The next thing on my schedule is the community feature whose layout and style are basically done. However, there are still few things to do before the release. Hope to finish the final test in this month or next. At this point, you may want to check out the new look of the forum instead.

What’s New?

There are actually lots of changes that I made compared with the previous theme. Some most obvious points listed below.

Rewriting the Codes

I basically rewrote all the codes even though you don’t see a big change in the overall layout. The codes are much more clean and it’s now a HTML5 structure. So, to make the most out of the new theme, you may want to upgrade your browser to the latest version and of course, old browsers are also well supported except IE6. To test whether your browser support the latest HTML5, simply move your cursor to the text “THEAKIBA” on the left hand side of the top menu bar. If you see the text effect, you are totally fine.

Not Responsive, Yet

It is always a problem for me to make the site more compatible to different browsers, resolutions and even different devices. With the help of CSS3 Media Queries, I can easily add those features and make only one theme that will meet all the requirements and we call this technique Responsive Design. However, after all kinds of experiments and redesign, I found responsive design is probably not something I need and instead, I create a really wide layout without any ability to auto adjust to different resolution. And to make the site compatible to different devices, I probably will create mobile optimized theme instead.

Fixed Wide Layout

The previous theme had two kinds of layout which will auto adjust according to your screen resolution, either 980 px or 1190 px wide. As I found out more and more people are using wide screen and finally decided to drop the support of regular screen resolution like 1024 x 768 px (which takes up less than 5% of our visitors). With a fixed and wide sidebar, I can add all kinds of useful stuffs to enrich the blog and help readers find more valuable information.

New Navigation Toolbar

I finally made one navigation menu which I am quite satisfy with. It’s compact and has all kinds of useful links which will definitely help you to locate any specific pages on the blog. If you cannot find what you need, go to the toolbar or simply look it up using the search form. It is also my favorite part of the new theme.

hNews and Readability

I’ve taken the most needed part into consideration: the readability of the posts. Because that’s what a website like TheAkiba is all about. After doing some researches on all kinds of websites, newspapers and magazines, I finally come up with this single post view. If you use services like Readability, you will get the most out of this post view and the hNews behind.

Foundation and Reverie

Last but not least, of course, as I said before, the new theme is built on Reverie, a WordPress framework that I created for my WordPress project ThemeFortress. If you are a WordPress lover, you may want to check out my post for the project.

Related Posts

• 
  TheAkiba V5 Launched 8 Comments
• 
  TheAkiba V5 Blog Revamp 5 Comments
• 
  New Layout Update! 8 Comments

This post TheAkiba V6: Reverie was written originally at TheAkiba.

In order to solve the second problem, I made this new section of the site which I called it Series Database (well, it worths a name I think), just to expand the Series Card for future use. You can take the Anime Series Database as an advanced version of Series Card. It expands the categories and gives you information that you are not able to see on Series Card (Truly, you should not expect too much information on a small card, well, probably a Lightbox or something could help.).

In a Series Database view (You can access to it by clicking on the title of the Series Card.), take Guilty Crown for example (Did I mention I am a big fan of Ayase?), you will see a huge image/slide along with the basic information of the series. Not a very special tune but I just want to make it a little bit nice looking. Apart from what you have already seen on Series Card, scroll down a bit to see more information including user reviews, release date, producers and more are coming. The complete genre list is on the left side where you can easily navigate through.

Friends may complain that the layout will too wide in this case. Well, take a look at the page in your browser carefully. See, the layout fits well to your browser resolution. Now, resize your browser, or even view it on your iPhone, iPad. Again, the layout adjusts to fit nicely for your screen. This is a new trend of the future theme development which we refer to as Responsive design. With the help of Media Queries of CSS3, designers can easily write different styles for different browsers, resolutions and devices. To implement these nice trick, I use Reverie Framework, a HTML5 WordPress framework that I created to help myself for future theme development. I have already released the framework on my blog ThemeFortress. You can check out my post for the detail of this framework.

The information written both on the Series Card and Series Database are all from the web, either Wikipedia, MAL, ANN or anywhere on the web. The Series Database is still under development. If you find any bugs, problems or have some awesome ideas (like what do you think I should add to the Series Database), don’t hesitate to contact me, either in the forum or comment below.

No, I am not Building a MAL or ANN Clone

As you can see, I am not intended to make the site a MAL clone, not yet.

