Posting this in advance… A couple of plugins are going to be updated over the WE. I've uploaded betas for each:

• Smart Links v.4.2.1 fixes an erratic behavior for domain-less pages
• Mediacaster v.2.0.1 updates the flash player to 4.6
• External Links v.4.0.3 and Nav Menus v.2.0.1 get an improved local url detector
• Semiologic Fixes v.1.9.4 trims junk added by a buggy Skype plugin in FF

Thanks in advance if you test their bleeding edge versions.

Update: I'm finally beginning to find a few quirks in WP 2.9. (Why did I know that it sounded too good to be true?) Nothing's broken per say — until the trash gets used. You then get some random behavior here and there.

Anyway, a dozen or so plugins and the two themes will see their bleeding edge zip updated during the WE as a result.

I've just released a few plugin updates:

• Search Reloaded v. 4.0.3 addresses an HTML validation issue when it is combined with Fancy Excerpts
• Semiologic Cache v.1.2.1 addresses a tiny niggle that occurred when the plugin was used with custom plugin and wp-content folders
• Semiologic Fixes v.1.9.3 moves its external libraries directly into the plugin (in advance of the new installer that we'll be rolling out in WP 2.9)
• Version Checker v.2.0 RC6 revamps (in effect, drops…) the Sem Pro upgrader (more on this below)

The Semiologic theme got an additional tweak, in order to support WP 2.9 post thumbnails. It's a very cool addition, btw, even if a few UI bugs remain at the time of writing.

Speaking of WP 2.9, I've been testing the theme and plugins with it in the past few days, and I'm looking forward for the first WP upgrade (in 5 years!) that breaks absolutely nothing (that I'm distributing anyway…). For this reason, I'm proceeding a bit ahead of schedule and dropping the Semiologic Pro upgrader that we had been using until now.

What this means in practice for your Semiologic Pro sites:

1. When installing a new site, Version Checker will prompt you to install Semiologic Pro using Tools / Upgrade, and it'll stick to upgrading the Semiologic theme and plugins from that point onwards.
2. Upon upgrading Version Checker on an existing site, WP will prompt you to upgrade to WP 2.8.6; go right ahead and do so.
3. When WP 2.9 gets released, go right ahead and upgrade your Semiologic Pro site when it's convenient for you — be sure to check for plugin compatibility if you've installed extras, though.

My favorite feature in WP 2.9, by the way, is not oembed integration, the Trash can, or the post thumbnails. Rather, it is the mass plugin upgrader. I'm already looking into (ab)using the latter, and I envision the following workflow by the end of the year for new sites:

1. You install Version Checker to your site.
2. You browse tools / upgrade to mass-install plugins.
3. You install the Semiologic theme from the same screen or from Themes / Add New.

From then onwards, the site's components (core, theme, skins, plugins) get upgraded separately, on a per need basis. And Version Checker sticks to warning against upgrading WP when your theme or plugins are not marked as compatible with a new version of WP.

In short, this changes the dynamics of Semiologic Pro entirely. :-)

Round two for the new Semiologic theme skins.

I've spent the past week giving a bit more love to the color schemes. Key changes since the initial public release:

• The Boxed skins have been reverted to their old "format". No matter how much I tweaked and tried, they looked either too empty, or too heavy; the old format simply worked better.
• The Copywriter skins have a more saturated header, and are quite functional now. I'm not 100% happy with them, but they're much better than the initial new set, as well as the older set. So calling them done.
• I've desaturated the darker color variants somewhat (blue, green, purple, red, teal). I was finding the new versions too flashy for business sites.
• The various shadows, etc. have been made gentler and subtler. I'm quite happy with the current set of skins. I hope you'll be happy too.
• The olive skins have been relabeled to citrus. Don't forget to switch if you're using one of them.
• The six core skins (boxed, classic, classy, copywriter, kubrick, and light) are now all available in beige, blue, citrus, gold, green, purple, red, silver and teal.

So… we're now at nearly 60 skins in the theme. I dearly hope everyone will find at least one that fits for his or her site.

Quick aside on WP 2.8.5 and WP 2.8.6. The security issue fixed in 2.8.5 was benign so I didn't bother updating Sem Pro. 2.8.6 is nastier if you've untrustworthy authors on your site.

WP 2.8.6 is currently included in the Sem Pro zip. Browse Tools / Upgrade, and re-install if you need/want to use it. It'll install the new theme and skins while it's at it. Else, safely wait for another week or so; I'll have updated Version Checker by then, allowing for a WP upgrade without upgrading the theme alongside.

I've been focused on a couple of things in past two weeks, which kept me mostly offline. Namely sitting a 5-year old kiddo full time, and revamping the Semiologic theme skins.

A quick update on the latter point, since I didn't expect it to take me this long. I should be done in a day or two. The Kubrick skin is the only one that remains in need of a revamp. And I've rebuilt them in such a way that the backgrounds are easier to change.

The going version of the Copywriter skin is being used on this site. I'm still itching to tweak it a tiny bit more. The subdomains of semiologic.com (skins.semiologic.com and members.semiologic.com) are using other skins, which might get a few extra tweaks as well.

Version Checker will be next on the to update list. It might take me a week or so to get it done, since some API changes will be involved to implement mass plugin installs and updates.

Oh, and by the way… v.1.0 of the theme will come with 80 skins or so, which will be made available through the skins site. A lot of them are done already. But I'll implement the skin installer/upgrader before we move forward with that. You'll need to be patient for a month or so. :-)

I'm not documenting the specifics right away, since they might still change, but v.0.9 of the Semiologic theme will include a few of subtle canvas changes.

For information, they are the following at the time of writing this:

• A new #body_wrapper has been added for convenience
• New splitters in the header and footer wrappers have been introduced; some are conditional
• #header_wrapper, #body_wrapper, and #footer_wrapper no longer default to width: 100%, but get the wrapper class instead
• Margins are now all 20px (this has no consequence whatsoever based on tests on my own skins, but it might affect a custom skin here and there)
• The widget title-related CSS has been re-engineered and will likely break custom skins based on the boxed theme whose widget title backgrounds were changed
• The icons have been changed

I'm itching to simplify the canvas a bit further, too — e.g. remove some cruft over in the various "Entry: XYZ" widgets.

One full month of planned beta/RC! That is rather long, by WP standards. And there are invites to participate in testing, which we'll of course be doing.

What this means for Semiologic Pro users…

I'm going to publish the 6.0 zip as soon as the Semiologic theme, v.0.9 is ready. I'll be tweaking Version Checker in such a way that 6.0 RC1 users will not see a prompt to upgrade. Everything is upgradable from the WP admin (under Appearance / Themes for themes, and Plugins / Installed for plugins), so there really is no point in anyone upgrading things all at once.

Once we see a sufficiently stable WP 2.9-beta, a 6.1-alpha zip will be up for grabs for bleeding edge package users. The dev zip will advertise itself as such, so that testers can upgrade WP from Tools / Upgrade.

I've only three items on my todo list for 6.1:

The first are Version Checker tweaks and improvements. The ultimate goal here is to decorrelate Semiologic Pro and WordPress upgrades completely. In other words, we'll be streamlining what we've been experimenting in practice for a few months already: plugins and themes would be upgraded separately from WP, in bite-size chunks that don't cause upgrade problems due to zip size. (It's much easier to maintain, too.)

The second is mostly pending Amazon, and Longtail Video. On the one hand side, I'd like to automatically implement media streaming, when available, with Mediacaster. On the other, a new version of their player is due this month, and it would allow to add a big "share this video" button in players without messing up affiliate links that are inserted in videos.

The last and most important change will be a skin installer/upgrader for the Semiologic theme. That would — finally — make the theme v.1.0, after a full year of developments. The updated set of skins should be up for grabs, I hope, towards the end of next week.

There should be 12 color schemes for each of the 6 skins (I'm not counting the Shades skin as one) when I'm done next week: Beige, Blue, Brown, Gold, Green, Purple, Red, Teal, Silver, Black (dark grey), and two more that I've yet to settle on. (Probably some bright olive scheme, and a navy blue one.)

I've been releasing a couple of minor updates in the past few days. The updates generally cater to improving the plugins in weird edge cases.

An exception would be Ad Manager v.2.1 beta. It fixes nothing, merely improves it. But the new feature could use some testing if you're running a Semiologic Pro site that is using bleeding edge packages.

Basically, I've improved the click protection in such a way that, instead of hiding the ad units from the site admin, the ad units get displayed normally — until they're hovered by the mouse. I could use an IE tester in particular.

Update: the new skins are up for grabs.

From lack of helpful designers who would be willing to distribute a few free skins for the Semiologic theme, I've set out to redesign, rework and improve the existing ones.

The revamped Boxed, Red skin is, at the time of writing, being used on this site. (I'll likely have switched to a different one if you read this a few days after this gets posted.)

That is to say… it's going to be a few more days before I release v.0.9 of the theme.

In the meanwhile, I'll be testing skins on this site. If you spot anything that seems weird in some odd browser (IE6, to name but one) or if you've constructive feedback on the skin that is in use on the site, please drop a note in the comments below.