With all the talk and preparation for ComicPress 2.5 over the last month (it’s being released this week!) I forgot to post this video. It’s from the show Mahalo Daily and features a few minutes of fun with Scott Johnson of Extra Life offering some Webcomic tips including a nice little blurb about ComicPress.

With the new ComicPress 2.5 update, literally right around the corner now as it’s pretty much through it’s beta testing, many of you are most likely going to be wanting to try it out and customize it. Some of you will end up doing it on your live WordPress install. That’s actually fine, especially if you use a theme testing plugin, there are several variations if you search at the WordPress Plugin Directory.

I personally am using one called Theme Tester.

With it activated, I can then, as Administrator, select any other theme in my theme folder and it will appear on my site to me only, all visitors will continue to see the previously selected theme. I can edit the theme, test it out, and then when I am ready, switch the testing back off and the users will also see the current selected theme.

WordPress 2.5.1 | Release Notes | Download

Well, the first update for the 2.5 branch has arrived today. It includes a security fix and over 70 bug fixes. Unfortunately, none of those bugs were our bug. That’s okay though, it kind of forced me into a decision.

Preparing For ComicPress 2.5…

There will now be a Comic Category ($comiccat) and a Blog Category ($blogcat). Which kind of simplifies things, rather than the “everything that is not a blog is a comic” reasoning. It will make it simpler for those of you wanting to build out some of your own features. Also paves the way for other specialty categories (that navigate within themselves only), like perhaps a press box that just has news of your comic in the media, or a latest video blog or podcast that you want to feature and navigate separately.

You can still use other categories, but all comics must be in the “Comic” category and all blogs must be in the “Blog” category. Which means some of us might have some editing to do to prepare for ComicPress 2.5. Hopefully any time invested in changing stuff will be worth it. I suggest using Tags more now for tagging and grouping similar posts or comics, and save the categories for the more functional aspects (treating and navigating blogs and comics differently, along with whatever other specialty categories come up).

I’m moving along on the new ComicPress but slower than I’d wanted, covering every detail. Rerunning every query, stripping it down to the bare essentials. Making the design simple enough to build off of, but pretty enough to run it right out of the box. I’m making it more stable by containing queries so they don’t affect other elements of the page, and containing DIV’s so they can’t easily break the layout.

I’m going to keep a status of where I am at in the project here in the forums. Feel free to cheer me on, throw in last minute requests, or just yell at me.

Also that’s where I’ll post an early release when I’m done.

In case you’ve been holding off on trying out ComicPress, or not doing too much customizing until the next version, a good opportunity is right around the corner. It is with great excitement I announce the development of the next version of ComicPress has kicked into the fast track, thanks in part to a generous sponsor.

I’m looking to release version 2.5 (to go hand-in-hand with the new WordPress) within the next week or two. The main features of the new WordPress 2.5 are mainly behind the curtain, the administration area, the only really new visible exterior feature are comment ComicPress will also have a lot going on behind the curtain, as I am rewriting the entire theme from the ground up, breaking down the CSS into the simplest most indestructible format possible to make it easier for you to customize the layout. Gravatars, which the new ComicPress will support (although it’s a simple bit of code to update your existing theme to use them). To make it harder for you to break it. I want the theme of the release to be, “so easy a caveman can do it”. I want to one day feature a ComicPress site created by a caveman, I know there are cavemen out there right now with a comic in the back of their mind that have been wanting to get it on the web…

Of probably most importance to you though, will be the option of multiple formats including both a tall layout, and the much loved 3-column. Again, with simple and solid layout for you to easily customize with just a little CSS skill. I’ll probably release a preview in the forum for some of you early birds to try out while I am putting together the documentation.

Featured Site: Imaginary Daughter
ComicPress Version: 2.?
Modifications: Heavy

Imaginary Daughter has all sorts of tweaks (and is apparently under constant construction so excuse anything broken), it’s not really even recognizable as a ComicPress themed site. The previous, next and archive thumbnails are particularly fancy. I mainly wanted to feature this comic, not just for its extra site features, but since it’s done by Karchesky, who I know nothing about, I don’t know that we’ve even had words, but if you’ve been to the ComicPress forum, you have probably seen this person, and there’s a good chance they’ve helped you with your site code as well. So thank you Karchesky, for all your hard work and extensive help in the forums. And thanks to all that have been helpful to each other in the forums as well, furthering each others sites along. That’s so awesome to see. Helps me to keep at it with the next version of ComicPress (which hopefully everyone will need less help with ).

