“You only need ONE Theme” – the slogan by the designers of One Theme. One Theme has a multitude of features that significantly increase the control you have of your site. These features include ability to change colors, layout, post appearance, SEO, affiliate links, footer and images – maybe too many to mention. Is it possible that this may be the ONLY theme you need? Let’s explore:

First Things first: How it looks:

Off the bat – One Theme’s frame is a clean web 2.0 look – rounded corners all around with shine and gloss for navigation and container elements. It supports multi-level categories and pages for the menu bar – which uses Javascript for smooth animation. The layout can span from three, two or single column – controlled from the options pane. The grid and spacing is properly designed with use of dashed borders throughout. Iconic buttons are used sparingly: RSS feeds, comments and authors – designated where they should be. Fonts are consistent, color schema is well planned and image placing – very clean.

The Finer Details:

The containers that house the featured post, subscription form and “hot conversation” posts have a shiny heading with a fading “chevron” graphic that switches color as you change your color scheme. I think this is done in great taste – which has a strategic purpose of separating it from the older and general articles. It is a simple, yet effective way of attracting attention to areas that matter the most. Note that the “hot conversation” area consist of thumbnails from posts in a designated category that when clicked – goes into the individual article. At first glance it looks like a flickr photo feed – but is actually better. This way – you get the same “look” of a flickr photo feed – but images are related to content inside your site.

Inside the single post page, right above the comments template – you will notice a tabbed container that bundles some very useful functions for your article: A “Related” tab that show similar posts your reader might be interested in. There is a “Bookmarks” tab that includes links to network sites to quickly share your articles online. A “Tags” tab contains tags designated to your post. Directly above it are two links that lead you to additional information about the author, and a subscription button for you RSS reader.

The Author’s profile page is seen mostly in sites with many post writers. Most blogs however, are owned by a single author – where you see the common “about me” page. One Theme has an Author’s profile template page which contains a quick description of the author and excerpts of their previous posts right below it. A photo of the author is found on each post known as Gravatars. This template is quite rare – since it can convert your regular blog into a multi author powered website.

The Search Results page converts into a single column layout. This approach is something I would like to see more often in theme designs. The whole point is when a user searches for something, you would like to isolate the results to be – just pure results. No sidebar, no advertising space – since when someone is conducting a search – you want to give them what they’re looking for. The screenshot below show the single column search page of ONE Theme – which is very nice:

Options – Where Do I Begin?

Like I mentioned – there is just too many to mention. You will just have to go to the theme detail page to get that. I do want to go over several things that I feel is good to point out:

• Post Appearance – very useful indeed. This feature controls how your posts will look in the outer pages (index, archive, category) – everywhere until the user clicks on the post. The Post Appearance options enables you to assign limits on how much content to show, how long the titles can be or whether to use thumbnails.
• Color Switcher – this allows the readers – NOT YOU but the readers to change the color scheme of your site. Not sure why this is really necessary – but is still a feature that is unique to ONE theme

• Search Friendly URL’s – this option converts the URL that appears when you type a search from within your site. The default string looks like: “http://yourwebsite.com/?s=someword” while this option will transform that into: “http://yourwebsite.com/wp/search/someword”. Not sure what benefit this does – but is nice to know that this theme has this capability
• Ad Sense Integration – if there is a theme out there that supports Ad Sense by Google, this is the one. One Theme options allow you integrate Ad Sense practically ANYWHERE in your site. Example placements are: right sidebar, top or bottom of categories, top or below each post or above sidebars. Note that apart from Ad Sense – you can also incorporate HTML like affiliate banners etc.
• Featured Section Options – This area of ONE Theme’s options is where you configure the featured sections of your site. This includes: 1) Featured Post, 2) Featured Categories and 3) Featured Video. These settings apply when using the “news” layout (shown below) where these section fall into place nicely:

Conclusion

I should end it here before you guys fall asleep. Like I mentioned, this theme is packed with too many features to mention. In fact – it has so many features that the designers dedicated an entire site to just this particular theme.

The question is: is this the ONLY theme you really need? The answer: MAYBE.

Maybe for web bloggers – who publish frequently. For web site owners who have multiple authors that write on a daily basis. Maybe for magazine websites who are just starting out and do not really have the budget to hire a full time designer. Maybe for a club website who concentrate on just creating post after post without the worry of maintaining a good looking website. Maybe for an existing blog who would like to redesign their site and do not have time or resource to get a coder to customize their theme. If you fall into one of these categories, by all means – this theme IS THE ONE.

ONE Theme starts at $99 for single use, $199 for three websites, $299 for five and special pricing for resellers.