WooNav: Integrated in WP 3.0


Two weeks ago when we launched theWooNav we knew it was something special and would be well received by our users, together with our recent release of WooFramework V2 our theme development was certainly hotting up. Then, out of the blue, we were contacted by Jane Wells of the WordPress Core UX development team who was planning the final iterations of the menu management system’s core features for WordPress 3.0. Unknown to us Jane had been playing around with our WooNav functionality:

We have a developer working on it, and have gone through several rounds of community feedback and iteration, and it strikes me that what we’re probably going to end up with is a lot like what you guys have in your Custom Navigation option, so I thought I’d get in touch with you guys to talk about it

After a few emails it was pretty obvious that this made perfect sense for both us and the core team. It would save the WordPress developers hours of coding to build something that already existed and did the job well, and WooThemes would finally be acknowledged for it’s work in furthering WordPress theme development.

The WooNav in it’s existing state.

We are excited that we can give something substantial back to the core after a somewhat hesitant decision to GPL license our themes a few months ago. This proves to us, and hopefully others, how the GPL license should be correctly utilized to benefit others.

Kudos must be given out to Jeff Pearce, who was employed late last year by WooThemes and undertook the WooNav system as his first official development project for us. Not a bad first splash in the water we must say!

What excites us even more about this relationship with the WordPress core team is what Jane said to us in her email:

This year I’m hoping to work on ways to bring the commercial WP-based companies and core closer together, as opposed to what sometimes feels like a weird rivalry, so this would be a nice beginning for that

What’s next?

Jeff has already begun working with Ryan Boren (one of WordPress’ lead developers) on porting the WooNav into « patch form », which will then in turn be submitted to the core of WordPress. Feature freeze for WordPress 3.0 is this week and we’re hoping to have ported the WooNav to the core ASAP, so that the community may start discussing the functionality, after which we will continue to work with the WP developers and the community on improving and finalizing the functionality for WP 3.0.

« Unfortunately » this impacts our users, since these developments mean we have to delay the integration & roll-out of the WooNav to all our themes. Whilst the implementation thereof will stay 99% the same, we don’t want to potentially duplicate work for ourselves and have decided to wrap-up the porting & development of the WooNav into core WP first, before integrating it with all of our themes.

You can however rest assured that by the time WordPress 3.0 hits your web browser, we’ll have included support for this amazing functionality in all of our themes. So this new awesomeness from the two W’s is not far off and all WooThemes will soon be able to enjoy it in all of its glory.

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76 comments

  1. stuff like these really delights me. good work done by wooteam.

    premiumthemeclub
    février 15, 2010
  2. Truly impressive. Well done guys.

    MarkB
    février 15, 2010
  3. Amazing news guys – huge congrats 😀

    JohnONolan
    février 15, 2010
  4. Great stuff! I have been playing around with the Woo navigation at the weekend on the Canvas theme – managed to build about 3 websites in an hour and also showed my girlfriend the Woo backend and she wants to build her first WordPress site!

    Nice to know your hard work has been spotted!

    Carl
    février 15, 2010
    • Ooh… Hope you weren’t spending Valentine’s Day teaching your girlfriend the ins & outs of the WooFramework… But if you did: massive kudo’s to you bro! 🙂

      Adii Rockstar
      février 15, 2010
  5. That’s great news, really demonstrates what sets Woo Themes apart – and saves me some serious fiddling.

    One of the things that excites me about developing a new site is the chance to play with all the new toys you guys keep adding to your themes.

    James
    février 15, 2010
  6. you guys ooze with awesomeness!! total domination.. definitely a win especially for the WP community at large..

    Jeff – you’re a rockstar mate…

    lucas
    février 15, 2010
  7. After attacking you guys so viciously last year for your « page and category » nav system, this is a gigantic turnaround. Sincere congratulations 🙂 It’s also heartening to see the WordPress honchos acting in a rational and logical way. That’s a good sign for the future of WordPress.

    The only rotten thing for us is having to wait a bit longer for full integration. It’s such a joy not having to hack the code for a decent nav.

    What’s the estimate on when WP3 will launch ?

    downsouth
    février 15, 2010
    • I have no idea with regards to the release of WP 3.0, but I believe their roadmap indicates March 2010. 🙂

      Adii Rockstar
      février 15, 2010
      • Last time I checked it was mid-April 13th or 15th… 😉

        BTW Congrats to the team for that amazing feature !!

        Francis
        février 15, 2010
        • I see they have changed this now to show April 2010 instead, so guess that they’ll be waiting for us to wrap up this. 🙂

          Adii Rockstar
          février 15, 2010
  8. Cant wait to try it out! Nice one!

