This quarter my work schedule seemed to coincide with nearly every CPS day off and early dismissal, so Mitch gave me a project to fill in some of the hours I'd be missing. I tested and fussed with the dozens of WordPress themes CUIP has amassed and reviewed them all for functionality and aesthetics. I focused on the CUIP WPMU installation, but most of these notes would be applicable to the standalone blogs as well.

I used Firefox 2.0.0.2 for primary testing, and checked for cross-compatibility in Internet Explorer 7.0.

<strong>Several general questions and observations I came up with during testing:</strong>

<ul><li>Is it possible to edit a theme on the site-admin level and have that edit apply to all lower-level blogs? (Answer: no. The WPMU isn't built to allow theme editing through the user interface. Updates would have to be made through SSH Shell and distributed that way. Mitch showed me how to do this and that will be the next phase of this project.)</li>

<li>Is there something about linkcategories that is different between WPMU and regular WP? Because I'm getting an error of that nature with several themes, and I can't find a way to fix it from my end.</li>

<li>In general, text sizes under the 15 px range tend to frustrate younger students, many of whom are just getting a handle on reading large type in their textbooks. Any project aimed at early primary audiences should consider upping font size a bit.</li>

<li>I want to find out how difficult it is to add sidebar widget support to themes, and possibly add it to a few. I think that would solve a lot of problems on the teacher's end (not having to ask a CUIPer every time they need something small changed, while at the same time not cluttering their page with things they don't use/understand) and add convenience on ours-- especially in the WPMU context, where it might be confusing to have variations on a (wait for it) theme uploaded for several projects.</li>
</ul>

<strong>Theme-by-theme Reviews</strong>

<em>3k2 redux</em> - VERY customizable, nifty "asides" feature that can add posts to a different place on a page than the main poststream. Probably too much to expect a non-techie teacher to deal with, and potentially distracting. No major differences between FF and IE. Verdict: not core.

<em>Almost Spring</em>: Very quick to load because it is entirely CSS/text based. Very organized, logical layout by default. No major differences between FF and IE. Could be easily used by a non-techie teacher and class. Verdict: core.

<em>AndyBlue</em>: Very clear text/css based theme. The wide text area would be useful for projects that involve large photographs or images, or perhaps for blogs where students themselves are posting long essay-style entries. The "subscribe" feature on the right sidebar is unlikely to be useful for most of our target users, and in the individual post pages, the "trackback/del.icio.us" options are likely to confuse in addition to clutter. Verdict: Core with editing (the problem areas I mentioned should be commented-out before being released to most users).

<em>AquaFluid</em>: A little bit fluffy, but subtle enough that it could be a nice compromise between usability and teachers who like frills. I would probably comment out the trackback/comment feed links on the individual entry page. The About:Author page found by clicking a post-author's name is nicely set up (does this exist in other themes and have I just missed it?) and could be useful for projects where there are multiple authors. I should find out if there's a way to edit this feature to include comments by users, not just posts. No major differences between FF and IE. Verdict: With minimal modifications, core.

<em>basic</em>: Ick ick ick. I can see no reason for even the most minimalist (<strike>minimalistest?</strike>) administrator to use this theme, as it generates no user interest at all. No differences between FF and IE. Verdict: not core.

<em>Blase</em>: Silly image in the sidebar and cluttered layout. Verdict: not core.

<em>Blix</em>: Well organized and interesting looking without being distracting. The Feeds section on the mainpage could be commented out, but everything else is pretty much ready to go. No major differences between FF and IE. Verdict: core.

<em>Blue Horizon</em>: Has sidebar widget support, which is a non-scary sort of user-editable thing. In both FF and IE seems to have a sidebar alignment problem of some sort? The Link1 Link2 Link3 section should be replaced with a PHP script to autodetect user pages. Verdict: core with minor edits.

<em>Borderline Chaos</em>: A fun chunky style, minimal distraction and clutter. Nice big text area would be good for an image-based project. Verdict: core.

<em>Brajeshwar v.7.0</em>: Simple and uncluttered, but the default "about" section definitely needs to  go. The way the most recent post is differentiated could be very useful for a periodic assignment sort of project. No major differences between FF and IE. Verdict: core with minor modification.

<em>Chameleon</em>: Simple and clearly organized. Supports sidebar widgets and a color changer, which is just the right level of modification that should be available to a non-tech teacher. Might benefit from some sort of differentiation between alternating posts, but basically serviceable. No major differences between IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>ChaoticSoul</em>: Very dramatic, a little silly. No easy way to get rid of the "Chaotic Soul" header. Well-organized and easy to tell where posts begin and end once you're used to it. No difference between IE and FF. Verdict: not core.

