We have a new Theme
Ajith | May 2009 | Updates From Us
Finally, I managed to get a new outfit for D$. I fondly call this new theme DS Premium though it is up to you readers to figure out whether it is good or not. It was never an easy decision to move out my old theme that was somehow close to my heart. However, it was keeping my WordPress upgrade decisions on hold and finally I decided to get rid of the old clothes while upgrading the blogging engine (to WordPress 2.7.1) as well.
DS Premium was not created from ground up by myself. I should confess that I copied some code from here and there though almost 80% of what you see was coded over the past 2 weeks. These changes include revamping the core theme files, styles, images, new logo etc.
Features of DS Premium
The following are some of the cool features of the new theme:
- Super fast and feather light: The entire theme including images, style sheets, scripts and all PHP files come below 150KB. If it still loads slow that is because HostMonster shared hosting sucks (will be soon moving to HostGator)
- Compact header/footer: I really wanted the theme to be lean from head to tail and hence opted for this simple style. This also give a good amount of above-the-fold content/sidebar space
- XHTML compliant and cross-browser compatible: While developing the theme I continuously checked for cross-browser compatibility (on mobile browsers as well) and it looks decent on almost all browsers. IE 6.0 has some minor issues but that is not too bad. After installing the tweetmeme plugin, some compatibility has been lost though
- Four sidebars (widgetized): I badly wanted this left sidebar to do some experiments with subscription and AdSense blocks
- SEO Optimized: I did some experiments with SEO this time. Sidebar headings get H3 this time while single post H1, H2, H3 sequence is maintained and the homepage gets H1 on the logo. I am still experimenting to see if the left sidebar content will push the single post H1 too down the page. Any idea here? However, I intend to stuff the left sidebar with some category keywords
- Simple threaded comments: I think so
Pending activities
The following are the pending activities:
- Need to standardize some of the styles (e.g. page navigation at the bottom)
- Need to stuff AdSense blocks at the right places and also conditionally for search/referral users
- I have to work on an IE bug that causes an extra ‘Read more’ at the bottom of the homepage
- Some of the post content needs to be edited for images to have max 500px width, to include H2, H3 tags etc
- Need to remove certain post categories
- D$ Tools need to be moved to the new style
- Widgetize the footer area
- Some of my old plugins are yet to be tested on WordPress 2.7.1 (e.g. Subscribe to comments) and activated
Your feedback
Unfortunately (though a decent programmer) I am not a web designer. I am not entirely happy with the final final outcome although structurally this is what I wanted. You folks need to tell me how you find the new theme and please provide your valuable feedback on any improvement areas, accessibility-readability issues, font size-color issues, widget reorganizing potential, bugs, script errors etc. Please note that it is still a work in progress and only your feedback can make this short project successful (Feel free to test the threaded comments feature)
I intend to write a post on a how I went about developing this theme. Believe me, there are quite a few lessons learned!
Disclaimer: If you see unmistakable similarity between DS Premium and some of the leading blogs in the same niche, it’s purely intentional 
Much better now
As for the logo I can’t see it here. Now dunno maybe its a problem on my side coz am using a stupid 64kbps connection lol.
This theme loads faster than the previous one
Good work…and good future work 
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Testing the reply function. Please delete this comment.
I mean this one..not the previous one 
Kurt Avish´s last blog post… Mothers Day Flash Card – Happy Mothers Day Mom
Thanks for the testing buddy
I hope you are able to see the logo now?
Ok seeing it now
Kurt Avish´s last blog post… Blog Trottoir Featuring Yashi
Yeah, I agree completely. This has a pleasing look and is easy to read. Loads in an instant too.
So, keep up the great work…
Thanks Meghna… Fast loading was one of my criteria.
Awesome i can say Ajith
Great theme you developed dude.
This looks 1000% better than your previous theme. You’ll rock from now then…
Thanks Lax… Do you think I can facelift it a little more and put for free download? (Of course with different style than D$)
Ajith, now DS looks more professional. good work. Keep it up. One small suggestion, if you can consider justifying the content, then I think it will improve the readability.
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Pras, thanks for the feedback on content justification. It was justified in the beginning, but due to the narrow margins (whitespace) on either side it was looking very congested… Will try once again.
Wow Ajith looks very good… Here is my feedback..
1 – The old logo was gud.. with $ replacing the ‘S’ – Here it doesn’t really look gud..
2 – The subscribe to RSS has 2 RSS icons, I fell that one wuld be enough…
3 – The Subscribe by Email does’t really catch the attention..
4 – Do we really need a ‘Read More’?
5 – make the bottom page navigation aligned to the center
These are some of my current observation. will let you know if I see any…
BTW… You shuld treat us as u have designed this wonderful theme…. and all the best!!
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Samrat,
Thanks a lot for the detailed feedback.
1) As for the logo, I need to really redesign it with some professional help. I really tried to make the ‘S’ look like $ with some ‘shower’ impact
2 & 3) As for Subscribe, the second one was more like adding some impact to the ‘What is RSS?’ link. It was looking very plain otherwise… I shall find an alternative. Also, for email, I am thinking how to highlight it. Any ideas?
