I have been playing with several themes as of late, to optimize the interface of my little Wordpress MU project site. I tried a couple of themes that might fit into a Wordpress MU-BuddyPress child blog that can supplement an increased security (e.g. Disabled the Posts, Pages and Dashboard options.)

Here are some excellent themes I’ve come across, and some notable features I found out about them.

3rd Place:

VisitingCard Theme from Templatic.

Looks very elegant. It doesn’t have the normal posts and pages setup but it packs a good punch with the smooth interface and really awesome social networking integration. The only problem with this theme is that the Wordpress Mu Admin bar plugin can’t find a section to correctly show up on, and so it just skittles off the left corner of the page — which makes it really annoying.

There’s a plugin to remove the Admin Bar though. But believe me also when I say that it’s not worth activating it.

2nd Place:

LiveTwit Theme from Templatic

If you are a heavy twitter user like me then this theme plays the safe side of any Wordpress MU security setup, while leaving the science out the door. Really an excellent theme for for the “normal”user. Some roles are restricted from adding posts or new pages. Only the twitter ladder is allowed on the front page. You can probably setup a Twitter Tools interface from the sidebar, to handle regular posts from your visitors/users.

The only downside with this theme is that the Widgets section can still be seen by a lot of users, and is open to link dropping or link baiting. Can be a big headache if left untreated.

1st Place:

P2 Theme

Excellent theme with excellent features. The twitter-like interface on the front page of the theme removes the need to access the dashboard (which can be disabled via plugin). Administrators can just leave the “Settings>General and Users” menu open as they will no longer need to worry about having security loopholes from those areas.

Although the theme is now open to link baiting and link dropping, it’s  still very easy to filter out and spam-tick those sploggers doing that. Plus the no-follow settings should leave them out the door. But if it’s a consolation, you can block access to the Sub Domains from the Robots.txt and make those spammers itch their heads a bit more just for fun.

Wordpress MU is a cool piece of software. I’ve learned a lot from this simple experience of working on the MU themes.

More to come as I dig deeper the Wordpress MU mystery.

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