is!

You can see the latest v3.0 update in action on  http://creativitypro.com – notice how some elements have been turned off to give a simpler cleaner look, with the sidebar switched from right to left.

Sidebar Switching

You can now switch the whole sidebar left or right for maximum heatmap experimentation. Pop your ads in the fabled top-left hot-zone with ease!

Hide the Page navigation and Categories navigation bars

You can now entirely switch off the Page Nav and Categories Nav bars!

Hide the RSS Icons and Links

Want your categories to go the full width of the cat nav bar? Then you can by switching off the RSS Icons and links.

New RSS Icons Widget

If you switch off the RSS Icons you can still have them in your sidebar using this new widget.

Hide the Search Box

You can eliminate the search box so your page nav can go to the full width of the theme. There is of course a Search widget should you still need that function to pop in your sidebar.

Hide Post Details

Going for a minimalist neat look? You can now turn off all the post details for every post on the home page, posts, pages, categories, search and archives.

Footer Bars

You can switch them off too!

Bugs and slight annoyances fixed

• The theme now comes rounded corners for the default inbuilt classic graphite style – you could only get those in child themes previously.
• I moved the search in the nav bar 1px downwards just to make it look a little better in Firefox.
• I noticed that the post details box for each post was out by about 5px. I’ve fixed that up in the CSS.
• The (EDIT) link for each post has now been moved out of the post details box and underneath the POST it relates to. This is of course required because you now have the option to switch off the post details and therefore would not be able to (EDIT) the post unless I changed this!
• Removed the pesky NO CATEGORIES message on the cat bar when you have no categories in your blog – some people dont have any categories in their blogs – go figure!
• Removed the pesky NO POSTS message when you have no posts in your blog – giving you the option to just have a site entirely made up of pages!
• Fixed various low-importance minor typo issues.

Members Release

As of this version, the latest release of Heatmap Theme will always be a members download.

Additionally I will also be making a ‘free to download’ earlier version available, for those who want to give Heatmap Theme a whirl before joining our growing community of fellow HeatMapsters on the HeatMap Insider Forum.

Want to join us?
I look forward to meeting you on the Heatmap Insider

This a highly recommended update folks!

Even if you don’t update to 2.5 you should definitely check out search.php and apply the changes documented in there to your old version.

In addition, all of the previous child themes have had a bit of spruce up, making a grand total of 17 child themes available.

The new and spruced up child themes all now include css for rounded corners to add a nice touch for browsers that support ’rounded-ness’.

Also in other news…

HeatMap Ads Theme 2.4 has now been released along with HeatMap Extras Plugin 1.3 (Drop down menus). These releases just fix up a couple of small bugs and typos, plus changes the way that the nav-bar and cat-bar text is centered vertically to make things look a bit more consistent in that area across a wider range of browsers.

This version tidies up a few issues and adds support for threaded comments (woohoo!)

Things to know…

• The logic of the ‘Display Title and Tags’ tick box has been ‘inverted’ – It defaults to ‘on’ instead of ‘off’.
• Time formatting of posts and comments are now set to show whatever defaults you set in your theme admin.
• Child Theme override of common.php and preset.php now works properly – no need to copy every php file that contains common.php to your child theme anymore if you have made changes to common.php

Minor things

• Fixed ‘no posts found’ error – when posts are not found there were some situations where the code that displayed the error threw a wobbly – the error should be nice and tidy now.
• Removed double semicolon error (;;) in style.css
• Made more room on the categories bar – you should now be able to fit more categories in there.
• Categories and Pages nav bar overflow – no more annoying artefacts if you try put more categories or pages on the nav and cat bar – excess words will not show.
• Eliminated the references to missing images in the css.
• Styling of ol and li lists now looks neater and wraps around ads better.
• Preset Mode – No longer contains any simulated ads.

For HeatMap Insider Members, this release is teamed with updates for the HeatMap Extras drop downs plugin which now sports 4 levels, and the HeatMap Child Themes which now have appropriately coloured threaded comments styling.

Child themes also now have threaded comments styling to suit their colours.

If you need the multi level drop downs or the child themes what are you doing hanging around out there?  Come on inside! (the HeatMap Insider Forum that is!)

It’s called the HeatMap Insider Forum, and its the new official HeatMap Ads Theme forum where you can download all the extra goodies such as the coloured child themes, the drop down menus plugin, and get access to in-forum support from myself and other helpful HeatMapsters. In addition to the downloads and support there’s already lots of hints, tips, customisations and solutions in the forum, and our happy band of HeatMapsters is growing everyday.

Over the coming months I’ll be creating more child themes, add-ons and HeatMap Theme updates and they will all be accessible to subscribers in the HeatMap Insider Theme Downloads Forum.

What are you doing hanging around ‘out here’ ? come on in!

I look forward to seeing you on the inside (the HeatMap Insider that is)

Stuart Wider – HeatMap Ads Theme Designer

This release includes some new features and improvements…

• Compatible with the new HeatMapTheme Drop Down Menus Plugin which is available from the HeatMap Theme store as part of the HeatMap Theme Colour Pack.
• New ‘Preset Mode’ for people who like to hack the sidebar using php instead of using widgets (also doubling as a demo mode for HeatMap Theme) – this replaces the original demo mode idea from 2.2rc & rc2.
• Supports 125 x 125 ads in [Sidebar] Right.
• Save buttons everywhere in the HeatMap options page (to save lots of scrolling when you want to save the settings).
• A neater less intrusive post details section, on posts and pages.
• A diagram of all HeatMap Theme widget positions in the HeatMap Theme options page, linking directly to the user guide for widget positions (where you can find a larger diagram).
• RSS images are now TRANSPARENT gifs – when surfing the web looking at what people are doing with their HeatMap Theme installations we noticed that people were having trouble matching the colours of the RSS images to their custom backgrounds for the cat-bar, so we’ve changed them to transparent gifs so you can avoid that colour matching headache.
• Direct links to the Authors of each post have been removed – Why? I was uneasy about the  implications of using the_author_posts_link() to return the author of each article as it reveals the username of the author (a feature of WordPress that I think needs to change). Don’t worry; if you do like things that way -  you can just uncomment the relevant code and all will be as before