I’ve been wanting to change this blog’s theme for a very long time. It needed a new look. That’s pretty much the catalyst. As much as the old theme worked, it was showing age and hadn’t really been updated by the author in a very long time. Especially with all of the new WordPress advances, I was on the hunt for something rather new and more current. I’ve tried a few times in the past to try to change the theme, but I always found something wrong with the new one such that I ended up going back to what I knew. Who knew that it would be so tough moving to a two-column layout? I’m accustomed to the three-column setup from the old theme that figuring out how to rearrange things was a challenge.

While browsing around, I quickly came across this theme. Apart from it being blue (I’m very much a dark red type of guy) it had a general feel that I felt fit well with my sense of blog-style. It took a fair bit of rearranging and tweaking, but I think I’m at a point where I’m happy with it. I do not see myself switching back to the old theme. Man, it’s 2011. Onward and upward to better things that use better tech, right?

So, if you’ve come here before the first thing you’ll notice is that I’ve changed WordPress themes. This one is called Mandigo. It comes from the same author as my old theme, Royale. I must say, making a change like this is rather difficult. I’ve been using Royale for about 2 years. Over time I’ve come to associate that theme’s general aesthetic with my blog. I was pretty fond of its dark background with colour accents. I’ve actually hacked the code a little bit just to get its look more in line with what I wanted. So, as you can see, I have a good history with it.

Over time, I’ve started to wonder if the theme was something that I could continue to use in the long run. What do I mean by that? Well, as time goes on, WordPress just seems to get bigger and better with each release. There are always new features being added in. With each new feature, it’s really up to the theme author to update his or her themes to be able to make the most use out of the newly developed components. Unfortunately for me, the author of Royale seems to have stopped updating that theme altogether. There have been times where a change to WP meant that I had to hack the theme just to get it functioning properly again. Recently, there was a change made to the WP interface that somehow caused me to be unable to change the colour of the accents on the page. If I had time, I could probably hack the theme interface to get it to work, but honestly I just used it as a sign that it was probably time to move on to a different theme.

So, here I am with this new one. I actually came upon this theme from Björk’s Volta Blog. From there, I was led to Royale. Since it’s from the same author I figured that the structure would be similar enough to allow me to make the transition. For me, it’s going to take some getting used to. I have to spend some time tweaking bits here and there to make it more personal, but I think it’s a good starting point.