Since Standard is no longer is active development and support is currently being managed by the stellar guys at WooThemes, a couple of people have asked me what my preferred theme and/or my preferred theme shop is.

There are several amazing theme companies out there. I don’t have a favorite, but you likely already know the good ones by name because they are the ones who are most currently the most prominent.

If you were to select a theme from one of those companies, then you’d be good to go.

That said, as much as I’ve enjoyed building, using, and sharing Standard, and as much as I love supporting other WordPress companies (heck, I bought a theme from one of them just yesterday), I still see my blog as a very personal property – as many do – and since I clearly love building things for WordPress, I’m in the process of building a theme that will serve as the next iteration of this blog.

After Standard

So I’m not yet at a stage where I’m ready for the theme to be shared yet. Yes, it’s been in development for a while, yes I’m still working on it, and yes it actually does exist despite all evidence (or is it lack thereof? :)) to the contrary.

But because it’s a personal project, I’m having to work on it in what time I have available for that, so development is slow going.

With that said, there are a few things that I can share about the theme.

First, the general points…

  • It’s specifically targeting people who typically write long form content.
  • All customization, options, and configuration is done via the Theme Customizer (no more options pages!).
  • There’s a single layout that will cater to those who write content and who offer advertisement.
  • There are a few social networking icons added to the theme because, you know, we’re all social to some degree ;).
  • For the first version, there are no plans for support for post formats. Remember: this is for people who write long form content.
  • The theme is fully responsive and with each iteration of development, is being tested against all of the major viewport sizes for phones and tablets.
  • The ultimate goal of the theme is to give a solid reading experience for those who both write and read longer form posts.
  • Upon release, this theme will likely be available only in certain marketplaces.
The theme's design - looks great, right? Stoked!

The theme’s design – looks great, right? Stoked!

As far as the technical aspects go…

  • This is being developed against the latest version of WordPress (as each is released) so it will be fully compatible with whatever is the main version at the time.
  • I’m using LESS and JSLint to handle both CSS and JavaScript, respectively.
  • The theme is being built using Bootstrap 3 using Glyphicons.
  • The code is being written using the WordPress Coding Standards, the JavaScript Coding Standards, and even the CSS is being well-documented with comments.

All that said, there is no release date set for this particular theme. I’m hoping to begin dogfooding it here by the end of the year; however, I figured this post needed to be written so I’d have a place to refer those who have been asking me what I’m planning to do in the post-Standard WordPress world.

So with that said, I’m not exactly looking for feature requests or anything of the like since I have a strict focus and idea as to where I want to take this particular theme; however, if you’ve got questions, feel free to contact me or leave them in the comments.

Other than that, that’s all of I’ve got. I’ll still be using Standard for the time being, but hope to have something new before 2014 – the year, not Automattic’s theme ;)) – rolls around.