First and foremost: This release is not compatible with earlier versions of WordPress. Use it only with WP3.0 and up.

Only minor refinements are apparent to the eye: You won’t see the word “Trackback” in the comments area anymore, and the former “Pages” list in the default sidebar is now labeled “Navigation” to accommodate the optional custom menu. Just beneath the surface, the theme now outputs HTML5 where once there was XHTML 1.0.

Highlighted Changes

• HTML5 output
• Support new custom menus
• New CSS reset
• Suppress the inline gallery style — remove a validation stumbling block
• CSS updates for gallery styling, efficiency
• Use automatic feed links for uniform & dynamic header metadata
• Rewrite and modernize functions.php — better child theme override support
• Replace/remove deprecated WordPress function calls

Check out the change log for a complete list.

Download Simplish version 2.4 here (.zip, sha1:65dcb73e219d6ea20a3363554e76e2033a5b4db0), or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

The various *border-radius CSS techniques for turning corners don’t command the obedience of wayward Internet Explorer. While we tested some special border-radius techniques for IE, corners there remain square. Level 2.1 CSS validators will squawk at bits of the new CSS, while browser-specific mutations of same add typographical insult to standards-abandoning injury. Still, we feel those bevels are pretty sporty.

Another appearance tweak removes the bottom border that formerly underlined h4 headings.

Download Simplish version 2.3 here (.zip, sha1:3f8255653b4215c82f704700185f04f806c73c83), or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

This change is tiny, but more details can be found in Issue #19 at the Simplish project site.

Download Simplish version 2.2.3 here (.zip, sha1:ac92c5a8d1168d69aafd94fa43c1dd880cac01ce), or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

Many thanks to Demetris for the bulk of the patches included, and vigorous testing with the WP_DEBUG setting, which now gives Simplish the all-clear.

Download Simplish version 2.2.2 here (.zip, sha1:ce3e147c277cdcb2aac934fd9f0ec2bd20b8f6af), or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

• Auto-generated post classes (and “sticky” post support): Use post_class() everywhere but the page template
• Fix a dangling </a> that slipped into the 2.1.4 release (validation)
• Fix excess vertical spacing in content area ol / ul li elements (thanks Demetris @ op111.net)
• Eliminate some redundant or over-specified CSS rules for ol / ul li elements
• Switch to new table styling, derived from Gesso, and eliminate code adopted from Blueprint. Remove Blueprint license file and NOTICE note.
• Use new wp_logout_url() in sidebar logout link
• Replace manual includes with new get_search_form()
• Remove the ocomments.php file, and much compatibility code from functions.php (removes support for wp < 2.7)
• Replace wp_list_pages() calls with new wp_page_menu() to allow in-function “Home” link

Download Simplish version 2.1.5 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

• Support WordPress 2.7′s threaded comments.¹
• Add compatibility comments template for WordPress ≤ 2.6.5.
• Link to comments goes to heading of comments list (instead of to first comment in list).
• Fix silly feed:// typo in (default) sidebar syndication links (thanks eighty4.se).
• Fix “comments” id and class to not have same name (introduce “commentslist”).
• Use smaller 32×32 gravatar for comment author.

Download Simplish version 2.1.4 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

¹ – Threaded comment support has not yet been added to WordPress-mu, the software this blog and the Simplish Demo run atop. Until it is, you can check out Simplish’s rendition of threaded comments at a test site.

Version 2.1.3 is a tiny update that contains just one change: a contributed header background graphic (thanks to both Anonymous and Demetris) that’s 10x smaller than the original, down from ~2.7 Kilobytes to a super-slender 256 Bytes.

In other words, this update is definitely not a big deal. But it does trim the theme’s only image down to a size smaller than… most of your blog posts, and might help (a very little bit) with bandwidth or page load times if you’re using Simplish on a very-busy site.

Download Simplish version 2.1.3 here, or see it soon in the WordPress themes directory.

If there are other corners we could tidy, let us know with a comment here – that includes providing specific examples for the reported issue with some AJAX sidebar widgets and Simplish v2.1.2, as well as the question about the importance of threaded comment support -vs- the simplicity of loading no JavaScript.

From what I can make out from systrans and Briannatrans, the author had a good day at work. Good for her, and nice work on that theme, too.

Sp has the usual suspects from Simplish, like microformats (hAtom posts and hCards for their authors), clean and terse styling that loosely imitates the design of Jeffrey Hardy’s Scribbish “theme for stuff”, wrapped in valid markup output to the browser. It’s just implemented in the leaner, more perspicuous idioms of the Habari RawPHPEngine.