IMPORTANT! If you are anxious to use WordPress 2.5 and don’t want to wait for the first or second bug fix update, I don’t blame you (if everyone did that there would be no real world application to find those bugs not caught in beta).

The problem is, there is a now known bug that will directly affect your ComicPress previous/next navigation. Navigating from blog post to blog post will function correctly, but navigating from comic to comic will not, and it will navigate to a blog post from a blog post. Blog Posts are set to navigate to the same category, comic posts are set to navigate to any post not in the blog post category, this is the item that is broken in WordPress 2.5.

HOW TO FIX IT!
Much thanks to Filosofo from the WordPress support forums for providing the fix which can be seen here and must be used until an official bug fix for the 2.5 release.

To make it easy on you I’ve made the fix and am providing the fixed file here, just download it and replace the one in your WordPress install’s “wp-includes” folder (this is just for users of the current 2.5 release):

link-template.php file fix for WordPress 2.5

Let me know if you have any more trouble. Also stay tuned for information on the next scheduled ComicPress release.

EDIT: It has come to my attention that this fix does not work if you use multiple blog categories (have blog posts in the “blog” category as well as others). If that is the case, then you will need to have all comics be in the “comic” category (they can be in other categories as well) and use this fix in the forums.

WordPress 2.5 | Release Notes | Download

I just downloaded the beta RC2 last night to test it out with the ComicPress theme, then surprisingly the final version shows up today. From what I can tell, everything should work fine with the ComicPress 2.1 theme. I haven’t seen any problems in a test scenario.

EDIT: There is a problem with navigation. Using ComicPress with WordPress 2.5 it no longer distinguishes between next and previous comic or blog posts. Fix on the way!

This is a big upgrade though, mainly on the back end, the admin panel. You might want to give it a few days for quick fix releases or make sure it works with any of your necessary plugins. Unless your just excited to try out the fancy new panel and features, which you can read about here. Also you can see a screencast of the new admin panel in action here.

Some of the new features:

• Simplified customizable admin area
• Multiple file uploading
• One-click plugin upgrades
• Built in galleries
• Media library
• Gravatars

Featured Site: The Panel Mammals
ComicPress Version: 2.0 BE
Modifications: Medium

Missed a week, so to make up for it, how about featuring five Webcomic sites? Much like the previously featured Transmission X site, The Panel Mammals is a collective of comic published on the Web using the ComicPress theme. Jim Tierney has done a nice job of setting himself and his partners with similar 3-column “mammaled” versions of the theme. At the time of this article their launchpad site is undergoing some changes but you can see ComicPress in action on their individual sites…

Jetpacks & Time Machines
Pinkerton
Stewart
Small Wonder
The Pursuit of Mandy

This is a great group of comics, aside from checking out the application of the ComicPress theme, they are worth a visit for art and entertainment as well. Nice work Jim and company!

Featured Site: Draw Write Play
ComicPress Version: 2.1
Modifications: Medium

I believe Caroline has been using the ComicPress theme to publish her comic, Draw Write Play since it first debuted last year. She’s more recently customized it to the now much coveted 3-column format.

I’ve taken so long to make one available (in my defense I have given some direction in the forums) that Caroline has done the service of providing her own triple-columnized version for download. I haven’t had a chance to check it out but it might help some of you get your site in the right direction if you are wanting that extra column action. She provided the download at her site called Comicology, a new site featuring tips and tricks for comic creators, including this tutorial on “Publishing Your Webcomic Using Wordpress with Comicpress”.

Thanks for all your hard work Caroline!

Featured Site: Transmission X
ComicPress Version: 1.5-2.0 BE
Modifications: Light

I missed last week’s Friday Feature (where I feature a site using a modified version of the ComicPress theme) so to make up for it, how about this week we do 10? The entire beautiful collection of comics at Transmission X are all published at their individual sites or sub-sites with their own ComicPress setups. They range from using the older version 1.5 to the 2.0 BE version depending on the comic. The themes have been minimally altered from the original ComicPress setup, each with their own custom header and appropriate colors to best create the setting for reading each of the comics. Each of these have such wonderful art you really barely notice the site or functionality around them. They are also set up a bit different, in navigation.

