Plugin + theme updates coming

One is Version Checker. I've spent the past two days, and evenings, and large parts of the nights too, working around a bunch of quirks in the WordPress upgrade API. In particular timeout issues that are yet to be properly fixed in the WP trunk.

I'll be giving this a bit more testing before releasing Version Checker RC5. It should make it possible to upgrade WP for a great many more sites than prior versions, so be sure to grab it.

The other noteworthy update will be the Semiologic theme, to 0.9. I was looking into using inline boxes on this site. Upon giving it a shot with real data, rather than test data (you'd be surprised by how numbing it gets to only ever write test posts), it occurred to me that four boxes were too much.

I was wondering why a few of you were asking, in the forum, how to get three boxes instead of four. Three is indeed much better. (On top of finding it too small, I wondered what could possibly go in the fourth…) Three will be the default from 0.9 onwards. That part is already done, in fact — but not published yet.

(Adding to this, in the future, please avoid asking how to change a hard to change option or feature. Instead, suggest that the default is wrong, and highlight why.)

The question that remains is whether the medium width layout (i.e. Sidebar + Content, rather than Sidebar + Wide Content) should have two or three inline boxes. I'm currently leaning towards two larger boxes, as three feel a bit too narrow based on my tests. If you've an opinion on this, please post a comment.