<em>City in Paint V2</em>: Awkward organization, requires LOTS of core edits that would have to be done separately for each installation. Unique and interesting bugs in both FF and IE. Verdict: Not core.

<em>Connections</em>: Excellent organization. The comments are separated and numbered, making it ideal for response or dialogue projects. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: Core.

<em>Cordobo Green Park</em>: Nice wide layout that manages to pack a lot of information into the first screenful without being overwhelming. The wide text area lends itself to long essays or image-intensive projects. Sidebar widget support is really vital to this theme's usability. No differences between FF and IE. Verdict: core.

<em>Crimson Milk</em>: Lots of fun features like movable sidebar boxes-- sort of like widgets for users. On that note, I'm not sure why widget support isn't built in for administrators... In any case, despite the nice organizational features visible in FF, IE doesn't register anything intelligible at all. Verdict: not core.

<em>Daisy Rae Gemini</em>: Text takes an effort to read, some features are unusable without editing on an installation-by-installation basis, and it seems to be registering some kind of linkcategories database error in the sidebar. Same trouble but a little worse in IE. Verdict: Not core.

<em>Deficient</em>: The hover-with-dynamic-title-text seems pretty nifty, and the layout is low-key and not distracting. The graphic in the sidebar would have to go, and it seems like there's a lot of things that would need to be edited per-installation, though. No difference between FF and IE. Verdict: not core.

<em>Dipdolt Green</em>: The image at the top straddles the line between digital-cool and unnecessary, leaning a little more toward the latter in a classroom setting. (Plus, it's aligned too far to the right by at least ten pixels.) Organization is neat and simple, but nothing that isn't covered in other themes. No differences between FF and IE. Verdict: Not core.

<em>Dixie Belle</em>: Nice organization with big clear type, but it would need to be edited once to remove some WP Theme Contest info at the top. There's also a Wordpress database error referring to linkcategories. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: With some editing and some investigation into the linkcategories error, could be core.

<em>FastTrack</em>: Header image is icky-colored, but I suppose it could be relevant to some classroom projects. Narrow-ish text space but nice comment layout would make for a good project where the teacher made posts and students responded. Also has widgets, which are nice. No differences between FF and IE. Verdict: Core.

<em>Fluidity 3c</em>: Obnoxious colors, but hey, isn't that what most kids' snack foods look like these days? Would require some one-time editing (why have a tab link to 'home' separate from 'blog'? Seems like a feature most of our users wouldn't need.) Has sidebar widgets. IE doesn't render the sidebar locations correctly. Verdict: not core.

<em>FluidityIs</em>: Same as above, except fixes the sidebar issue in IE by having only one, on the left. Verdict: Core, if anyone's really that set on the neon carrot look.

<em>Fluid Solution</em>: The eagle logo is definitely creepy and has to go, but otherwise it's pretty well-organized. Sidebar widget support. No difference between IE and FF. Verdict: Minor edits, core.

<em>Gila</em>: Nice wide text area and nothing messy. There's an almost unnoticeable misalignment in the category list in the left sidebar, but I'm almost sure that no one else would be especially bothered by the missing 10 pixel margin. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>Green Marinée</em>: Looks very indie-professional. For CPS purposes, I imagine the link heading "The Associates" ought to be edited, but otherwise it's ready to go as a text-based project theme. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>Head</em>: I have a really hard time looking at the colors on this blog, and I feel like in that respect it's not designed with accessibility in mind. The text area is nice and wide, though, so an image-based project would have room here. No difference between FF and IE. Verdict: Not core, unless someone's really attached to the creepy head vector.

<em>Id band - the twins boyish style</em>: My vendetta against gender norms aside, it's a simple and serviceable theme, though the text is a bit on the small side. I'm also getting an error below the Last Comments section:
<blockquote>WordPress database error: [Table 'cuipblogs.wp_comments' doesn't exist]
select count(a.comment_id) as counter, b.id, b.post_title, b.post_name FROM wp_comments a, wp_posts b where a.comment_post_ID = b.ID AND a.comment_approved = '1' group by a.comment_post_id order by counter DESC LIMIT 10</blockquote>
I feel like the permalink and trackback links could probably be done away with, but otherwise things look good. No difference between IE and FF. Verdict: minor edits, core.

<em>Id band - the twins girlish style</em>: Same as "boyish" above, except pink. You know, I would really expect widgets to work with a theme like this. Verdict: core.