Updating on Monday’s is Luz by Claudia Dávila, featuring ComicPress 2.0 BE. The top menu can quickly get you to the first strip or the current one. Looks like it’s missing some of the standard ComicPress archiving features but maybe they will pop up in time. Looks like it might have recently switched to the newer ComicPress as the posts per page (when you view the comic category) is still set to “one” as was done with 1.5 or 1.6. With ComicPress 2.0 or newer you can now set that as high as you want and it will just reflect the number of posts on search or archive pages of any sort (as with any standard WordPress theme). That would serve the site with a bit more of an operable archive when you clicked the “comics” category link.

Tuesday’s update is for the lovely Kukuburi, which sports its own domain. It’s created by Ramon Perez of Butternutsquash fame, which has a site also making use of ComicPress. It’s using 2.0 BE also, and also not using it for any blogging aside from the comic updates. The Kukuburi site takes an interesting approach as it will automatically send you to the first comic, it’s really meant to be read through start to finish so this ensures a new reader doesn’t jump into a random middle area of the story, there again is a current comic link in the menu to quickly get you to the latest. Kukuburi also features an archive link, using the comics category as an archive, this can be nifty as it will show thumbs of the comics themselves and show as many as you want per page, not limited by dates like in the monthly categories, a good option for a comic that does not update several times a month. The new 2.1 ComicPress would start that archive from the beginning and then flip through to the end instead of the typical blog format showing the most recent and working backwards. Also though, anyone should know that a complete archive page can be made by selecting the “comic archive” in the template sidebar of the “Write Page” feature of WordPress (this would give it a complete text listing of all the comics but not have the thumbnails).

On Wednesdays the well crafted Abominable Charles Christopher by Karl Kerschl is updated. It also is using version 2.0 BE, again no blogging aside from the comics, but this site features a monthly archive pull-down menu. This feature is actually built into the latest ComicPress 2.1 as a Widget you can easily drag into your sidebar. It makes for quite a compact but effective archive system whether you have 10 comics in the archive or 10,000.

Thursdays offer an update of Kissing Chaos, it’s sporting the old ComicPress version 1.5 but it gets the job done. The site has a different approach to directing the visitor in offering a list of chapters from the main page to jump to and get into reading the comic.

On Friday, Andy B’s Raising Hell is updated, also using the classic version 1.5. The menu will quickly get you to the first or latest strip but you’ll be dependent on the default WordPress calendar navigation for finding anything in between.

Saturday’s update is for The Port, once again version 1.5. You can jump to the first or last strip but this site is way simplified, as in that’s all you get as far as navigation. Really though, if you make use of the comic bookmark feature, which is the only thing currently available in the sidebar, you can mark your place and pick back up pretty easily. These are all comics you are going to want to read straight through anyway.

On Sunday there are updates of Sin Titulo by Cameron Stewart and Princess Planet by Brian McLachlan. Sin Titulo will take you to the first page, giving you the option to jump to the current. It’s just the old 1.5 version again but this site is also sporting the calendar archive pull-down so you can navigate around a bit or see what updates you might have missed. Princess Planet has the newer 2.0 BE, also sports the calendar archive pull-down and seems to be the only one of the comics also using the theme for non-comic blogposts as became available in version 2.0 and newer.

Finally there is Papercut by Michael Cho which is updated monthly and then there is the completed Ragni by the aforementioned Karl Kerschl. Papercut is using 2.0 BE, and has another different approach, the site immediately brings you to an introductory page which introduces the comic and then gives you the option of jumping into the current story or any of the previous ones. Ragni uses version 1.5 which is fine for it, the site opens with the first page, which makes sense, being a completed work a visitor is most likely going to just read it through start to finish.

So there you have it, that felt pretty boring for these wonderfully illustrated stories but of course we are just looking at site design and function here in regards to the ComicPress theme. I think there were a few unique approaches taken and perhaps a couple other things you might be able to take away as useful. Regardless, if you love comics I certainly recommend heading over to Transmission X and checking out the work of some very talented professionals in the comic industry.