Sarcasm and satire justify or even warrant exaggeration; your focusing on the "extremes" instead of the essence of the analogy isn't a very bright line of defense.

Themes aren't like persons paid for their services, they are objects, designed to perform some tasks. They all have their pros and cons, and they don't all have the same features. When you complain that the WP slideshow doesn't work in P2, it's exactly like complaining to a car company that their standard audio system can't be used in one special-purpose vehicle of the company. No it can't: it can be installed in all their family cars and all their sports cars but not in this particular truck. If you make the mistake of settling for the truck, you'll use a different system (several possible alternatives are actually better). When you complain that Structure doesn't have multiple layouts, it's exactly like complaining that model X doesn't have folding back seats. No it doesn't: some cars have, some don't. What you did to designsimply here is like obliging the engineers of a company to perform seven different alterations to a car then saying thank you I won't use the car. Et cetera.

And the best cars are expensive. You're forgetting one tiny little detail I underlined: all these wp.com themes are free themes, so naturally they don't offer everything. But they offer a lot for absolutely nothing, so your failing analogy was amusing but your endless nitpicking isn't. You're selecting a theme, you're not buying a house.

@raincoaster #1, So P2 can do slideshows, just not the wordpress default kind? From @justjennifer's comment in "other thread," the only one I've seen as of yesterday (just checking back now, and my email says this is the only response to any of the topics I've subscribed to, so unless I forgot to subscribe I dont know if there are any new responses), she said she confirmed that P2 had a bug where the slideshow wasn't working the way we tried it. It wasn't 100% clear to me whether she meant there was a bug but it could be gotten around, or whether P2 couldn't do any form of slideshow, case closed, which is why I asked here for confirmation. Instead you've just given me more questions, "one of the three other kinds of slideshows," not only do I have no idea what you mean by three other kinds, but I'm still not even sure whether the P2 bug prohibits the use of the wordpress default slideshow altogether, or if there's a way around it.

@raincoaster #2, so P2 was programmed with a slideshow bug on purpose? You're just making excuses for the theme now. Just because the most prominent "point" of the P2 theme is not to post slideshows does not mean the theme shouldn't also be capable of posting slideshows, especially given that it appears to be a default feature of all wordpress themes. And especially especially, and this is the biggest thing, when the specific theme itself clearly is meant to be able to use the slideshow, and does not list that it cannot. Like justjennifer said, this was not a conscious omission by the theme creator, where he chose not to include the slideshow, and then posted in theme description "this theme does not support slideshows." He or she clearly meant to include it, but messed up while writing the theme, thus the bug. And assuming the blog didn't come out last week or anything, wordpress also messed up in not listing the bug in the theme description. Your excuse, "It means it doesn't function in ways it was not intended to," seems to just be ignoring the facts. The slideshow isn't intended to function? Except it is! It's just that computers don't read intentions, they read CSS and HTML and whatever else, and that's where the error happened.

But, if you're saying there are other ways to do good slideshows in P2, or the error can be got around, then it's not as big of a deal.

@Panghiotisadam, First, thank you for saying it was funny. I thought it was pretty funny myself, if I do say so. Oh, you said silly. Well, that's basically just a synonym for hilarious too.

As for the cars vs quacks, you're actually not changing the analogy at all. It's not more like a car than a chiropractor. It's not more like anything. You can pick anything. You're not changing the analogy, you're moving it more to unrealistic extremes. For instance, I could do the same thing you did with the car, except keep it with my chiropractor analogy. Instead of fixing my neck, or my ankle, like all chiropractors should know how to do, it would just be trying to find a chiropractor who can make me jump 10 feet in the air, and beat Mike Tyson in a boxing match without training. It's not a different analogy, it's just picking ridiculous extremes to change the perception. Looking for a car that goes super fast, climbs rocks, takes your kids to school, and allows you to transform into a yacht, makes you, or the person looking for the car, the problem, the one at fault, because he's looking for something unrealistic, beyond normal expectation, that does not exist. By changing the extremes of the analogy, you attempted to make me look like the one at fault, not the wordpress themes. The same would be true of my unrealistic chiropractor analogy.

