Its good to see sites who normally sell premium WordPress themes release some free themes to the public once in a while. One of the sites who do this in a regular basis is WooThemes. Some of the free WordPress themes they previously released are the Meta-Morphosis, Irresistible, Blog Theme and Typebased themes. Their most recent free WordPress theme released to the public is a theme called Mainstream, designed by Adii Pienaar himself.
A vibrant personal blog theme with a colourful selection of styles, built on WooThemes flexible theme framework, boasting a selection of theme options, most importantly it’s FREE!
Mainstream is a 2 columned, widgetized theme that’s primarily designed for personal blogs.
Basic Features:
- 2 columns
- Custom widgets
- Widgetized sidebar
- Integrated banner ad management
- 5 color schemes
Screenshots:
This is the default color scheme and other available color schemes are blue, khaki, violet and minimal (light grey).
My Take:
The Mainstream WordPress theme features some ribbon elements like similar to another free WordPress theme I previously featured here called the Imprezz theme. The ribbon elements I’m talking about are the graphics used for the edges of the welcome message and segment titles – Search, Pages, Sponsors, etc.
The default setup of the Mainstream theme features categories and sub-categories on top and I know some users like it that way but I also know that this setup doesn’t work for some. With a little bit of modification, you can edit the code and replace it instead with page links and then move the category links to the sidebar.
I like how there’s a section on the upper right corner of the theme dedicated for the RSS feed, Twitter and Facebook, which makes it easy for readers and visitors to subscribe to the blog. You can always modify this and customize to your own personal preference like if you’re not using Twitter or Facebook and would like to replace the links with Myspace, FriendFeed, Plurk or other social networking sites or social bookmarking sites.
Unlike its premium theme counterparts, the Mainstream theme doesn’t have any admin panel options but does have some custom sidebar widgets (Search, 125×125 ads, Flickr, Twitter) that can be used to customize the appearance and displayed content on the sidebar. If you have the skills to tweak and customize WordPress themes, you can do more stuff with this theme and make it better or make it more customized to your blog’s needs.
Overall, the Mainstream theme is a colorful and vibrant theme that can be used for any type of blog, not only personal blogs. It doesn’t have much advance options but it does provide all the basic features and functionality that most self-hosted WordPress blogs need. Since this theme is a free theme, WooThemes doesn’t provide any kind of support for it so before you use it, make sure that you or someone you know has the necessary skills/knowledge to tweak or customize WordPress themes so you won’t have any problems using or customizing it for your blog.
Preview or Download the Mainstream WordPress theme.
The comments don’t show on individual posts. Any help here?
WooThemes’ paid-for offerings are awesome, I bought one called VibrantCMS off them, and it is really something else. FREE is always good, so expect to see this theme being used quite a bit throughout the blogosphere.
@K.noizki, I’m still not satisfied with my blog theme..hehe…
@djb – Hi there! Are you sure that you uploaded and installed the theme correctly? You might be missing some files thats why you only get a blank page. Would you mind sending me a screenshot of how the page looks like or a link to your blog so I can check it out? :)
Amazing theme!.. but in my WordPress no works. I dont know why… appears the damn blank page. Somebody can help me?…
Thanks!
@jan – Yes it is but your Thesis theme has more options. ;)
Oh really? You have an extra domain? What are you gonna use it for? Personal blog? Maybe you can use this theme if you decide to start blogging on that domain.
That’s a nice looking theme. I’ve entirely forgotten I’ve an extra domain, Jaypee. You know, the one bearing my name? Maybe I should do something about it. If I keep postponing launching it, it might take me forever. This one looks good for a personal blog for sure.
yeah, your theme is good.
man your theme is enough.
@Loy, are you kidding me? Yours is goodlooking already.
@aj – Haha..I always include a complete screenshot of the theme so that readers and potential users would have an idea on how it looks like. :D
Whoa! What a screenshot. :) Cool theme.
@qoman – You’re welcome! ;)
thank for wp theme that is very nice
@Susan – Haha..yeah it does. Now you made me want some creamsicles. Those are good to have on a hot day, like it is right now. :D
I love the orange background of this theme, it makes me think of Creamsicles :)
@jhay – You got that right. Simple yet elegant and nice typography. Another blog project? How many blog projects are you managing man? Hehe :D
Nice typography, simple and just elegant.
Maybe I’ll use this for one of my blogs.
@Loy – Your current blog theme is already very nice and you did it yourself right? I’m sure if you want to, you can also create a nice WordPress theme and release it to the public. :)
Another nice-looking theme. I wonder how I can make a theme as goodlooking as that. Hehe…