Your Contributions Now

There are lots of ways you can help us to build the site. The Database is pretty empty now, why not start by submitting some awesome reviews of your favorite series? Your content will be displayed in the database and readers can access site-wide. If you have a blog or website, you will get a back-link as well. Take it as a different kind of guest blogging. Don’t want to be that stereotype? Just leave a short comment about your thoughts, ideas on the Database. You can use the contact form here.

Where is the New TheAkiba?

The forum we opened a while ago, together with Series Database are part of the future version of TheAkiba. I basically just try to roll these things out one by one, accepting feedbacks and A/B testing them along before releasing the new theme. The upcoming new design of TheAkiba will be similar to the forum and Series Database. And in fact, I’ve also redesigned the Series Card itself, but to implement to the current theme seems to be too much work, thus I will only release the new design when the new theme of TheAkiba is online. These are all built on Reverie Framework, and of course, with heavy customization.

Join TheAkiba!

We are hiring. I don’t mean we are actually hiring since I won’t be able to pay you. There is no contact, no employee discount, no pension, no misunderstanding. If you are interested in becoming a regular author (positions are wide open), feel free to leave me a message.

Related Posts

• 
  Introducing Series Card, Another Way of Exploring Anime 7 Comments
• 
  Gallery Reloaded 4 Comments
• 
  Introducing Our Latest Service: Akiba Newsletter 2 Comments

This post Series Card Reloaded, Introducing Series Database was written originally at TheAkiba.

The reason for start a blog about WordPress, basically is to return the service to the WordPress community. Have learned a lot in my three years of running a WordPress blog and designing themes, and think it’s time for me to say something and share my experiences with the rest of the community. There is actually one advantage that I have to differentiate from the main stream WordPress blogs: I am not a WordPress professional. Most WordPress related blogs like Smashing Magazine, WPCandy and others are run by professionals, or at least have profound knowledge of coding and developing. I am not that professionals, and to turn this disadvantage to the better side, I can understand what average people’s need and how to satisfy them.

As you know, TheAkiba is also running on WordPress. And the reason I talked about this, is because ThemeFortress is running on a WordPress framework that TheAkiba is going to be built on. What’s the name of the so call framework, I will leave it as a secret, a secret that will be unveiled in the following few days. Another reason I mentioned above is, some of my readers ask me about how to make a WordPress theme, even though I am not a professional theme designer, I do think I can point out something that could be helpful for starters. So, if you are interested in running your own WordPress or to improve your knowledge about it, you may want to keep an eye on ThemeFortress.

Related Posts

• 
  TheAkiba V5 Blog Revamp 5 Comments
• 
  Danny Choo WordPress Theme Updated 5 Comments
• 
  8 Elegant 2-Column WordPress Themes No Comments

This post ThemeFortress: New WordPress Blog Launch was written originally at TheAkiba.

What’s New?

The most interesting thing of theme is, as I said above, the upgrade to the latest version of WordPress. You have to use a 3.0+ version in order to use the theme and I will explain the reasons and new features below.

• The first new feature is Post Thumbnail. If you tried out the previous version of my theme, you will know at that time (3 years ago), in order to show the thumbnail of the post, you have to either use the Custom Field, or TimThumb and I choose the former. And with the update of WordPress 2.9, a new feature Post Thumbnail is added and users can now easily define their own thumbnails. Also with this new feature, theme designer can customize the size of the image and show them accordingly.
• The second new feature is Custom Menu, which was introduced back in 3.0. Previously, users have to hack their theme (or the theme designer provides the option panel for the users) to change the menu, with the update of WordPress 3.0, this feature was shipped. After activating the theme, go to Appearance and choose Menus, you will be able to edit the menu yourself. Please note, I did not include sub menu for this version.
• Last but also the most exciting one is, we have an Option Panel, which means you can do everything within the back end of WordPress without going to the code. I use the Setting API method to create a simple theme option page where you can enter all the necessary information, including the featured category, custom CSS, your ads and so forth. The rest is automatically done for you. This is really an interesting feature, think I will integrate it with my current theme.

Download & Demo

• See it in action.
• Get it now. WordPress 3.0 required.

Questions?

I have set up a forum for discussion of the theme. If you have any questions about coding, customization, or found a bug, please go to the forum instead of leaving comments here. I will not answer questions regarding code and customization here, so go and use the forum instead (also good for archive purpose). And remember to wrap your code/snippets (if there were any) to a <code>your code</code> tag when posting so your code is preserved.

What’s Next?

I’ve also mentioned about another Danny Choo theme, well, still under developing. And somehow busy recently and failed to contact Danny. So, stay tuned for it Also, if you have any requirements and features you want to add to both themes, leave a comment in the forum.