Where you're going wrong is, a slideshow is within the normal expectations for a wordpress theme. All of them are supposed to be compatible with slideshows. The fact that P2 has a slideshow bug makes it subnormal, meaning it has the error. My expectations aren't for something unrealistic or supernatural like the car in your analogy, I just want a theme with adjustable content width (as I've been told every theme without fixed background images can do), changeable background color (all but fixed background images can do this too I've been told), and other basics like the slideshow. These are normal expectations, just wanting the normal functions out of theme, which is why my original chiropractor analogy where I wanted my neck and ankle worked on (the normal, realistic functions of a chiropractor) was appropriate, and why your car analogy doesn't correspond with the theme problems I've encountered.

Your car analogy would only be appropriate if I was looking for a theme that could play Pixar movies in 1080P 3D in flash player on any screen in any browser without the viewer having to wear any glasses, while also allowing people to play sega dreamcast video games through internet explorer.

@justjennifer, Yes, I know. Unfortunately I don't have a blog working yet (the irony and the joke continues full circle), so the forum was the best I could do. Maybe I shouldn't have posted it at all, but what can I say, sometimes the ankle hurts so much I just have to vent.

I know what I want from my blog.

Imperatives:

• Adjustable content width through CSS
• Custom Header through CSS or normally
• Custom background color through CSS or normally
• Working slideshow and all other basics

Preferences:

• Real-time comments
• comment box for twitter accounts and facebook
• Featured images, featured header image,

That's it. I put the last three imperatives in italic because I have been told basically every wordpress theme allows those. Even the adjustable content width I have been told every theme can do besides ones with fixed background images, and those are a small minority of themes.

So really 90% or so of the 2-column and 3-column themes (because I also want a sidebar, so no 1-column themes) should be able to do my imperatives. P2 can too I think I'm just trying to confirm as much before I start out with it.

Unfortunately, when my preferences are included, it seems not one single theme can do everything I want. You would think there would be at least one all-feature theme, or that they would all include all the features just in case (unless there's some downside I don't know about? Takes too long to load if you include them all or something?), but there isn't. So that's why I've honed in on P2, as long as it can do a slideshow one way or another, and someone confirms for me it doesn't use fixed background images, then it can do all my imperatives, and the real-time comment thing. I also like a lot of aspects of the look of it.

So that's why I've honed in on P2. Or I could try something like Mystique provided I can change the whole look of it (or I think Bueno also has all Mystique's features, as well as some others), for the featured images and features like that. But actually I'm just remembering I think you can embed featured images in HTML without it being part of the theme so maybe I don't need to worry about that.

So you can see my imperatives is only a list of four things, all four of which 90% or so of themes have. P2 probably does too, in fact I was about to pick it before the slideshow question came up, barring it having fixed background images which I dont believe it does, but need confirmation on.

So really I just need confirmation that:

•slideshows can be done in P2, either by the default way or another way
•P2 does not used fixed background images

@lorelle, Thanks. I'm not looking to do something highly graphical, or very graphical at all. Just a couple blog ideas depend on the slideshow. Everything else will be mostly text. Also I think JustJennifer confirmed that even when you do it through the admistration panel, P2's slideshow doesn't work.

However, if you do use the occasional graphic or slideshow, you can use the Administration Panels > Add New Post posting method instead of the front page to put those in place.

For sites that are highly graphical, I recommend the Duotone Theme or 2011. These Themes put the emphasis on the content and not on the Theme, which is exactly what a highly graphical content site needs. A blank slate, so to speak.

P2 is what it is. According to WordPress.com almost 37,000 blogs are using it. If its unique characteristics (and idiosyncrasies) don't meet your requirements, maybe you should take a short break and crystallize what you need from your blog and then look at the theme showcase again with renewed eyes.

Again, good luck with your blogging.

This does not mean the theme doesn't function. It means it doesn't function in ways it was not intended to.

After two lengthy failures with my first two themes, in which I sunk in hours that were ultimately wasted, and the resulting extensive search for a new time, which took many many more hours, I was honing in on choosing the P2 theme for my blog, contingent upon the slideshow working (and the background width being changeable but it usually is I'm told), so it would fall perfectly into my experience with wordpress thus far if the slideshow didn't work at all.

