WordPress can be much more than a blogging platform. Thanks to its easy to modify template system and wide range of plugins, you can use it to power almost any type of site, a CSS gallery site for example. The next big WordPress theme I’ll be working on is a theme built to power a CSS or web design gallery site.
I spent last night browsing the top CSS galleries on the web and took notes of some features that I like. Here they are:
- Pagination – Top and bottom navigation by page number
- Large screenshot thumbnails
- Larger screenshots for full view
- Color scheme information of featured sites
- For each feature site, list related feature sites with similar styles, colors, and structures
- Prominent comment form on single post view
- Random site feature on front page
- Register only contact / site suggestion or submission form
- No extra information like date and name of site
- Simple layout, to not anything away from the sites being featured
- Flashy hover effects when you move the cursor over a thumbnail
- A page dedicated to CSS and web design resources
- Lots of spacing in between thumbnail rows
At this point, I’m only brainstorming. I can’t guarantee that all those features will be included in my CSS gallery theme. Also, this theme will be my first paid / premium theme.
