Introducing, Clean Slate

In case you missed our tweets last week, we have released our sixth WordPress theme titled, Clean Slate.

This is our most exciting release yet because it comes at a very exciting time in the WordPress world – the imminent release of WordPress 3.0.  We’ve been playing with the 3.0 beta release for the past few weeks and couldn’t help but include some of the awesome new functionality in Clean Slate.  But that’s not the only reason to be excited about this theme.

Clean Slate was crafted with a few simple objectives:  Minimalist, clean design; Flexible theme options; Developer friendly.  Well, that last one is true of all of our themes, but you get the idea   Without further ado, here are the most notable aspects of the Clean Slate Theme:

3 (actually, 4) Home Page Layouts

Packaged with Clean Slate are 3 beautifully crafted home page templates, each providing a different layout.  Shown above, the first layout offers a hybrid between a blog and static callouts (which are widgets).  The second layout is geared more as a portfolio layout, displaying thumbnails and short excerpts.  The third option can be used as an informational home page, displaying static content using widgets.  You might consider a 4th option, and that is to have the home page take a traditional blog layout.

Flexible Featured Slider

This is our most flexible featured content slider yet.  First, you can choose between two formats, shown above.  “Wide” mode gives you a full-width image, with the post title overlaid across the bottom.  “Split” mode shows a medium sized image along side the post title and excerpt.

You also have the option to display posts or pages.  If displaying posts, choose which category to feature (or leave it unselected to show recent posts from all categories).  If you’d like to feature page content, just select the pages you’d like to display.

WordPress 3.0 Enhanced  /  WordPress 2.9+ Compatible

Are you on the cutting edge of the WordPress platform and already getting your feet wet with the 3.0 beta release?  Well, you must be just as excited as we are about the awesomeness coming in 3.0.

Clean Slate gives you the option to make use of one of the coolest new features in WP 3.0, and that is menu management.  You can use this feature to take full control of your navigation menus.  With the drag and drop interface, you can mix and match links to pages, posts, categories, external websites, and define your own order and hierarchy.  In the Clean Slate demo, we’re using menu management to control both the main navigation and the navigation in the footer.

If you’re running WordPress 2.9, Clean Slate is fully compatible.  The main navigation will function just like any other theme – displaying your wordpress pages with proper hierarchy and dropdowns.

More Posts “Bucket”

One of the cool and unique details in Clean Slate is what we call the More Posts Bucket.  It’s a row of additional post thumbnails, tucked neatly at the bottom of the main area, just above the footer.  With a click, the row slides in/out of view.

As expected, this piece is fully customizable.  You can set the following options:  Default state open or closed; Define your own “More Posts” text;  Define a category to pull posts from;  Set the posts offset to display posts farther back in your timeline;  Disable the bucket altogether.

Redesigned Theme Options Panel

Also making it’s debut is the redesigned Theme Options Panel.  The interface design is more closely tied into that of the core WordPress admin, with a few of our own touches for good measure.  Neatly organized sections to separate options;  Anchor link navigation makes for a snappy user experience;  Save buttons under each section minimizes scrolling.

Take a look at the expanded theme options page for Clean Slate.

Five Built-in Color Schemes

A ThemeJam theme wouldn’t be complete without a selection of hand-picked color schemes to choose from.  Clean Slate comes with five.  Have a look:

• Clean Slate Demo
• Clean Slate details / purchase