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First off I’d just like to say Happy New Year to all of you on behalf of the whole Templatic staff! If 2011 was kind to you we all hope 2012 will be just as good; if it was bad, hopefully 2012 will be better. We’re a few days into the new year and everyone is getting back to work, we at Templatic are working on some cool new themes which will show up at our theme store in the near future.

Let’s see what’s coming soon!

The following theme will be the first one to land at Templatic this month. As the screenshot suggests, it is a review theme targeted for bloggers and affiliate marketers who wish to create a review site for different product and services.

Though simple, we’re confident it will be useful for a great deal of WordPress users.

Then comes a totally different, first of it’s kind – Price Compare theme. The theme will prove to be challenging for us to create but once done, we are sure you’d love its design, simplicity and most of all, how it works automagically from the back end.

Lastly, here’s a cool, neat e-commerce theme which is also coming soon. Everything about it is already said earlier so he’re just a fancy screenshot :)

That’s about it for now. Along with this new theme, our team is also working on upgrading existing themes so things might go a bit slow but once it land, it will be firm and solid.

Hope you’ll love what’s coming at Templatic. Don’t forget to let us know via comments :)

As you know, the development of GeoPlaces V4 started back in first week of September this year. Almost 4 months since then and here we are with beta (almost final) version of the GeoPlaces theme just in time as a Christmas gift for you. This means that the features and additions are done. Now we test the theme thoroughly once again and at the same time get critical feedback from early adopters in the forum so everyone can get a stable, perfect theme for their project.

Though there are lots and lots of improvements and additions, I’d love to introduce to some of the important one in here. For thorough look at the theme, please check live demo of the GeoPlaces V4 here. So, lets take a quick look..

Make MORE money

• Recurring payments for PayPal are now available. This will help you get recurring revenue and users can set their listings to be auto renewed instead of manual one each month.
• Advanced, multiple Price Packages with different time duration, categories and conditions. Helps you grab every kind of customers.

Better Listing, Better Management

• Custom field management per category so you can have relevant fields for different categories.
• Custom Post types for Places & Events so you can manage them better. WordPress default posts are considered as blog posts.
• Mega menu plugin support and also the theme has built in code wherein you can set basic mega menu yourself.
• Completed recoded, non-flash, better Image Upload for your site.
• Complete support for Google Maps 3.0
• Gigya Plugin compatibility (optional) for Social Media logins. Users now don’t have to register if they log in via social media profile.
• Multi Cities can be managed in a better way. Add country, regions, cities..
• Improved Backend Design for theme settings. Setting options for your site is now fun.
• Completely localized and WPML compatible for those who wish to have their site in multiple languages.

Improved Security

• You can also block back end access for the users based on their role. Restrict Role based back end access.
• You can also Block IP addresses to prevent SPAM and abusive users.
• Along with this, a tiny but useful feature of Claim Business is added where in user can request ownership of the business and you will get this alert in back end. Then on, you can approve or reject the request.

Splash homepage

You can show splash page (optional) to your first time site visitors so they can chose city they wish to navigate to. Alternatively, you can set default city from the back end as earlier.

Category Listing

• You can now add category description that helps explain what this particular category is all about.
• Also it lists all the sub categories of the current category at the top so your users can better navigate.
• Along with this, now we have added option of adding category map at the top (or in sidebar) so you can have same big map in categories as well.

Business / User profiles

Clicking on a Username takes you to their Business profile where you can see all the lists added by them along with their photo/business logo, profile details etc. This helps your site visitor check other listing from the same business/person and get better understanding of them overall.

Import – export content

This is still in alpha.

GeoPlaces 3 has been updated with export data option and you can import the content in GeoPlaces 4. However, this is still in alpha and we recommend not trying this on live site. Test this in local host and once you get satisfactory result, import the content and update the theme.

Download
GeoPlaces v4 beta is available for download only in our community forum. Click HERE to visit the Beta forum

Final Launch

We plan to launch final version of this theme for everyone in second week of January. Meanwhile, our team will do thorough testing of this theme and rapidly improve any and all bugs reported. Hope you will take active part in this as well and report any bugs/glitches you find in the forum so we can act upon it immediately.

Thank you all for your feedback, suggestions, patience and co-operation. Without you, this would not have been possible :)

GeoPlaces V4 development began few months ago and since then requests for news and information about it keep popping up at Templatic. Well, here’s good news for you. If things go according to plan the beta version of GeoPlaces V4 will be available next week (before Christmas).

