For you that just want to grab the .zip file and get on with it; here you go:
Download: Collaborate WordPress Theme

Although I have documented most of the process already, I thought I would go into a little more detail about the specific parts of the theme. The theme on it’s own is very different from your normal WordPress theme, in that the front page is divided horizontally, instead of vertically. On the single post- and archive pages, you get the familiar vertical divided layout with a sidebar on the right. The main motivation behind the theme was, to develop a theme specifically for collaborative blogs with several categories, just like Web & New Media Blog.

Screenshots

• Front page
• Post page
• Comments
• Archives/Search

How to use the Theme

The theme is fairly simple to use and you don’t have to do any modification in order for it to work. A few things you should be aware of though.

The theme uses two separate sidebars.

You will find both sidebars listed in the widgets section of your admin panel. They are named ‘Home Page’ & ‘Post Page’. The first one is for using widgets on your home and archival pages. These will show up underneath the posts dividing the page horizontally. The second one is for using widgets on your individual post pages. This is more like your regular sidebar with the widgets listed vertically at the right underneath each other

When you use widgets with this theme and them from within the admin panel, you have to make sure explicitly select the specific sidebar in which you want the widget to appear. You do that from the little drop down menu at the top right corner in the ‘Widgets’ panel. You can select either ‘Home Page’ which will apply to the front page, the search pages and the archive pages including category navigation. If you want your widget to appear on your individual post pages such as the ‘Pages’ and single ‘Posts’, then you need to select ‘Single Page’ option from the drop down menu.

Be aware that you cannot use a widget in two different sidebars. WordPress only lets you add the widget to one sidebar no matter how many sidebars the theme has.

The WP-Gravatars Plugin

This plugin is not yet properly supported by WordPress 2.7 and you will have to make some manual modifications if you still want your theme to validate.

I recommend using the WP-Gravatar plugin to show the recent comments on your home page. Just install the plugin, select the widget and display it in your ‘Home Page’ sidebar. BUT! Don’t activate the authors profile widget! This will break the layout. Read the next paragraph to learn how to further customize.

The Front & Archival Pages

The main thing that makes this theme stand out in the crowd is the front page, search and archive pages. It’s not a secret that I borrowed ideas from several of the big guns in the collaborate blogging sphere, including; Lifehacker, Engadget and Boing Boing. The theme puts emphasize on topic, author and search based navigation. Each post on both the front page and on single post pages are accompanied by the authors Gravatar.

There is also a default authors list at the bottom of the pages, this easily filters all posts from a specific author. This is only displayed if there are no widgets selected in your admin section, otherwise only the widgets selected will be displayed. The default widgets are: A monthly archive list, the sites blogroll and a list of authors with links. I recommend using the theme with the WP-Gravatar Plugin and activating the ‘Recent Comments Gravatars’ Widget, make sure you select and show; ‘Home Page’ from the drop down menu on the right (in the ‘Widgets’ window). Just give it a Title of ‘Recent Comments’ and it will not break the layout. Be sure not to activate the ‘Author Profile’ widget along side with it as this will break the layout.

WP-Gravatars plugin and a modified index.php that shows the authors list

If you still want to show a list of the blogs authors, you will have to make a few changes in the themes index.php file. Just move the very last occurrence of <?php endif; ?> to right above the following line: <div id="blog-authors" class="widget widget_blog_authors">. This will show the author list no matter how many widgets you are displaying on the front page.

Single Post Pages

As with ever other blog, a collaborative one is likely to get a lot of traffic that surpass the front page. This includes search engine hits and people who come from Feed Readers and other blogs. It’s a lot harder to catch people’s attention if they haven’t exclusively typed in your websites URL to find your blog. Visitors that come from feed readers, search results and even from other blogs are likely to be looking for something specific. So why not make it as easy as possible for them to find?

The Collaborate theme uses a more standard layout for the individual pages. It is a two column layout with a sidebar on the right and comments at the bottom. Using a format that readers feel comfortable with and are used to, saves them time in finding what they are looking for.

With this theme I have tried to provide a very simple easy to use layout with as little distraction as possible. The authors Gravatar is displayed next to the title of the post. The Gravatar is working as a hook in the document to draw the attention to the article.

This theme is definitely not for everyone; it is specifically targeted at information heavy multiple authoring websites covering a wide range of topics.