Since a lot of people are asking, I’ll go ahead and announce that Mimbo Pro is in production and slated for release within the next four weeks. Now that the homepage is sliced up and populated with dummy data and I’ve seen the image carousel in action, I have to say, I’m getting pretty excited about this.
Since the whole premium themes concept got more traction last Fall, blogs like Smashing Magazine have questioned what makes a theme ‘premium’ enough to justify the price tag. Matt Mullenweg himself announced in November that Automattic would open a themes marketplace, but it hasn’t stopped independent developers from starting their own. So there does seem to be a viable market since not everyone can afford a $10,000 custom design with a full-featured CMS.
But, if you read the commentary about many of the premium themes themselves, there are mixed reviews and a lot of complaints about design ’sameness’. I can say confidently that the design for Mimbo Pro is going to make a splash, but I’m also excited for the feature set. Without giving too much away, I will just say that FTP’ing images and resizing them with Photoshop will no longer be necessary — Mimbo Pro will hook into another utility to handle image concerns, which is one of the major hang-ups many users have with magazine-style themes.
Another complaint is that themes are being ‘cranked out’ in quantity, at the risk of quality. I realize my original launch date of New Year’s has long past, but I think waiting has been worth it. I’m really taking time to polish the design/html/css as carefully as I would with any other major paid project so that interesed buyers know they’re getting a professional product. I’m also collaborating with a very popular mystery developer from the UK who is not only opening his own themes marketplace but is adding some control panel wizardry to Mimbo Pro to make it easier to manage without opening templates.
I’m itching to give more details, but I’ll have to wait til the next progress report in a couple weeks.
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I’m really looking to purchasing and using mimbo pro as my new site layout. Do keep up the good progress.
--February 4, 2008 @ 1:55 amCan’t wait for it to buy, have been using mimbo for some time now and love it. You must show some small details/pictures now and then the following days just to keep us satisfied. Like a trailer from a movie, just show some of the exiting stuff but leave enough room for people to keep asking questions. :D
--February 4, 2008 @ 5:19 amWould you mind adding a separate language file for, of course, the ease of translation ? Am I asking too much ? :D lol
Anyway, your sketches look fantastic, take your time to make it (almost) perfect :)
--February 5, 2008 @ 8:00 amSheesh Darren… Why you competing against me when we could be working together huh!? :) Mimbo Pro sounds awesome and I love the thumbnailing / image generation feature - we’re going to be including this into our themes as well pretty soon. Look forward to working with you.
--February 5, 2008 @ 11:01 amExciting
Great TEASER
--February 5, 2008 @ 2:55 pmAny idea how much you’ll charge?
--February 6, 2008 @ 12:44 amI’m a cheapie… I don’t purchase anything unless I absolutely have to… lol.
--February 6, 2008 @ 3:23 pmBut after reading this.. I think I’m definitely going to be making this purchase.
Hey Darren! How’s the Mimbo Pro coming along? Ready to launch yet?
--February 7, 2008 @ 12:29 amAny more word on this wonderful theme coming out as a pro option? That automatic dealing with photos thing sounds like a dream come through. Please provide an update, I’m mid way through toying the with Mimbo 2.2 theme and would just go straight for this were it released..
--February 9, 2008 @ 4:26 pmDarren wrote this post on 4 feb and said within the next 4 weeks to release it, and yet 3 and 5 days later people already start asking when it’s going to be released :D
--February 9, 2008 @ 7:33 pmThe more questions you ask Darren, the longer it will take for him to finish. ;)
Regarding price, we’re going to be competitive with the going rates, if not slightly cheaper, and re: availability, we’re still a couple weeks off. I’m getting excited and hope you are too! I’m writing up the readme.txt file and some FAQ stuff as we speak.
--February 10, 2008 @ 11:03 pmHow about a comparison? I think that revolution theme by brian gardner is an excellent premium theme with alot of strides in regards to using wordpress as a CMS how does mimbo pro favor and revolution?
I am a proud user of mimbo2 and a frequent visitor to the mimbo community.
Also, i know u dont have a pricetag yet bu can you give a price range as i need to start saving to buy this theme :D
--February 12, 2008 @ 3:24 pmWill it work with WPMU?
--February 13, 2008 @ 3:11 amPlease advise when Mimbo Pro is available. I’ll subscribe to your feed as well. Thanks in advance.
--February 21, 2008 @ 1:03 pmThe Mimbo Pro theme looks great, Darren. Looking forward to its availability. Keep up the great work!
--March 10, 2008 @ 2:14 pmI just found the Mimbo theme and the writing you’ve done about it. I, too, have gotten very enamored of Wordpress as a CMS, and I am even using it to power an e-commerce website for a business that sells one-of-a-kind artists’ books. It’s amazingly versatile software and I have been delighted to find such a talented community of developers to extend it in intelligent ways. Thanks!
--March 11, 2008 @ 10:06 am