4) ‘Read more’ is actually a pain in the neck. If we don’t have it, the homepage will look tall and download time will increase. If I put it, that becomes a prominent keyword… It’s kind of tricky. I am wondering how others manage it.
5) I tried justifying the page nav to center. It didn’t look good as the content is left aligned. So I moved it from right to left. Could you check if it is okay now?
Hi Ajith,
Great theme. I liked it.
Looks like lot of hours have gone in to this.
Hope you fix the bugs and add the features that you mentioned soon.
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Thanks man.. Well, it took sometime, perhaps 3 times more than what typical web designers would have taken. It’s not a natural job for me
Looks Good, Some Great tweaks for sure.
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Shanker, yes buddy… there’s some tweaking done, hopefully it will yield some results.
Ajith,
The new theme definitely looks strikingly similar to a famous free theme.
Initially I thought you’ve just used that theme. But reading your post I’ve realized that this is your own theme.
I never liked the 3 column lay-out. I like 2 column lay-out with contest in the 1st column, which puts contest in the 1st place. This is just a personal choice.
Did you design the logo yourself? The logo doesn’t look professional yet. I’m sure you are planning to do a new logo later.
Also, congrats on upgrading wordpress to latest release.
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Ramesh,
Thanks for your feedback. Nope, I did not take ‘that’ free theme as base.
Basically, I went for the three-column format just to stuff the things that you see there.. I know, it’s not the greatest looking format. As for the logo, well, it’s my (dirty) job
I hope to get somebody design it for me free.
Ajith,
One more thing, this is also personal choice. I don’t like the nested reply format, which is not properly readable.
I like the way how you used to respond to all the comments in one single comment addressing it to the individuals with @name in the same comment.
Following are the two reasons this nested format is not good.
1. This is not readable and does not flow very well, when browsing through the comment sections.
2. It inflates the comment total count, as you are replying to all the individual comments.
Please note that this is only my personal preference.
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I totally agree with you Ramesh. In fact, threading has been pissing me off in the past two days – earlier I used to comment only after a day of posting now somehow forced to reply to all. It’s also making some of these posts in the popular posts list where some great posts with slightly lesser comments are not getting visibility
Also, I hate seeing my own name repeated too many times in the thread.
Going forward, I will be replying to the comments the old way unless somebody asks a question that deserves a threaded reply.
Wow! Excellent theme – the last time i visited there was the blue one! this one is much better
Keep up the good work!
Cheers
Sandeep
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Thanks Sandeep… Some of the readers liked the blue one as well, but it was difficult to tweak it for WordPress 2.7.X
Hi Ajith,
I initially thought I’d come to the wrong site! Looking good, my man! Looking good. I particularly like the new logo.
Well done, you
take care…
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Ebele
You have reached the right place! Thanks for your appreciation of the logo, a couple of others didn’t like it…
Nice job, Ajith. Very clean, very lean. You programmed a nice theme, I must say.
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Thanks Mitch, the idea was clean and lean… really. In fact, I took out many of those badges and banners to make it lighter.
This is a “Wow” for me, though I also think that your previous logo was better. But the entire theme looks neat than the previous one.
Regarding the ‘Read more’ link, if you are using html on it, why not use the ‘rel=nofollow’ code so it won’t appear as a keyword? I am not sure if I am right because I am not a developer.
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Thanks Frenchy. Let me work on the logo.
As you suggested I now have nofollow on the ‘Read on’ link. Let’s see how it goes.
I like the new theme, simple yet works. I would have waited till 2.8 for a revamp but hey.
Speed wise yes faster and ‘yslow’ addon gives it a C.
SEO wise I would no-follow/no index the Archives page at the very least.
I would replace the ‘read more’ in the index.php file with ‘read more on post title’. I cant recall the exact code on how to amend it but a google should help you out.
I would also no-follow the ‘comments’ on the front page, however I dont think it makes a difference as it just a css reference.
No-follow/no-index the the page number at the bottom. We want eh front page to retain as much as possible.
Also no-follow ‘comment-luv enabled’, would require a small plugin hack.
No-following the cats. is one thing I have debated on doing myself (and I think I have), the logic being we want the most PR to be in 1) the homepage 2) the actual posts and 3) vital pages.
I also notice you dont have a sitemap (human readable) I would recommend Dagon Design plugin. My latest SEO experiment to build links to it and see what happens…seems to be not a lot lol. However I find a sitemap is useful.
I would perhaps but the ‘resources’ section in a more prominent area to draw attention to it; as it is a key reason to bookmark and return to the site.
Lastly we need a new Pic to go with the theme! Yo and Your wife this time! It is Vidya and Ajiths blog, not just Ajith
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You are the man! Thanks for all those tips. Most of the nofollow has been incorporated. CommentLuv is a little tricky – yet to be done.
I intentionally didn’t use the sitemap. I sitll have the dagon design installed (and previously used it).