<em>Id Band Triplet Boyish Style 2 (right)</em>: I'm loving the accessibility toggle in the rightmost sidebar! There must be a way to add this feature to more themes. The live search is also pretty nifty. No difference between IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>Id Band Triplet Centered Boyish Style 2</em>: Same as Triplet Boyish Style 2 except that one of the sidebars has migrated to the left side. I'm not sure whether this kind of organization is more or less clear than when it's in two columns on one side, but I feel like only one of these styles is really necessary for our core collection. Verdict: core, pending.

<em>Identification band - the quadruplets boyish style</em>: Tiny tiny tiny and not suited to any CPS project I can think of. Has some strange bouncing text issues in FF and broken image in IE. Verdict: not core.

<em>Identification band - the quadruplets girlish style</em>: Same foibles as its brother. Verdict: not core.

<em>Identification band - the triplets girlish style</em>: Much like the boyish style, but has been unnecessarily stripped of its accesibility feature. If that can be added back in, then this or its right-aligned counterpart should be core.

<em>Identification band - the triplets girlish style (right sided)</em>: Core pending accessibility and overlap with centered style.
Impressionist: I'm not sure about the little alien/lillypad things are in the header, but what I do know is that there is some very weird alignment going on in FF (though not in IE?) Also the random distribution of font size and small caps is off-putting. The division of posts into separate bordered boxes is nice, but otherwise I don't see a particular reason to hang onto this one. Verdict: not core.

<em>Isulong SEOPH</em>: Very straight-forward with a nice wide text area suited to essay or image-based projects. No differences between IE and FF.
<blockquote>Fatal error: Call to undefined function c2c_get_recent_posts() in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/isulong-seoph/rightbar.php on line 5</blockquote>
Verdict: core.

<em>Jakarta</em>: The font+ and font- is an interesting tool. The align buttons are sort of fun but 
useless as far as I can tell.  The dog photo is a little weird, too. Equally functional in IE and FF, but IE does some extra tricks like a dropshadowed table and a colored scrollbar. Verdict: Get rid of the dog and repackage for core?

<em>Juicy</em>: Hard to see the educational use of a big watermelon. No difference between IE and FF. Verdict: not core.

<em>Just a Tulip</em>: The jpeg tulip is fuzzy and cuts off before my monitor does. I'm also getting the following error:
<blockquote> Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/just-a-tulip/sidebar.php on line 1</blockquote>
Verdict: not core.

<em>Landzilla</em>: If the photos in the header were gone, this would be a great, useful theme with nice organization and a nice textspace for short posts. The Links feature in the sidebar doesn't seem to be picking up my blogroll entries, so I'm not sure what it wants to read. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: minor edits, core.

<em>Mesozoic</em>: Big logo at the top. Verdict: not core.

<em>Mistylook</em>: This one seems popular among some of the CUIP blogs in use now, so let's hang on to it and publicize the sidebar widgets. No differences in IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>Neo-Sapien</em>: Scary header image, distracting layout, and extra space at the bottom of the page for no apparent reason. verdict: not core.

<em>Nerima Daikon 3c</em>: Nice big text area and big font. If it had sidebar widget support, I'd like it even more. If the Link 1 Link 2 Link 3 bit were removed, it would be ready to go. No difference between IE and FF. Verdict: minor edit, core.

<em>Notebook</em>: Very "school" feeling. Mr. Poole at Till is making great use of this one as a parent newsletter. There is some very weird and noticeable spacing trouble in FF, however. Verdict: core.

<em>Ocadia</em>: Attempting to change the theme after using this one gave me the following error:
<blockquote>Fatal error: Cannot redeclare ocadia_sidebar() (previously declared in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/ocadia/functions.php:22) in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/ocadia/functions.php on line 40</blockquote>
Verdict: dangerous! After I tried to change this theme, not only the blog but also the wp-admin section was unavailable. I was able to restore things by changing the Template and Stylesheet qualifications through the main WPMU interface, but individual blog users will not have this option. Also, there now seems to be an "Ocadia" tab stuck in my Presentation submenu.
Outcome: Mitch showed me how to remove this theme through Shell. 

<em>Pool</em>: Nice big text area and uncluttered layout. Cute little favicon, too. I would get rid of the extra rss options everywhere, but otherwise it's very serviceable. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: minor edits, core.

<em>Qwilm!</em>: I like the minimalist feel, but my guess is that the light and small text will make things pretty unusable. Also the logo image would need to go. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: not core.