    Darren
    février 15, 2010
  9. I’ve always followed WooThemes work even if I never subscribe but seeing how you guys give back to the community makes me think that your just not offering a service but rather contributing with huge milestones to what WP is as a core. If only more theme companies would contribute this kind of work rather then having it as feature within there themes I would see more market for these kind of companies.

    Seriously congratulations for making such a huge contribution to WordPress!

    Omar
    février 15, 2010
  10. That sounds like a great win-win. Thank you guys for being so willing to give back to the WP Community. You help make WordPress truly the best CMS.

    Matt Reed
    février 15, 2010
  11. I think this is a fantastic addition to WordPress arsenal. Also heartening to see that Jane wants to bridge the gap between WordPress core and Premium theme authors such as us. Good news all round! 🙂

    Ben
    février 15, 2010
  12. You’re on the cutting edge, guys. I knew it the first time I bought one of your themes.

    Kudos to Jeff!

    Jesse Petersen
    février 15, 2010
  13. Excellent work! I am quite excited for this functionality to be integrated.

    Nathan Barry
    février 15, 2010
  14. Wow… I can’t wait this featured… I will try on….

    Jauhari
    février 15, 2010
  15. Wow Jeff, talk about making an entrance. Good stuff! Also I’m happy to have played my HUGE part in this, the two small Icons 😛 I’m sure it wouldn’t have been possible with them!

    Seriously though I was very impressed when I heard this and really happy for the whole team! Well done!

    liam
    février 15, 2010
    • Hehe Liam; you *know* that those two icons are absolutely integral to the design, right?

      Adii Rockstar
      février 15, 2010
    • hehe…thanks Liam…the icons rock 😉

      jeffikus
      février 16, 2010
  16. I knew WooThemes were something special. Glad I have good taste!

    johnnyv
    février 15, 2010
  17. I think many of us watching the GPL arguments unfold assume there’s bad blood between the WordPress team and commercial developers. It’s awesome to see this debunked! You guys do amazing work- and it’ll be neat to see other contributions you make. Cheers both to Jane and Woo!

    Devin
    février 15, 2010
    • Well, I’d personally say that your perception of WP vs commercial theme developers holds some substance, as the vibes hasn’t always been positive and I think the communication in this regard has been shitty (which perpetuates a much more negative vibe, than the one that actually existed).

      But yeah, we’re extremely optimistic about this as well and we’re glad that this is finally a bridge that we get to cross (first!).

      Adii Rockstar
      février 15, 2010
  18. This is definitely a huge step forward. Congrats Woo.

    wp themes
    février 15, 2010
  19. Now the rest of the world will know what we have known all along: you guys rock!

    Chris Lamothe
    février 15, 2010
  20. This is to be very useful plugin. I would recommend to my friends.

    Tristan Gerard
    février 15, 2010
  21. This is amazing!! you guys really rock, congrats to the woo team!

    Roberto Carvajal
    février 15, 2010
  22. Congratulations WooThemes! I’m a big fan of your work. Keep it up.

    Yacine Merzouk
    février 15, 2010
  23. This really is an impressive development. To see wordpress embracing the development which market based solutions achieve is a very interesting twist. This to me shows that Woothemes is not only on the right track…but may actually be driving what users expect from wordpress functionality!

    James Aldersley
    février 15, 2010
  24. I really like Woothemes’ work! It is a cornerstone of my web developer job. I found a problem with the Custom Navigation. I use Czech language, which contains some special characters (for example: ěščřžýáíé – hope they display correctly here), but no problem with utf-8. The custom navigation displays the names of pages with some of the special signs converted to ascii code and some of them replaced by question mark. Screenshot http://twitpic.com/13jynv/full .

    Radovan Fiser
    février 16, 2010
    • This is definitely something we will be addressing with the WP team.

      Adii Rockstar
      février 16, 2010
    • There is also a problem with Norwegian characters. æ, ø, and Ã¥ fails. There seem to be a problem with latin1 vs utf8 somewhere..

      Robert
      février 17, 2010
  25. I think it is a more intelligent way to work and far more productive when people and organisations work together so this is really good news. Well done for all the hard work and I am glad that you guys are now getting the deserved recognition for the awesomeness!

    MJ Stapleford
    février 16, 2010
  26. WordPress powered by Jeff Pearce, I like it, nice work guys.

    David Ramsay
    février 16, 2010
  27. This really is a win-win for everyone – The Woo Team, the WP Team, and developers everywhere that really contribute to making WordPress what it is. It really shows what good can be done by coming together in a positive way to create a solid product.

    Nikole Gipps
    février 16, 2010
  28. This looks really fabulous! I look forward to trying it out.