Related Posts

• 
  Dannychoo.com Theme by TheAkiba.com 22 Comments
• 
  New Theme Set off on Christmas Eve 11 Comments
• 
  Important: Theme Bug Fix 5 Comments

This post Danny Choo WordPress Theme Updated was written originally at TheAkiba.

So let’s back to our topic and see what’s new in this revamp.

What’s new?

• The first thing is about the new header which is inspired directly from KickStarter. The height of the header was decrease to 101 px which in return give more space for the content to show “above the fold”.
• Second is about resolution. I have already introduced this feature in V4 and have brought it back to this revamp. The width of the site will be auto adjust to fit your browser resolution in 960 px or 1170 px which will be best for normal and wide screen respectively.
• Third, have brought the latest Tweet from the footer section to the top. The most recent Tweet will be shown so you can have a look at what the site is up to. Also I occasionally retweet some good posts and you may want to check them out.

Guess that’s all about the new updates about the current theme. Another thing to mention is about the old Danny Choo Theme that I created two years ago. Will find some time to update it to compatible with the latest version of WordPress (3.2). Apart from the old theme, I will release another Danny Choo theme which was created right after the Danny Choo theme and has the same layout as the DC theme running on Danny’s blog at that time. But still, I will need to ask for Danny’s permission for the release. Will get back to you soon.

One more thing, I was always struggling from WordPress built-in comment system and Disqus. They all have their their own advantages and it’s quite a difficult decision for me to make. So I am asking my readers for the advice. Which comment system do you prefer? The default WordPress one or the Disqus comment system (the one we are currently using)?

Related Posts

• 
  Dannychoo.com Theme by TheAkiba.com 22 Comments
• 
  TheAkiba v2 Starts 8 Comments
• 
  Important: Theme Bug Fix 5 Comments

This post TheAkiba V5 Blog Revamp was written originally at TheAkiba.

Didn’t make too much change to the layout since it is the best I can imagine and it has a optimal user experience to me. I have basically rewrote all the code and refine the CSS to the latest updates. Not very much new things here and will sure to keep on tweaking it.

The thing that bothering me is the LOGO. Not a good graphic designer and had a hard time when trying to make a new LOGO. May come up with some new ideas later. The best part of the theme will be the article content style. Lots of CSS classes were added and I can make many different style to decorate my posts. It could be very fun. Anyway, hope you like the new theme.

What’s New in V5?

• Complete rewrite of the CSS of the layout. Have studied lots of great blogs out there and combine what I’ve learned to make the best out of it. Though the two column layout does not change a lot.
• Increased sidebar from 200px to 220px and now it has more space for more contents.
• Redesigned the article content structure. It is what you are looking at. Adds notebook like background and it gives you the feeling that you are actually reading something on the notepad.
• A large footer was added. Social column was added to the footer and will put on more things later.

Will take the midterm this week and then the Spring break. Another project I am working on is the AppIs.me site that I started recently. It will be a another WordPress powered blog focus on Apps for Mac and iOS, as the name can tell. Have lots of ideas for the new site and sure it will be the best I have ever made.

Related Posts

• 
  TheAkiba v3 Starts! 9 Comments
• 
  Category Layout Update No Comments
• 
  TheAkiba v2 Starts 8 Comments

This post TheAkiba V5 Launched was written originally at TheAkiba.

Holiday has not yet ended to some of us, still, enjoy!

Illustration by nauribon (なうりぼん, blog)

Related Posts

• 
  Merry Christmas form TheAkiba! 2 Comments
• 
  Dannychoo.com Theme by TheAkiba.com 22 Comments
• 
  TheAkiba v3 Ready to Start 3 Comments

This post New Year's Greeting from TheAkiba was written originally at TheAkiba.

What’s New in this Version?

The most exciting part of the new theme is the improved user browsing experience. The old theme is not very friendly at this point and may cause trouble when reading.

