Finally, new version of theme is ready. Some of the new features still need some work, and this should be done for the next and last edition of current Starscape. I will post new article by the end of the week with announcement of Startscape II theme.

This edition features new rendering engine called Nova. This will make significant change in the way blog looks. It’s very customizable and is not as limited as classic was. Control panel is also changed to reflect adding of new rendering engine.

Beside this, some new modules have been added: new posts navigation, comments and trackback displaying. Typography is updated, and all the errors from the previous version are hopefully fixed. Also, a lot of other things are fixed with this version including the probelms with the classic theme in 1024×768 monitor resolutions. User guide is also updated.

This blog will be updated to new Starscape version in a day or two because I am working on new graphics and I still need some time to finish it. Current version has few background images for a Nova engine, and even more will be included in the next edition Draco that will be ready in the next two weeks.

I hope you like the way the Starscape development is going.

Well, the work on new Starscape engine takes more time then anticipated. I was ill for a few days, unable to work, but now things are getting together. Nova engine turns to be more complicated to create, but much simpler then default classic Starscape engine.

As you can see, there are no boundaries left or right, and the layout can be with fixed width or fluid. Even more width of every element (header, main menu, center, footer) can be adjusted separately. Each element can have independent background color or background picture. There are much more Nova features in the works, so be patient, I think it will be worth waiting.

Also, there are a lot of other overall changes and new features, and most important fixes.

Official release date for Starscape 1.3.0 Cygnus is 4.july 2008.

After some two weeks of work, here is new major revision of Starscape theme, code named Hydra. This revision contains a lot of behind the scenes changes that will allow new important design features I am working on for the next Cygnus revision. More on the Cygnus preview will be available in the next 5 or 6 days.

As for the changes, detailed list is available on the theme page, so check it out. And if you continue to read this article, I will point to some of the highlights of Hydra.
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This is new Orion build on the road to Hydra. There are some important updates included in this release, and I am recommending to update older versions to this one.

The most important new feature for this version is new Print layout. Now all posts and pages have command Print bellow the post (picture on the right). This will display only post or page withound any background, header or sidebars. Only footer copyright notice remains.

Also, few more problems with IE6 are now fixed: rendering of the header background and logo in the header, small menu problems. Theme is compatible in IE6 and IE7, and almost with IE5.5 (small problems), but not with IE8 Beta 1.

There are some small changes to control panel as an introduction to more changes in Hydra, and completely new CSS files with separate typography and cleaned styles. Typography is still incomplete, I am working on it.

After almost two weeks of work, new version of Starscape is now available with a lot of new features and a lot of changes. This blog is running on new version of theme for the last few dyas, and now is also updated to the latest, code name Orion. All future major updates of Starscape will have constellation code names.

If you were using some of the old versions, update should go without the problem, but the theme will revert to default settings, because a lot of things are different, and old options will not work.

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