    But please please, people, learn one grammatical thing: « it’s » is a contraction for « it is. » If you want to talk about something belonging to it, please use « its. »

    It’s not that hard to figure out its proper use…

    Sorry, I can’t help myself…

    Pat Q
    février 18, 2010
  29. Congratulations you guys.

    Erik
    février 18, 2010
  30. great work but…
    before you integrate the WooNav in WP 3.0, i would like to snuggest that’s you create it as plug-in for WP 2.9 to test it out, specially for web designers who have wordpress as CMS for several clients, and have never use woothemes before, and also for any wordpress user, so he gets familiar with WooNav instead of integrate it suddenly in wp 3.0 , even it seems like Piece of Cake, but test it out on other wordpress themes make it more reliable and well tested.
    great partnership lesson for any company, and every body is winner.
    keep it up guys.
    piczoom

    piczoom
    février 23, 2010
    • It’s already integrated in WP 3.0 core, and I’m sure there will be a lot of testing before it is released to make sure it works with all themes 🙂

      Magnus
      février 24, 2010
  31. Great work Woo Themes and thank you for contributing to the core. We all benefit. I just purchased your Developer Club Membership to both support your company and provide my customers with great themes.

    Gina
    février 24, 2010
  32. Congratulations for integrating WooThemes to WordPress 3.0! Now it won’t be difficult to put pages in menus. Unlike now wherein we have to tinker with the php part in order to put page links on the menus. 🙂

    jojomccid
    février 24, 2010
  33. wow, you’re great man. nice works

    jeprie
    février 24, 2010
  34. Wowser, you guys know your onions alright, never used you guys before for a theme (although hear about Woo in general very often)

    You have to be pleased with that though a real feather in your cap so to speak!

    WPin
    février 25, 2010
  35. It’s great that the menu system is being updated in WP. That’s one of the only things that needs updating, in my opinion.

    Web Design Tutorials
    mars 30, 2010
  36. Wow — that is so awesome, guys!! A HUGE congratulations to all of you! 🙂

    Ursula
    avril 14, 2010

Rétroliens/Pings

  1. WPWeekly Episode 88 – Woo For Menu Management
  2. Freethought about Joomla! and 3pd opensource extensions | Luscarpa Blog
  3. GPL In Practice: an Interview with Magnus Jepson | WPblogger
  4. Nya bilder av WordPress 3.0 | ZtrixQ.se
  5. WordPress 3.0: New Screenshot has come # WordPress Tricks & Tips
  6. 10 Features to Look Forward to in WordPress 3.0 « Autoblog and Blog Walking
  7. 10 Features to Look Forward to in WordPress 3.0 | Best Web Magazine
  8. Update: Custom Navigation in WP 3.0 | WooThemes
  9. Update: Custom Navigation in WP 3.0 | WooThemes
  10. 8 Features to Look Forward to in WordPress 3.0 « Just note and info share
  11. Le novità di Wordpress 3.0 e di Splesh! | Splesh!DigitalArt
  12. כמה סיבות טובות לצפות לוורדפרס 3.0 | אֶקְסְפֶּרִימֶנְט דוֹט אֶפֶס
  13. WordPress 3.0 e le novità che potrebbe portare at FreeTemplate Blog
  14. WordPress 3.0十大看点(附测试版下载地址) | blueandhack's blog
  15. Wordpress 3.0 nasıl olacak | Web design source
  16. WooNav: Integrated in WP 3.0 | Blog Ingenuity
  17. WordPress 3.0 new features | ThemeBuilder
  18. LynZz's Blog » WordPress 3.0十大看点
  19. Wordpress 3.0 – 10 novos recursos implementados | Vitrine1
  20. WordPress 3.0十大看点 | WordPress啦! | 平均律
  21. Le nuove caratteristiche del Wordpress 3.0 | Il Bello del Web
  22. Acaba Wordpress 3.0 Nasıl Olacak ? | Teknoloji Ve Güncel Konular Hakkında Taze Ve Günlük Bilgiler...
  23. טיפרס.קו.יל - וורדפרס ושות'
  24. Barmaid’s Testing Ground « Barmaid's Testing Ground
  25. Xem qua 10 tính năng nổi bật trong WordPress 3.0 - wWw.RubicVn.cOm
  26. חמש סיבות טובות לצפות לוורדפרס 3.0 | חורים ברשת
  27. 8 Nice Features Will Appear In Wordpress 3.0
  28. WordPress 3.0 – The Ultimate One! | Blog Design Studio
  29. Wordpress 3.0 nasıl olacak | web Design Source
  30. 10 Features to Look Forward to in WordPress 3.0 | rocketretro.com

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