After installing WordPress 3.2 Beta in my test area last week, I decided to install it on a live website (a small website I own called Acne Information). I’ve not modified the theme heavily though I changed a few minor things in the template files so have a good understanding of the design now. Please bear in mind that the theme is not yet complete therefore some features, such as the featured image option, have not been built in.
Firstly, Twenty Eleven is not the ultimate WordPress theme. It is however a good improvement over Twenty Ten and a great starting point for those who are looking to create their own unique theme. As mentioned last week, you can change the theme from light to dark in the themes options page. You can also change the default colour of links and choose whether the sidebar is placed on the left or right or removed altogether.
The default header image is 1000 × 288 pixels in size, which may be too large for some people. Thankfully RayGun has developed a plugin called Resize Twenty Eleven Header that addresses this problem. The theme appears to remove the sidebar for pages and posts though I suspect that this is something that will be changed in the final version.
One of my favourite features of Twenty Eleven is the addition of a showcase template. The template is perfect for your home page. It boasts a featured article slider at the top, unique sidebar down the left hand side and your latest posts on the right hand side. The featured article slider appears to be a little buggy when posts have featured images attached to them with the text and image overlapping. Again, this should be addressed in the final version.
All in all I’m pleased with the latest default theme for WordPress. There are still some bugs to iron out however I’m sure these will be resolved over the next month. With its own options page, enhanced comment area and a brand new showcase template; Twenty Eleven is certainly an improvement over Twenty Ten. If you feel like testing it out, all you need to do is download and install WordPress 3.2 Beta 1.
Thanks,
Kevin
I absolutely love the twentyeleven theme! it is the ultimate theme for what I was looking for in appearance, beautiful, white, sophisticated, cute, big font, and customizable. I have tried on many "top best themes" but none compare. I enjoyed some themes with big widgets, but then realized I can create those myself and add them on pages anyways.
The one drawback I am currently experiencing is that page.php doesn't seem to work for adding in code to effect static homepage in twentyeleven like it does for other themes. And I really want my featured content slider to be on my static page, not the page where index.php puts it. Does anyone know what the path is for twentyeleven to find the static home page? Twentyeleven seems difficult to edit compared to other themes, and is very frustrating. Thankfully i love it so much I don't want to change it much - but i do want to be able to add in a bit of code for my static homepage. And for the record, I love the big header in twenty eleven theme. I think narrow headers are ugly and too small. I like the visual appeal ;)
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