Bloo v 0.16 release notes

Bloo version 0.16 has just been deployed!

This release concentrates exclusively on look and feel, which you may have noticed. In this release I have implemented the use of Cascaded Themes. If you’re seeing the default theme right now, you are looking at what I call “Bloo’s Riff”. There are two other themes available – “Bloo Classic” and “Blue”.

And, yes, that is an actual Blues scale – in “B” of course – being played on my venerable Guild dreadnought. 🙂

You can select a theme from the new ThemeDropDown SnapOn (“Select Theme”) located in the left navbar (for Bloo’s Riff) or in the right navbar for either Bloo Classic or Blue.

If you select a theme Bloo will store it in a cookie and reuse it next time.

These themes all “cascade” from a private theme called Bloo Base. In addition, you may notice that Blue and Bloo Classic look pretty much identical, with a bit of color and font finagling. Blue really is just a simple theme that cascades off of Bloo Classic and just does some tweaking of the style sheet.

Speaking of style sheets, one thing to realize about these themes is that they are far more than CSS changes. You can change as much or as little of the look and feel of a page with a theme as you desire and, if designed right, you should be able to cascade off other themes if you just want to make a few small changes, rather than having to create an entire new theme off a cloned and tweaked version.

I will be publishing the spec for this soon (“soon” being a relative term 🙂 with the ulterior motive that perhaps I can get one or more of my many (heh) readers to create a new theme or two for this blog. Feeling artistic and wanting to take part in the Bloo experience? This will be your chance (provided I get that spec created!).

Well, that’s it for 0.16. I wanted to keep this one focused. 0.17 will branch off into some other new features, and hopefully will be coming out soon.

Watch me for the changes . . .

6 thoughts on “Bloo v 0.16 release notes

  1. Thanks Damon

    Much more coming. It’s fun, albeit slow, work. I think I’m going to (well, probably against her will 🙂 convert one of the Thinklings blogs (Katherine’s blog) in Bloo this weekend. I will be snorting and doing the engineer’s victory dance over that one too. 🙂

  2. BWAH! Are there any tribal artifacts involved in that particular dance? 😉

    And since the FAQ and bios died on thinklings.org for the moment, just how many “Thinklings” are there? I thought it was only 7…but it seems to be legion. Hee.

  3. Well, yes, there are tribal artifacts. But one must prove himself worthy before being made privy to them.

    There are 7 thinklings. Well actually, there are 6. I was once one, but I was de-Thinklinged by the Hub of the Thinklings Wheel, Jared, for being too harsh on Blo. I am “De”.

    Blo is not real, as far as I can tell. He’s more a figment. So that leaves 5 Thinklings.

    There are a number of honorary Thinklings as well (Rob T, Alan, Thor, Quaid, Stroke, Daniel, etc).

    Yeah, you’re right. We are legion.

    Well, “They” are. I can’t say “we” anymore, as I have been banished.

    *sniff*

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *