Typo Theme Contest

Theme Gallery

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Fri, 04 Aug 2006 12:16:00 -0500

If you haven’t seen it yet, John Wang has put up a nice theme gallery that shows compact thumbnails of the themes you see here.

→ Typo Theme Viewer

Typo 4.0 is Out

Joe Homs — Mon, 24 Jul 2006 06:08:00 -0500

The new Typo 4.0 is out. You can download it using ruby gems (recommended) or get the latest changes from the SVN trunk at typosphere.

Congratulations to the Typo team for a new release with a bunch of new features.

Here�s a partial list of important changes since Typo 2.6:

A new installer and a Typo .gem file. Run gem install typo and then typo install /some/path to install Typo.

Tags. The �keywords� field in the Typo admin UI (as well as many blog editors) has been commandeered to provide tagging for Typo. Tags are separated by spaces (just like Flickr). If you want to include a space in a tag, then use quotes.

Improved spam management. There�s a �Feedback� tab in the admin interface that lists all comments and trackbacks so they can be bulk-deleted. In addition, Typo can now use Akismet for spam filtering.

File uploads. You can now upload images and other content directly from the admin UI.

Podcast support (experimental).

Email and/or Jabber notification of new content, including comments and trackbacks.

Support for posting articles with a future posting date. Pre-posted articles don�t appear on the blog or feeds until their posting date passes.

A new cache system that automatically times out stale entries. Several types of content, including the Flickr sidebar, will automatically cause the page to be rebuilt every few hours to ensure freshness.

Cleaner migrations.

Rails 1.1 support. Rails 1.1.4 is strongly recommended. Rails 1.0 won�t work at all.

Improved sidebar support, with a cleaner API and more built-in sidebars.

Gravatar support for comments.

Comment previews.

Typo 4.0 Needs Testers

Joe Homs — Mon, 10 Jul 2006 19:00:00 -0500

A new version of Typo is almost upon us.

Scott Laird has been working hard on getting Typo 4.0 out the door for you eager beavers. He’s almost there, but needs some testers to work out some of the final bugs in the system.

Typo 4.0 boasts a new installer and tons of enhancements and improvements from the current stable release. So go on over to the Typo site and checkout the Trunk or download the latest gem using

sudo gem install typo; typo install /some/path

Sick Theme Prescription

Dave Minor — Fri, 28 Apr 2006 22:29:00 -0500

I noticed that several of the themes don’t work with recent checkouts of typo. Upon activation, I would get a rails application error. Luckily the fix is easy. Thanks to pdcawley for the solution. (Search for ‘sidebars’ about halfway through his post where he says “BTW,...”

If any theme authors would like to fix their themes and provide us with updates, we would appreciate it. Send your updates to themes [AT] typogarden [DOT] com.

Update Your Typo Blog With Capistrano

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Tue, 25 Apr 2006 16:17:00 -0500

This blog may seem a little vacant, but there are still some people hiding under the stairs who are working on a new theme directory. If you have made a theme recently, send it in!

Several people have asked about how to deploy and maintain a Typo blog. It’s tough since the whole point of a Ruby on Rails blog is to have something customizable, yet synchronized. You want to keep up with revisions in the Typo trunk, but also update your own pieces of it.

Initially I did this manually but have recently automated it with Capistrano. Some names have been changed to protect the innocent.

First, I checkout a copy of the Typo trunk onto my server and set the DocumentRoot to “mysite.com/public.”


svn checkout svn://typosphere.org/typo/trunk mysite.com

Next, I make my custom theme and import it into my own Subversion repository. I then do a checkout on the server so it will be in the themes directory with all the Subversion info intact.


svn checkout http://topfunky.net/svn/themes/nuby mysite.com/themes/nuby

There it is! The rest is easy.

If I want to update the theme, I need to

svn update the folder on the server
Delete cached CSS files so Typo will regenerate them from my theme

In the pursuit of absolute automation, I do this with a Capistrano task. I save this in Subversion inside the custom theme directory. If you save it as “config/deploy.rb”, it will be easier to call from the command line. (NOTE: This is separate from where a Rails app’s deployment file would be. It’s only used to deploy the theme.)


# This is the entire contents of nuby/config/deploy.rb
set :typo_directory, "mysite.com" 
role :web, "mysite.com" 

desc "Svn update the theme and delete cached CSS files." 
task :theme_update, :roles => :web do
  run "svn update #{typo_directory}/themes/nuby" 
  run "svn update #{typo_directory}/vendor/plugins/nuby_typo_tasks" 
  run "rm #{typo_directory}/public/stylesheets/theme/*.css" 
end

I deploy this with a single command:


topfunky$ cap -a theme_update
   loading configuration /usr/local/lib/ruby/gems/1.8/gems/capistrano-1.1.0/lib/capistrano/recipes/standard.rb
    loading configuration ./deploy.rb
  * executing task theme_update
  * executing "svn update mysite.com/themes/nuby" 
    servers: ["topfunky.com"]
Password: 
    [topfunky.com] executing command
 ** [out :: topfunky.com] U  mysite.com/themes/nuby/layouts/default.rhtml
 ** [out :: topfunky.com] U  mysite.com/themes/nuby/deploy.rb
 ** [out :: topfunky.com] Updated to revision 35.
    command finished
  * executing "svn update mysite.com/vendor/plugins/nuby_typo_tasks" 
    servers: ["topfunky.com"]
    [topfunky.com] executing command
 ** [out :: topfunky.com] At revision 30.
    command finished
  * executing "rm mysite.com/public/stylesheets/theme/*.css" 
    servers: ["topfunky.com"]
    [topfunky.com] executing command
    command finished

Capistrano automatically looks for a “config/deploy.rb” recipe file, so we don’t have to specify that.

