In Depth Discussion Of New Features

Written by Boston Biker on Aug 24

Ok so now that I have had a day or two of pounding on the code I am ready to give a more in depth discussion of some of the new features.

New back End:

You might have noticed your blog back end is now cleaner and easier to use, the focus is on your writing and not on the menus.

New Default Theme: Twenty Ten

Gorgeous new theme that is highly editable, it has custom header images, custom backgrounds, you can add custom menus, and has 4 footer widget areas that you can customize. In short this theme is excessively customizable more so than any other theme available on the system. Combined with the custom CSS that I added a couple of weeks ago, you can now make your bostonbiker.org bike blog look and feel exactly how you want it.

Better Integration With The Forum:

Before some users who had a blog on the main site had to log in again to use the forum, you should now be able to sign in just once (on either the main site, or the forum) and go back and forth without having to log in twice. If this isn’t working for you try clearing your cookies.

Custom Menus:

In case you didn’t know you can fiddle with what theme your blog has in the Appearance menu. This menu also allows you to play around with your side bar widgets (some themes have bottom bars and top bars as well), and lets you edit your CSS (if you know how to do that sort of thing), play around with your Gravatar (the little icon that shows up when you comment), and if you are using the Twenty Ten theme play around with custom menus.

As of right now only the twenty ten theme is outfitted with the code needed to use these features, but you can use the custom menu widget on any theme in the system. After you have created a custom menu, you can go to the widget menu (under Appearance) and fiddle around with the custom menu widget, its pretty easy to use. Drop it into any side bar and enjoy your custom menu. If I can find the time over the next couple weeks I will update individual themes so they can handle this new fun. If you are really in love with your current theme and you want it to have this feature contact me and let me know and I can update it for you.

Other Little Changes:

New post tag editor, way easier to use. (under the posts menu, lets you edit all your tags)

Faster database usage, site should run a tad faster.

New less cluttered Dashboard, less things to look at that are not relevant to your blogging.

Updated spam comment protection (should result in less spammers putting comments on your blog)

Things are still being worked on, so if you notice anything strange do let me know. I am still having a bit of trouble with the sign up process, mostly stopping spammers, so if you see a blog about porn, or Viagra, I am deeply sorry, I will be removing anything that slips through asap. I think I have them on lock down for now, but these people they never stop trying so neither will I! Let me know in the comments what you think.

Over 120 people have signed up for blogs already! With over 1200 users registered! Thanks for blogging with BostonBiker.org if you want to sign up and see use some of these awesome new features, get your own blog here, its free and fast.

Tags: custom menus, new features, updates
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