But what if, as a plugin author, you could add a stamp, a “certified” mention that would indicate that your plugin or theme was carefully tested? And as a user, wouldn’t it be reassuring to see that the code you are about to install on your site has been tested?

While the official theme repo already has its own Theme review team (with great guys in charge, and you can join them), that is something that does not exist for plugins.

Introducing a theme and plugin review service

That’s where DevPress comes in. Aside from their Theme club, they have decided to start a theme and plugin review service. The system seems quite simple: you upload your theme/plugin, pay, and a ticket is opened on DevPress where the team will come back to you with their remarks and feedback.

While the prices and conditions are not decided yet, I think it would be a useful service for those of us who want to get an external point of view on our code, or a second opinion before to launch a plugin. However, the price itself will play a big role in the success of their product. Indeed, while it might be worth to pay for a review when you sell your theme or plugin, people will probably think twice before to pay for a plugin they will release for free to the repo afterwards.

On the other hand, if the DevPress team makets it well, and if you can advertize that your plugin has passed the review afterwards, your plugin might draw more attention, since it is “endorsed” by popular WordPress developers!

What do you think about it? Will you be trying this service when it will come out?

Source: Launching a theme and plugin review service.

As you can see if you visit their website today, they sell parent themes (so far only one, Aeronef) for quite cheap prices (49$ right now, and you can get a 50% discount if you buy it this week with the coupon PXL-LAUNCH), and they propose different child themes for that parent theme for 19$.

That’s a perfect way to go if you used to customize themes you buy a lot: with this system, you can buy the parent theme and one of its child themes, customize the child theme as much as you want, and when the time to update comes, no bad surprises: you can just update the parent update and keep all your customizations.

Hopefully the prices will remain as low as they are now. Knowing the quality of the design work of these guys, it can only be a good bargain if you are looking for WordPress themes!

Good luck guys, it will be one more site to keep under the radar for future theme releases!

Peaxl › Parent & Child WordPress themes, the stylish way.

Changes colors, fonts, structure within a few clicks and with a drag an drop interface, add a sidebar, all of this is possible thanks to this editor.

And best of all, the theme is available for free! Go download it, give it a try and give your feedback to the developers!

WordPress Frontend Editor | WP Paintbrush.

Chip Bennett, member of the theme review team, has put together a great complete team on the best practices and the proper way to create such page, from backend to frontend.

If you want to create WordPress theme options pages, this is a must-read:

Incorporating the Settings API in WordPress Themes » cb.blog.

The Future of WordPress Themes in 2011

There are some interesting ideas, make sure you take the time to read the whole article.

Personally, I think that the new features introduced with 3.0 et 3.1 will play a big role in the shape of the WordPress themes to come in the next few months: post formats and custom post types will allow the developers to come up with creative ideas and uses of WordPress. That will allow for really small niche themes, but also more classical personal blog themes and micro blogging tumblr-like things.

What’s your take on the subject? Let me know below, and we will meet each other next year to see who was right!

But today, Woothemes changes the game (once again!)

Tumblr dashboard is very easy to use: a menu proposes you different types of content, and you simply have to click to the one you want to post, and you are rbought to an interface where you have the tools to upload a photo, a video, add a link… This simplicity has convinced many users, and allows tumbler users to blog and reblog very quickly.

However, for those of us used to all the functionnalities from WordPress, and familiar with theme development with our favorite software, have wanted to port such features to WordPress instead of starting all over with a new blogging platform.

And today, the Wooteam introduces us with two great tools to do just that: an iPhone app and a free Tumblr plugin.

Using Custom taxonomies to transform the admin panel and the Front-end of your blog

Jeffikus from the Wooteam has released a free plugin that does a few things to transform your blog into a full tumblog:

• It adds new custom taxonomies to your backend
• It creates a new dashboard widget allowing you to post easily from your dashboard
• Thanks to the addition of a few template tags, the front-end of your blog will display the additional elements, and add an icon to show to your readers in which taxonomy you’ve posted.

I like this approach to tumbling, since it is much less hassle than previous attempts I have seen and tried myself: instead of using custon post types, and consequently have to mess up with the loop and with your feed output, it uses custom taxonomies and consequently integrates quickly and easily with your posts.

See the video of the plugin in action on the announcement post: Tumbling along | WooThemes.

Blog from your mobile in a few steps

What about mobile will you say; and you’re right: those of you who have experimented with custom post types and custom taxonomies before know that it is not handled by the iPhone application developed by the Automattic team. No problem, the wooteam planned everything, and releases an iPhone app together with their plugin:

These two new products will surely bring more users to Woothemes in the future. And you, will you try this plugin? Do you use another similar tool to customize the way you blog?

Today, they get bigger and announce a new fork of their company, dedicated to e-commerce. And to support them in the development of their themes, they introduced Tung Do, aka Small Potato, as part of their new team.

Introducing Ecommerce Plex and A New Addition to Our Team | Templatic.

Small Potato will have some work to do, between his involvment with DevPress and this new job! :)

Introducing Theme Finder: find WordPress themes visually | WPCandy.

via WordPress CSS Parser.