Orangescale Studio

Yesterday, I just made some changes on My City Blogging, one of Asia Blogging Network's channels. And, this is one of the busiest channel in the network. I am one of the contributor in this channel. I write some articles, stories and opinions for Yogyakarta (also known as Jogjakarta, or Jogja). Why Yogyakarta? Simple, because I live here.

Currently, this site is using WordPress MU for content management. And, there are already ten blogs (only in this channel). I know that many free WordPress theme are compatible to run in WPMU environment. But, we decided not to use the free theme. We built it from scratch.

The biggest challenge (from the very beginning when we teamed up with Asia Blogging Network) was to create the framework. Currently, there are 14 channels (domains) and more than 60 active blogs (And, it's growing. Meaning more channels and more blogs, later). So, we wanted to make theme that works for all blogs. But, it does not mean that all blogs should have the same content elements.

In our redesign, we created some functions so that the Presentation Menu (inside WP Dashboard) can have fields to put additional data. This data will be used in the design. For example, if you want to change the header image, event some blogs are using the same theme, they can have their own header image. Here, want to use the concept of: one for all.

The sidebars use the widgets, and we created some custom widgets too, there. We're using this widget scenario when Asia Blogging Network was launched in last June.

What's next? Redesigning My City Blogging is just a start. We will redesign and realigned all blog designs under Asia Blogging Network. Hey, Asia Blogging is growing, and it's the biggest blogging network in Indonesia (or, also in Asia?).