Simplish 2.1.4 is an update to support WordPress 2.7, including the new threaded comments feature.

• Support WordPress 2.7’s threaded comments.¹
• Add compatibility comments template for WordPress ≤ 2.6.5.
• Link to comments goes to heading of comments list (instead of to first comment in list).
• Fix silly feed:// typo in (default) sidebar syndication links (thanks eighty4.se).
• Fix “comments” id and class to not have same name (introduce “commentslist”).
• Use smaller 32×32 gravatar for comment author.

Download Simplish version 2.1.4 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

¹ - Threaded comment support has not yet been added to WordPress-mu, the software this blog and the Simplish Demo run atop. Until it is, you can check out Simplish’s rendition of threaded comments at a test site.

Another little gift for the holiday: Here’s a new production edition of Simplish. This is the one you should be using on your real site, you know, where you don’t run pre-release software like Simplish 2.1.4RC, or WordPress 2.7-beta…

Version 2.1.3 is a tiny update that contains just one change: a contributed header background graphic (thanks to both Anonymous and Demetris) that’s 10x smaller than the original, down from ~2.7 Kilobytes to a super-slender 256 Bytes.

In other words, this update is definitely not a big deal. But it does trim the theme’s only image down to a size smaller than… most of your blog posts, and might help (a very little bit) with bandwidth or page load times if you’re using Simplish on a very-busy site.

Download Simplish version 2.1.3 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

As mentioned in comments on my original mild objection, I’ve been convinced that threaded discussions, new in the upcoming WordPress version 2.7, are a good value at the price. So today I slapped support for the feature into Simplish. This version of the theme should be considered “beta” quality, just like the new WordPress features on which it’s built. Both are subject to change before final release.

Demo

http://labs.utopian.net/who/josh/wp-svn/?p=1

Code

simplish-2.1.4RC.tgz

The demo shows a “jacob’s ladder” style for the comments/replies layout, where both left and right margins are indented per-thread-level. It’s an (experimental) attempt to ease the “comment chaos” feeling a deeply-threaded discussion can give.

A special thanks to Otto for his comments and his indispensable threaded comments getting-started doc.
More…

We have a very-roughly monthly release schedule, and as our infrequently-honored date of the 20^th approaches, the fix I have is a good one, but the only one: Anonymous contributed to the sibling sp theme a new background header image in PNG form at just 10% of the original’s size.

If there are other corners we could tidy, let us know with a comment here - that includes providing specific examples for the reported issue with some AJAX sidebar widgets and Simplish v2.1.2, as well as the question about the importance of threaded comment support -vs- the simplicity of loading no JavaScript.

Simplish made an appearance on op111.net’s 5-theme shortlist for WordPress. I almost missed the trackback because I was moving the demo blog to make way for this space.

In the end, op111’s demetris chose to apply his own styling to Scott Wallick’s excellent Sandbox theme. I came close to doing the same thing when I went looking for a snazzy ‘default’-kinda theme for Utopian.net’s use - and for my own blog at the Labs. I decided to adopt and update Kenny/Jeffrey’s ScribbishWP, but since I started changing and departing from both ScribbishWP (in code) and Scribbish itself (in style), the plaintxt.org themes like Sandbox and blog.txt have inspired choices for Simplish. We even copy their code: the two basic hCard producer functions used in Simplish 2.0 are derived from blog.txt source (closely enough that Scott’s copyright has joined the NOTICE.)

op111’s list has some references to the many uses folks make of the Sandbox plus some chameleon CSS - Sandbox comes out of the box looking like 1995, but can be made into anything you can tweak into and copy out of Firebug. My favorite is still Sandbox co-creator Andy Skelton’s re-implementation of WordPress’s default/kubrick theme atop Sandbox.