We updated blogs.oregonstate.edu to WordPress MU version 2.9.2 today.  As part of this new release, we’ve added a lot of new features.

New Themes

In this release, we’ve added three new themes for use by all blog types.  These themes feature many customizations for users to personalize their blog.

Dixi

The Dixi theme sports an optional, customizable “home page” that can be set up to display up to four different, tabbed feed displays on the front page.  Additionally, Dixi has a special video embed feature that allows you to embed your favorite video and display it in a preset block on your custom home page.

Here’s a list of some of the other really interesting things you can do with Dixi:

• Body Features
  • Change background colors
  • Change content background color
  • Change body line color (such as for grids)
  • Add background images
• Text Features
  • Change body font globally
  • Change headline font globally
  • Change font size
  • Change all text based colors (body text, links, etc)
• Custom Image Header Features
  • Upload custom image header – to your own height requirements

Nelo

The Nelo theme, like Dixi, includes  an optional, customizable “home page” front, but Nelo maintains a focus on images versus feeds.  Nelo’s home page allows for up to five different, well-sized images to be uploaded and displayed.  The Custom Homepage control panel also allows you to enter URLs for each block section of content.

But this isn’t all Nelo does…here’s how Nelo stacks up, in terms of other features:

• Body Features
  • Change background colors
  • Change content background color
  • Change body line color (such as for grids)
  • Add background images
• Text Features
  • Change body font globally
  • Change headline font globally
  • Change font size
  • Change all text based colors (body text, links, etc)
• Custom Image Header Feature
  • Upload custom image header – to your own height requirements

Triden

Triden is a feed machine.  Best suited for news-based blogs, this theme has the space for five separate news feeds in separate feed blocks.  Similar to Dixi and Nelo, Triden also has an optional custom homepage feature.

Triden also possesses the same base customizable features as Dixi and Nelo:

• Body Features
  • Change background colors
  • Change content background color
  • Change body line color (such as for grids)
  • Add background images
• Text Features
  • Change body font globally
  • Change headline font globally
  • Change font size
  • Change all text based colors (body text, links, etc)
• Custom Image Header Features
  • Upload custom image header – to your own height requirements

Plugins

We’ve also added a few new plugins to the site in this release.

Admin Message

First up, a plugin that allows the blogs.oregonstate.edu administrators to send a message to all users on their admin screens.  You’ll notice that we used it to announce this release and link to this post with the details.  This will be our primary use of this tool.

Global Site Tags Widget

The Global Site Tags Widget was added as a way for us to provide more functionality to our main blog directory.  It creates a tag cloud of all tags used on all blogs in blogs.oregonstate.edu.  You have access to include this functionality in your blog too, using the Global Site Tags widget found on the admin screen under Appearance -> Widgets.  A more detailed post on this feature is available.

Google Analytics

We’ve added a Google Analytics plugin which is available to all blogs.  You can find the configuration on the admin screen under Settings -> Google Analytics.  By default, all blogs are added to the primary OSU profile.  If you would like access to this profile, you can contact Web Communications.  You can also sign up for your own independent tracking code through Google and update the settings on your blog.  A more detailed post on this feature is available.

As always, if you have any issues with this release, please contact CWS using our help ticket.