Resources have been moved up and is now tailed by Google ads. Hopefully, it will help with some clicks
As for the about page and snaps, yes, I need to work on it, though my wife doesn’t contribute to this blog any longer. She writes about herself, me and kids alone
Lol NP man glad I could help! Only took a few mins and I needed a break from revision!
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I like your theme theme buddy …
It is loading much faster than your previous one !
You made anything special for it ?
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Thanks Pradeep, what do you mean be anything special?
I meant whether u did any hacks in CSS or anything in the code for making it load fast buddy ? ..
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Ah okay. Nothing really – just stuck to basics… The lighter the images and code (HTML, CSS, J Script)size, the faster it loads. And lighter content without images, video, animation etc along with very light banner ads complete the requirements for a fast blog.
I think it’s a nice theme and it’s true that it loads really fast. It’s also good that its cross-browser compatible because most bloggers don’t check the compatibility
Thanks Melvin. Cross-browser compatibility was one of my prime goals though on IE 6.0 it has some problems
However, it works smooth on IE 7.0 and later, FF 3.X, Chrome 2.X and Opera
IE 6 always has problems – sometimes it’s best to just call it a day. I get so tired of trying to make the code work for that one browser when the others are fine.
I like the new look a lot and it loads SO fast
People are mentioning the old logo … I must not have any short term memory bec I can’t really remember it except for the blue – didn’t it have a $ in it?
I don’t think you needed to wait for 2.8 … there aren’t going to be as many major changes in that version.
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You are right Kim. IE6 is a pain in the… Unfortunately, I still get around 70-80 visitors, that use IE 6.0, every month.
The old logo, according to me, wan’t that great – it was done by me as well.
I guess, you are right about the 2.8 version… I probably has enough time on this one before moving to 3.0!
Nice theme
Thanks man…
Buddy, even I loved your previous theme. You have asked suggestions about the left sidebar pushing post to bottom, here are few things you may consider.
1. There is a wp plugin to make all sidebar widgets as iframes – if you use that, SEs won’t crawl iframes pushing your post up.
2. I read this somewhere sometime back, but its wise to consider. Adding a empty div to left sidebar beginning, then loading post, then right sidebar followed by left sidebar. I am not sure how far this can be executed perfectly, but the concept if worked out works well.
To avoid this particular problem, I have placed my sidebar on the right, and that’s right
Good luck and happy life with new theme
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Thanks for your feedback Pavan. As you rightly said, iframes can conflict with the Google AdSense ToS. Also, using the tactics like delayed loading or writing div’s dynamically etc can cause cross-browser compatibility issues.
well, if you make use of my first point, you will not be able to use adsense there according to their tos
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Ajith please check the Slashes after ” Authors \´s last blog post ” .
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Thanks for notifying about this issue. It’s perennial problem with commentluv. I replaced the apostrophe with another character.
The blog looks great with the new theme
ZK thanks buddy
I think you missed one thing.. The Favicon !!
You should design a new favicon for your new theme
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Chetan, In fact I thought about it… Trying to make one, but not getting a good idea yet…
Very nice blog template you have here!
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Thanks Hesham… Any improvement areas on styling?
I guess I am late, but the theme looks just great!! especially the typography, its not too big, not too small, but just right!! interesting to see the left sidebar, let me know how adsense performs there
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You are never late buddy.. Thanks for your feedback on the typography. As for the AdSense, I am trying to push it up but no luck yet
This theme looks like copy blogger theme. Anyway great theme and logo. looks superb
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Nice theme Ajith. It looks very professional and clean. And the Logo looks nice.
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@Harish, Ha ha… everyone knew that and you said it
As I mentioned in the disclaimer, it was intentional… In fact, it’s 70% copyblogger, 10% problogger and 10% daily blog tips and 10% my own imagination.
@Madhur, thanks.. A lot of people however did not like the logo
Well it looks good. I checked your blog after a few days and I thought I was on the wrong blog. But like I said it does look good. Very light on the eyes and makes for easy reading.
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Thanks Rajeev
I have some more work in pending…but as you know, life is hectic at (real) work owing to recession and related pressure
it looks good. easy to navigate.
HMMM..possible to use for my blog too?
well, nice and pleasant looking theme.
good
Load time is of paramount importance in a world where the audience is notoriously fickle, and a slow loading page can quite easily cause a web surfer to go elsewhere.
Page size is fixed now, so it seems like your hosting provider needs looking at next, as you stated. What are your longer term plans with regards to a hosting service provider?
@joabng, not for now. I however, plan to release a different version of this theme sometime later
@php programmer, thanks
@Jacques, I am taking one step at a time. There are a couple of pages (tools) on this site that needs to be moved on to the new theme as well. After that, probably I will switch to a better hosting service
You have done a very good job on your new theme. But I would like to comment a little bit.
If you can edit your “main categories”, “resources”, “popular posts” and the rest, make the first word capital letter, “Main Categories” will be looked nicer.
It’s just my opinion.
Regards,
Lee
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@Lee, I need to make a few more changes… will incorporate your suggestion and see how it looks
nice theme,i am new blogger and just start blogging