• Improved user experience. This is the best part of the redesign. The layout is optimized for different width now. If you have a wide screen browser you may have already noticed. And what’s more, I’d love to say that the site is no more compatible to IE 6.0 or under. We HATE IE6.0 and would love to dump this evil.
• Comment system was restore back to default. The Disqus Comment System has been remove and the comment system was set back to the default of WordPress. Disqus has many great features but the last thing I want from this comment system is the delay of the synchronization. You have to wait for a period (guess due to queue) before the comments show up in the back end and this is really frustrating. Though the default WordPress comment system is simple it does the job well. And the best part is I can style the whole system to fit the site theme.
• Related post can now be found under each post. Had removed this function since the V3 theme but now it was back. You can now find post related to the current topic.
• New ways of browsing the category pages, tag pages, archives and search pages. You can now find three ways of browsing the page which are according to date, alphabet and number of comments simply by selecting from the button on the right hand of the category title.
• Image loading more user friendly. Thanks to the great Lazy Load Plugin for jQuery by Mika Tuupola, the site is now able to load images when scrolling. This reduces the loading time when opening a page with tons of images.
• Improved social networking and visitor interacting. Better social media integration is done together with the theme. You can find Retweet, Facebook and Google Buzz at the bottom of each post. Simply click and share your favorite posts around your friends. Check out out Facebook Fan Page or follow us on Twitter.
• The iPhone theme is still under development and will not come up in a short time. Basically because I am lazy
• XHTML 1.0 Passed; and tons more…

Become One of Us!

Last but not least, I would love to have new friends joining our editor team. Currently the main content of the site is still written by me. Thanks to our new editor Snow who has joined in recently, the site is able to cover a lot more topics. We also welcome guest writers who have their own blog or not. Hope this will enrich the content of the site and put energy into the community.

Currently trying to think up a new name for the site. Any feedback or suggestions are welcomed!

Related Posts

• 
  TheAkiba v2 Starts 8 Comments
• 
  TheAkiba v3 Starts! 9 Comments
• 
  TheAkiba v3 Ready to Start 3 Comments

This post TheAkiba Redesign Completed: Forth Version was written originally at TheAkiba.

Regular visitors may have noticed that the site updated not very often these days. The point is that I’ve been busy working on the application of my graduated study program in US and finally got the offers. Still working on the visa part but it seems that I finally got a chance to go to US and try things that is totally different from my past life. Would very much like your advices on studying aboard and how to survive in cold weather (the school of one of my offers is located in Ohio) ^^

Back to our topice. This release is a little bit behind the schedule due to three times of redesign. But whatsoever, it eventually comes to the screen.

What’s new in this version?

First of all, the complete new design of the interface. Getting ideas from various websites and reading all kinds of posts written by those talent designers really help me a lot in forming the overall layout of the site. As you may notice about the change of the title description, which is now “all about life, Japan and bloggers”. Although “Japan” is still a focus, it’s not the only one now ^^. I’d like to bring different topic to the site and make it more social orientated. Topic such as social media and lifestyle, gadgets and gears, design and ideas will be taken into consideration.

The use of DISQUS has extended the possibility of being sociable. The new DISQUS will be able to fetch responses, tweets from different sources and put them together with your comments. The function is extremely helpful when you want to build a social media site. What’s more, it reduce your work on coding for the CSS for the comment part ^^

I myself satisfied most with the footer part of the layout. It contains all the information including RSS feeds, blogroll and more important, a social part of being a blogger, social media and twitter. In all, maybe I’m just a minimalist.

About the fourth theme, well, due to the coming semester and new environment, I will not mention it in the following one year and will focus more on the blogging part. For sure, I’d still like to blog about Japan and Anime, life in US as a foreigner, and just blogging as a blogger Please tell me how you feel about the new theme, would very much appreciate your comments ^^

Related Posts

• 
  TheAkiba v2 Starts 8 Comments
• 
  TheAkiba is Reborned! 2 Comments
• 
  TheAkiba v3 Ready to Start 3 Comments

This post TheAkiba v3 Starts! was written originally at TheAkiba.

Some regular visitors may notice that the thumbnails of the site is much smaller than before. Just received an E-mail and a call from my hosting provider informing that the script used to generate thumbnails using up too much resources and the server suffers. Still fixing the problem and it appears to be some errors in the caching process. Anyway, am using custom fields to display post thumbnails which were used as thumbnails in the Dannychoo Theme.

I’m not a coder and fixing the script seems unacceptable to me. So I’d like to put forward a new theme. I’ve been thinking about the v3 theme for a while but still don’t have many ideas on this one. The design work will start right away and is scheduled to complete around early June.

BTW, just finished watching the old Anime named Ultra Maniac. Guess few of you watched this series (Shoujo Manga) and the quality is low compared with new Anime. But it’s quiet good in the story and can enjoy the series when you’re free.

Related Posts

• 
  Dannychoo.com Theme by TheAkiba.com 22 Comments
• 
  TheAkiba v2 Starts 8 Comments
• 
  Gallery Reloaded 4 Comments

This post TheAkiba v3 Ready to Start was written originally at TheAkiba.