I'm really hoping that's not the case, but if it is, how can wordpress have broken themes listed as useable? What if I'd spent 10 hours starting up with P2 and customizing the look and getting everything going, only to then find out the slideshow, integral to some of my blog ideas, didn't work? And that more or less has happened. The last four of five days of my search for a theme has been mostly focused on experimenting with the P2 theme and posting long detailed questions about it, all of which took time. If I'd known the thing was broken from the start I wouldn't have wasted my time on it.

What else can I say? I think more appropriate than any words would be to just shake my head back and forth for the next hour. Except then I'd strain my neck and have to go to a chiropractor the next day, whereupon I would find out the chiropractor is actually a new kind of chiropractor called a wordpress chiropractor, and unfortunately that means he only knows how to work on the shoulders down. But there are plenty of other wordpress chiropractors he says. So I walk two blocks to the next one, but on the way I sprain my ankle. "Sorry, I only work on the calfs on upwards."
"I would shake my head my neck is still in a state of disarray. But wait, what if you fix my neck, and then I limb over to the other chiropractor and he fixes my ankle?"
"Sorry, you can only use one chiropractor, wordpress rules. Can't break them for anyone."
"What if I buy the CSS upgrade?
"CSS can only alter appearance, plastic surgery, that type of thing. For actual muscle function, you have to make sure to find the chiropractor that works for you because you can only use one, and you can't change them."
"But you're all fundamentally flawed! Neither of you can fix both my ankle and my neck!"
"That's wordpress, sucker! Now give me your 30 dollars. No refunds."
"But it said I had a month refund!"
"You better be careful there buddy. You already have one broken ankle, let's not make it two."
"But my ankle isn't broken, it's just sprained..."
~CRACKKKK~
"AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
"You gonna question me again???"
"Nooooo!"
"That's what I thought. Now, when people ask you whether to choose blogger or wordpress for their blogs, what are you gonna tell them? WHAT ARE YOU GONNA TELL THEM???"
"Wordpressssss! WordPresss! I swear!"
"And why's that?"
"Because ... because ..."
"Say it!"
"Because wordpress is the largest self-hosted blogging tool in the world, used on millions of sites and seen by tens of millions of people every day. AHH oh goddddddd my ankllllee."
"Very good. Very very good."
"I can't believe this was recommended to me!"
"We can be very persuasive."
"I would so blog about this awful experience and tell the world what a monster you are if only your themes worked!"
"And that's why we make they don't."

Ok, that and the head shaking are both equally appropriate and expressive of my experience with wordpress so far, and wordpress actually having broken themes listed as working, and so on.

If it's self-hosted, please ask at http://wordpress.org/support/ instead.

For more info on the difference: http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

I played around with the Showcase template, but I couldn't get it to look like that. The sidebar started about half way down the page and the instead of list of blog posts with the number of comments ( or "leave a reply"), Instead I have the miniature version of a blog post (including title, date, category, etc).

How can I configure my showcase template so it displays like Kojiki in Japan?

thanks,

Andrew

But we're keeping a close eye on the WordPress 3.3 release to see if it includes more core media upgrades and fixes—many of which could improve the front-end posting experience for P2.

We're also keeping an eye on QuickPress, because many of the improvements there we can use in P2.

@lance: The group posts images with most of their fast posts, screenshots specifically, and they only include a word or two, which is why this came up in the first place. In the first week or so they published over 600 posts, many with single images, so they are very active. They also freak when they see the back end as they post so much so fast, making p2 so brilliant for them to use.

So consider adding a little more oomph as a feature request. :D

Thanks!

Feature because when using this theme you can focus on posting quick updates from the front-end post form. Bug because many of the WP media functions rely on being in wp-admin, and don't work when this theme calls them from the outside wp-admin.

So, for more advanced posting — like adding galleries — we suggest using the back-end editor with P2.

I've got my own ideas why P2 doesn't do image handling (or text formatting for that matter) from the front end. Maybe we can discuss it over a plate of hummus next time you're in town. :-)

I wanted to also thank justjennifer for sticking with this. You are my heroine!

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