I have noticed lately a number of simpler sites and I am starting to think minimalist can have some powerful impact. I came across this site today that I thought was very clean and simple looking. What led me there was a search for a WordPress plugin that would fold the tabbed menu at the top of this page, ownersconnect.com, a site that was also inspired by the very simple zen-min WordPress theme. I was not able to figure out what exactly his “WordPress 2.0 Plugin: WP-PageNavi 2.00” did. I think it might make the collapsing menus in his navigation panel (and I kind of liked those where you can click on one and it expands without taking you to another site), but I was just not sure – and he never says. His demo isn’t just a demo of that item as near as I can figure. Kudo’s to him however for already having all eight of his WordPress plugins recast as WordPress 2.0 compatable.

I have used with some success the fold menu plug-in from Meall Dubh, but that requires you to make a change in your sidebar file in your theme folder. However I was trying to change the top tabs. I finally gave up and hard coded those, and then used the fold menu plugin for the sidebar after all. That in turn required that I make some modifications to the zen-min theme, as I work towards making it my own.

(note: if you decide to use his fold menu he has an error because in the file itself he forgets to tell you that he changed the name of the function. You will get an error if you use this: < ?php wp_list_pages(jp_page_menu_condense().'title_li=

Pages’ ); ?> instead of this: < ?php wp_list_pages(fold_page_menus().'title_li=

Pages’ ); ?> in your sidebar. I did make a comment on his blog to point out the issue and I am sure it will soon be corrected.)

So my point … I am liking minimal things more and more.

This article was posted on Monday, January 23rd, 2006 at 5:57 am