Archive for the ‘Announcements’ Category

Since November of 2008, PC User’s have benefited from the WordPress Theme Generator called Artisteer and now that WordPress Generator desktop application is available for Apple / Mac users.  The initial Mac beta was just released and people that purchase/have purchased a PC license will also have the ability to use the license on a Mac or vice versa on a PC.

I have been giving demonstrations of WordPress as a Content Management System for several months which includes a demo of Artisteer and the first question that is always asked is, “Does Artisteer work on a Mac?”

Now the answer is YES!  Artisteer does work on Macs.

Better yet, existing Artisteer users already know that when you purchase a license, that license will receive free upgrades for a year.  I have personally created almost 100 WordPress themes since purchasing Artisteer last fall, and I have significantly benefited from many many upgrades to the software.  This latest upgrade ads more Avatar support for WordPress, ads support for Dot Net Nuke and past upgrades provided support for Joomla & Drupal templates and much much more.

here’s the latest news release from Artisteer about the Mex Mac Capability

Artisteer for Mac (Beta) has arrived!
Artisteer 2.2 for Mac (Beta) is now available by clicking here. Couple interesting facts:

• Artisteer for Mac joins the family of products based on cross-platform .NET framework known as Mono.
• Artisteer might be the first product for Mac OS utilizing the ribbon interface first introduced in Microsoft Office 2007 for Windows.

Technical notes and known issues for beta testers:

• Artisteer for Mac runs on Intel based hardware with OS X version 10.5 (Leopard).
• Artisteer for Mac requires X11 which is usually installed by default on OS X 10.5.
• Artisteer may require approx 1 minute to start the first time after installation.
• The "Open" and "Save" dialogs display Windows style folder structure and may require additional navigation to desired Mac folders.
• The top Mac menu bar does not offer an option to quit Artisteer. Use the Artisteer menu, keyboard shortcut ‘Command’+'Q’, or the red window close button to quit.
• Keyboard shortcuts stop working after clicking anywhere within the web design preview area.
• Certain amount of instability and limitations (as above) are expected due to limitations of the current Mono framework 2.4.
• There is a slight chance that your Mac computer may freeze when using Artisteer (this happened once in our tests). Please save all your work often in case you need to reboot your computer.

Customers who purchased an Artisteer license can use it on both PC and Mac computers (one each) during the beta period. An official release date of the Mac version will be planned after receiving detailed  issue reports from our beta testers and determining how much work is needed to resolve those issues.
Please send feedback and report reproducible issues to our support via the Contact Us page.

Artisteer version 2.2 update
We are releasing a new update to Artisteer 2.2 to resolve a few recent issues reported in the previous version 2.2 Beta.

• Artisteer: Added "Options" button in the export dialog.
• Artisteer: Added DotNetNuke Skin export announced below.
• Artisteer: Fixed a bug with the font size being altered by changing Articles -> Line Height.
• WordPress: Improved compatibility with Avatar List plugin.
• Joomla: Resolved custom footer not showing up.
• Joomla: Resolved centered menus not shown correctly.
• Joomla: Resolved a problem with the text "’30′, ‘height’ => ‘30′ near h2" showing on some pages.
• Joomla: Fixed incorrect path to spacer.gif in script.js file in Joomla templates.
• Drupal: Fixed an issue with broken image appearing instead of a logo uploaded in Drupal.

The new version 2.2.0.17297 can be obtained by clicking here and may become the officially released version 2.2 after additional testing.

I just installed the 2.2.0.17208 Standard Edition of Artisteer, and Artisteer will be available for Mac Users very soon. . . .

Here are some of the improvements added to Beta 2.2 coming from 2.1

The following is the summary of new changes and improvements:
Web Design Features

• CSS structure changes by adding "art-" prefix to style classes to prevent conflicts with other CSS styles.
• Simplified syntax for styling buttons and links: <input style="art-button">, <a style="art-button">

WordPress

• Resolved an issue with footer editing when the PHP option magic_quotes_gpc is turned on.

Joomla

• Added support for module class suffixes

Drupal

• Resolved issues with the Menu not working properly in some cases
• Resolved an issue with missing upload button
• Resolved an issue with uploaded logos not appearing

If DotNetNuke doesn’t get you to interested in Artisteer, or if the ability to create WordPress themes and Drupal or Joomla templates isn’t cool enough because you are on a Mac, guess what?

Artisteer just finalized the Mac version of the program which will hopefully be available for download/trial/purchase very soon!  I know many many Mac users and designers out there that have been waiting for this and it is almost ready!

This is quick list of wordpress plugins is an addendum to go with my fast speech at WordCampRDU 2009.

In addition to the plugins below, I used Artisteer 2.0 and highly recommend that program (does have a free trial download offer)

• Sitemaps for visitors PS AutoSitemap -  ps-auto-sitemap
• XML Sitemap – sitemaps for bots – if setting up WP for a CMS set a higher priority for pages as opposed to posts (especially if you will only rarely updated posts – wordpress-sitemap-plugin-set-it-right-for-maximum-seo-benefits
• Redirection – redirection
• Akismet – Its obvious but essential for small business
• Search Everything – enables searches of pages, not just posts
• All in one seo – Or HeadSpace or a couple others that include all in one
• Exec PHP – exec-php lets you install php code in content sections of your site
• PageMash – Pagemash
• Add the Multi-Level Navigation Plugin (son of suckerfish) -  multi-level-navigation-plugin
• Multiple Widgets – From time to time, you need to run different sidebars on different pages, so you will need to configure many multiple sidebars, which might require using the same widget on more than one sidebar, you’ll need the Multiple Widgets Plugin

Presentation file from WordPress as a CMS by Brett Bumeter – zipped MindManager Mindmap –

Presentation file from WordPress as a CMS by Brett Bumeter – PDF Copy

This week we established a Charlotte Area WordPress Enthusiasts group on MeetUp.com.

The Charlotte area has a vibrant and growing social media community.  The first Charlotte WordCamp took place last November and the next WordCamp in Charlotte is in the works.  This should not be confused with the WordCamp in Raleigh (WordCampRDU) which is scheduled for June 13, 2009. 

WordCamps are excellent events and we hope to make both of these.  With the creation of the Charlotte Area WordPress Enthusiasts group, we hope to host regular events at rotating locations around the Greater Charlotte area and in Charlotte itself.  The events will be designed to cover topics of interest in small focused working groups.  The goal of these events will be to help attendees get hands on experience at the actual event, while peers or mentors are on hand to guide them.

We would just like to welcome everyone to a Happy New Year!