The alpha release available in the forum was a quick release so that we get input from you guys about what you want to see in the new upgrade, it proved to be really helpful. Thanks!

Here’s a quick list on what’s coming…

Gigya Plugin integration: This helps you login via different social sites without having to register.

Price options: You can create price packages instead of just the standard two options. You can also have category specific prices. On top of that you can have different pricing for listing a post on the homepage :)

Recurring PayPal payments: Define a specific period and you will be able to charge for recurring payments via PayPal.

Blocking of IPs: Spam IPs can now be blocked using Manage IP.

Managing permissions: Manage permission on which user group has backend access and which doesn’t.

Splash homepage: You can have an optional splash page on the homepage where your visitors are given an option to select a city. After selecting the city the homepage will change accordingly.

Claim ownership: Business owners can now claim ownership of a place directly from the listing and admin can judge it accordingly.

WP Mega Menu: The famous WP Mega Menu plugin and styling is now supported in the theme.

Some of the other Enhancements & Bug fixes:

• Custom post types for Places and Events instead of just events.
• Listings (Place and event) are now properly organized as per currently selected city.
• Per post zoom level specification
• Ability to add video embeds in listings.
• Enhanced Localization with proper indication messages.
• Completely redesigned and recoded multiple image uploader. No flash.
• Registration disabling improved.
• Image issues with multi site now corrected.
• Nested categories on home page map.
• Listing order of places and events can now be set individually
• Event listings are now default sorted to upcoming events (due date)
• Send to friend / send inquiry and email notifications are corrected.
• Get directions code re-written from scratch.
• Permalinks for events now work better.
• No pre-selection of current city when adding an event or place.
• Satellite view improved in map
• Preview page differences fixed.
• Email notification

The list goes on. There are many many changes & improvements that were asked in the forum and helpdesk.

The beta version will be tested thoroughly by us and the community before going final. Final version will be available then after (mid January.) While bug reports and enhancements are welcome, no new features will be added after the beta is announced.

Keep an eye on this blog and our social media channels (twitter & facebook) when beta version is announced next week. We’re excited. You? :)

About time we show you a preview to next theme. Scheduled to be released early next month, our next theme is all about the location map. Yes, we have GeoPlaces theme to cater to this but its much too advanced and many users need a simple theme that lets them add places on a map and create location guide websites.

WP Locator, our next theme will cater to this purpose. You can create a dedicated small site to serve different purposes like store locator for big brands, a site dedicated to the places you have traveled, location guide on specific topic for example “Chocolate shops in London” and so on.

Of course, the theme will have regular WordPress features, like dedicated blog and features you usually see in WordPress themes. Along with that, with this theme you will be able to add a place from wp-admin, add photos and content about the place, etc. The full screen homepage will list all the places as a map marker. You click on that and you will be taken to that full screen page showing map of that place while showing you details of the place.

We are excited about this simple, yet unique theme. What do you think?

Just like the past couple of years, that special time of year has come when we are going to take a little break. Starting with Wednesday, October 26th most of us at Templatic are going on a small vacation. We’ll be back until Monday, October 31st at the latest.

We will be celebrating Diwali, an important holiday here in India. We’d like to take this opportunity and wish Happy Diwali to all of you who celebrate it.

When it comes to theme support, remaining Templatic staff will try to handle as much tickets/forum threads as possible. Try to go easy on them :)

Billing and coding issues will take the biggest hit during that time since all of them are handled by the staff in India. We would like to ask for your patience during those days. Wishing everyone a joyous and prosperous days ahead. Happy Diwali!

It’s been a while since you heard from us regarding upcoming themes. The themes that have been previewed earlier have all been released, about time we preview some of the upcoming stuff here at Templatic.

Vacation Home Rental is a theme targeted towards helping you create a quick, professional website for your vacation home. This is not a giant portal but instead, a theme built specifically for the home owner.

The theme will let you list your vacation home or property with all the nifty features you would expect in such a site. However, we are not 100% sure whether we should include the booking module into this one like our earlier Hotel Booking theme? Please comment in here and let us know.

You all know we recently released a professional e-Commerce theme called StoreBox. However, possibilities in this niche are endless and here’s the two more themes that we are working on (pictured above and below this text). We decided to cover both angles with these two, as you can see one of them features light, straightforward design while the other is very rich with content, much like StoreBox.

Other than these three themes, there are some other niche specific themes we are working on but preview of them is coming up later.

As usual, feel free to use the comments section below to share your ideas and opinions about the themes previewed in here.