<em>RadMod</em>: Lots of space for image or text content, why not make the font size a little bigger? No difference between FF and IE. Verdict: core.

<em>RoundFlow</em>: The text space is large and clear, and the top-bottom (rather than left-right) navigation is very easy for an inexperienced user to follow. The theme supports sidebar widgets, and there is a fairly customizable, but not overwhelming, selection of color and style changes available in a special tab of the Presentation menu. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: Core.

<em>Sapphire</em>: Small text area but large text size would make this project good for prompt+response projects. Some of the sidebar info requires editing sidebar.php, so that would have to be removed before use as a WPMU core option. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: core with editing.

<em>Simplr</em>: Enabling this theme caused the following error:
<blockquote>Fatal error: Cannot redeclare simplr_layoutwidth() (previously declared in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/simplr/functions.php:39) in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/simplr/functions.php on line 45.</blockquote> This interfered with dashboard functions as well, and I had to disable the theme through the WPMU admin interface. Verdict: Dangerous.

<em>Sinorca V3</em>: Wide textspace with tiny type-- would require some fairly substantial editing before being useful for the WPMU especially or for standalone blogs in general. No difference between FF and IE. Verdict: not core.

<em>Slash Dot</em>: I know at least one teacher was using this theme successfully in a project earlier this year. There's some messy kerning in FF and some funny margins in IE, but nothing that makes it unusable or even merits a style edit (unless requested by a user, I suppose.) Verdict: core.

<em>Slined Mod</em>: Narrow text space with very tiny type. Lots of the designer's personal goodies (a link to his amazon.com wishlist, his GoogleAds space), and the theme-title image in the header would have to go before this theme could become suitable for classroom use. Verdict: not core.

<em>Tech-Bytes</em>: Clear and well-laid out. The only problem that I see is the "Technology Bytes" image in the header-- and I can even see that being sort of generically suitable for, say, the Kenwood Tech Group or some similar program. No differences between FF and IE. Verdict: core.

<em>Tiga</em>: I'm getting the following error:
<blockquote>Fatal error: Cannot redeclare tiga_getuseragent() (previously declared in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/tiga-mod/functions.php:267) in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/tiga-mod/functions.php on line 283</blockquote>
but I think I remember using this theme on another installation and it had some nice features. When I have some time, I'll try to look at functions.php and see if I can fix the error, but in the meantime, I consider this theme to be dangerous.

<em>v4ny6</em>: Very, very pink. That being said, the theme itself is functional and it's nice to see such clear divisions between posts. No difference between FF and IE. Verdict: core.

<em>Vistered Little</em>: I'm getting the following error:
<blockquote>Fatal error: Cannot redeclare pickaskin() (previously declared in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/vistered-little/functions.php:44) in /pub/blogs/wpmu/wp-content/themes/vistered-little/functions.php on line 57</blockquote>
but I KNOW I was using this theme with its several unique features quite successfully about a month ago. Verdict: currently dangerous, should be investigated further.

<em>Water</em>: Doesn't seem to be loading its stylesheet correctly, in either FF or IE. Verdict: not core.

<em>Wave</em>: Text space is pretty small, and a lot of space is devoted to a "Noteworthy" column, which I assume must be edited through the dashboard theme editor and filled in with an RSS feed of some sort. As it stands, seems fairly useless for classroom projects. Verdict: not core.

<em>Weblogs.us</em>: Neat and clear organization. The "author details" section would need to be updated through the editor, but otherwise this looks ready to use. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>WebWalas</em>: More pink! Seems well-organized enough, and the text space is very large. The comments organization seems a little funny to me, but nothing that stops it from being useful. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>WP-Andreas01</em>: The header image is a little hokey, but with sidebar widget support and some nice nesting styles, this theme is quite useful. No differences between FF and IE. Verdict: core.

<em>WP-Andreas09</em>: Big text area and clear navigation. Sidebar widgets would be nice, but I'll settle for the cute color changer built in. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>X Blog</em>: An interesting take on the Mac OS X, it feels strangely comfortable. No differences between IE and FF. Verdict: core.

<em>Yaaarr! Tis me blog!</em>: I find this theme adorable, but the ship's name "Cirrhosis" might be inappropriate for the classroom. No difference between IE and FF. Verdict: not core.

<strong>Conclusions</strong>
<ul><li>4 themes are dangerous: Ocadia, Simplr, Tiga, and Vistered Little. Ocadia has already been removed from www2.cuip.net.</li>
<li>24 themes have been identified as "not core."</li>
<li>All other themes have potential for classroom use.</li></ul>