If you want to have all changes take effect immediately, you’ll have to add a line that calls the reaper script in “script/process/reaper” so your FastCGI processes will be restarted.

You may also notice that I wrote a plugin with the rake tasks I want to execute for my site. I use cron to do these daily. They are available as the nuby_typo_tasks plugin and will be updated as I add more functionality to the site.

Enjoy!

TextPattern Theme Contest Over

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Tue, 21 Mar 2006 15:49:00 -0600

The TextPattern Theme Contest has just ended.

Honestly, I think all the winners of last fall’s Typo theme contest were much more creative, but there are some great ideas there as well!

Typo Themes in da Hizzouse

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Mon, 20 Mar 2006 14:36:00 -0600

Thanks to the work of Patrick Lenz and Dave Minor, the Typogarden blog is back!

A crew of gardeners is busy pulling weeds and grafting a Venus flytrap onto a daffodil in order to decorate the new Typo theme directory site currently under development.

On my own blog I try to stay away from profusely linking to other sites (there are enough linkblogs already). But it seems appropriate here, so I’ll be posting about new themes and interesting Typo installations. Here are the first three:

Brighthouse Theme—Not enough neon green in your life? This theme has more color than you can shake a stick at. Already in use on a few sites!
ScottRaymond.net—In addition to developing the engine behind Blinksale and Icon Buffet and appearing on the Rails Podcast, Scott Raymond shows that he can wrangle a div tag with the best of them. He recently redesigned his site with a nice medieval look. Check out the ornamented characters and clean design.
BusyAsHell.com—But not too busy to modify Origami with a more…hellish look.

Theme Gardener Needed (FULL!)

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Mon, 13 Feb 2006 19:05:00 -0600

UPDATE Thanks to all who responded! I have 10 gardeners who are going to start cultivating some roses, petunias, and man-sized venus flytraps real soon. UPDATE

Thanks to the work of dozens of graphic artists, the world is now a more beautiful, more diversely themed place. Where before I saw a sea of azure blue, I now see a cornucopia of red, yellow, black, and green.

However, this site still needs to be maintained. Links have gone dead. Some fantastic themes are no longer available at their original sites.

If anyone would like to help the Typo community in a big way, send email to boss@topfunky.com

At minimum, you would post new themes developed for Typo. If you have the time, you could also save local copies of all theme so they will always be available in some form (in case the original site is no longer available).

A few articles about how to update themes for newer versions of Typo would also be useful.

This job would only take a few hours of work per month. Hosting is provided by Planet Agon along with the rest of the official Typo sites.

You will be compensated with instant fame and that warm fuzzy feeling you get when you make the world a happier, more colorful place.

Final Results!!!!

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Sat, 10 Dec 2005 03:02:00 -0600

Yes, this post deserves quadsclamation, and much more.

After two months and one day, this contest comes to an end. There will be tears of joy. There will be tears of sorrow. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.

And yes, it is going to hurt me more than it will hurt you. I wish I could give a brand new PowerBook to every one of the participants in this contest.

You have given an incredible gift to the Rails community. These themes will be used all over the world and in many languages. For that I thank you.

I thank our judges for taking the time to look through so many themes. Now go buy yourself a copy of Mint or hire one of our other fantastic judges to design for your next project.

Finally, I thank our generous sponsors for digging deep and providing prizes that truly make people froth at the mouth in anticipation. Go buy their products!

For everyone else, this site will continue to be maintained as a source for fresh Typo themes for years to come. I saw many themes that were never submitted in time for the contest, and I hope we will see those here in the next few weeks.

Without further ado, here are the final results as determined by the judges…

Crowd Favorite

I really liked this theme and was surprised that it didn’t receive more attention from the judges.

At any rate, it was the crowd favorite with more unqualified positive comments than any other theme.

Hemingway receives the crowd favorite award and receives a year of Level 3 hosting from Planet Argon.

Judges’ Choices

9th	Inkling receives one free year of Tables Turned’s podcast creation services, hosting, and access to the Play Safe podcast music library.
8th	Lush receives a copy of Iconbuilder, from the Iconfactory
7th	Modernist receives a copy of XScope from the Iconfactory.
6th	Bird Flu also receives a copy of XScope.
5th	I am Rice receives a copy of Agile Web Development with Rails, from The Pragmatic Programmers.
4th	Royal Vinter receives a copy of TextMate, from Macromates.
3rd	Laughing at You receives a 4 GB iPod nano, thanks to Ma.gnolia Social Bookmarking.
2nd	Phokus receives a 12 inch iBook, donated by Site5 Hosting.
1st	Origami receives a 15 inch PowerBook, donated by Site5 Hosting.

And yes, these results are final.

I will be contacting these individuals this weekend to get their mailing address or other contact information.

The clock says 3:00 AM. I will be looking forward to a few nice weeks of sleep now that the contest is over.

But…it would be nice if there were more sidebars available for Typo…

Last. Themes. Posted.

Geoffrey Grosenbach — Thu, 01 Dec 2005 09:07:00 -0600

Fuzzy clock says “five afta’ twelve,” and I’ve posted the last theme that made it in before the deadline!

The final tally is over 120 new Typo themes! Wow.

I’ll send voting info to the judges tomorrow.

I also owe one year Rails blog hosting packages with Planet Argon to the first ten themes from way back in October. I’ll send those out tomorrow.

Good luck, everyone!