AutoFocus

If you’re looking for a Wordpress theme that displays your photography a bit differently, AutoFocus is worthy of your attention. It is created by Allan Cole and is a good candidate for portfolio oriented Wordpress photo sites as well as photoblogs.

A beautiful front page

The first thing one notices about AutoFocus is also the best: the themes’ neat front page. It collects the photos from your last few posts and present them in a collage, complete with date of post. If you hover over the image you’ll see the post’s title and the first few words (if any) in your blog post.

The collage is created by filling in blank boxes. That means it will always look the same: the first image will always be large and the second smaller, and so on. It would’ve been much more impressive if the theme automatically created a collage depending on your image sizes, but this is a great second (that is also less power intensive). If your image is larger than the box it will be clipped. If it’s smaller it’ll be repeated so that the box is completely filled out. (This is a pretty interesting effect if your image is really small. With some small modifications this theme could be used as a portfolio for an icon designer, for instance.)

Retrieves your last uploaded image

Placing pictures into your post is easy with AutoFocus – simply upload one to your post gallery (using the media upload) and the theme automatically retrieves it. If you want to switch – just upload a new one.

You can use AutoFocus to showcase more than one image per post, but there’s a special ‘feature’ that makes it a bit difficult. See, the theme automatically retrieves your last uploaded image if there is one – but the author also incorporated another feature for those who are switching themes. Here’s how it works:

1. You have an image at the top of your post
2. The theme senses this
3. It strips the image from the top of your post
4. If you haven’t uploaded an image, AutoFocus places the stripped image at the top

This is great for theme switchers, but makes it harder if you want to use more than one image in your post. The trick is to place something – usually text – between your photo and the top. Remember: AutoFocus only removes an image if it is at the top.

AutoFocus handles large images quite well. If you add an image larger than 800 pixels the theme resizes it automatically. It should be noted that this isn’t a true resize that saves the file as a smaller one – it simply shrinks the uploaded image via HTML. If you’re concerned with bandwidth and loading times (and dealing with images you should be), it’s a good idea to edit you images before uploading it.

(The author notes that this can be done within Wordpress by changing your media settings. Your largest image size should be 800×600 pixels. If you do this, you won’t have to edit your photo beforehand – although I still prefer to do so myself to better control compression.)

Smaller images are displayed as they are.

Some other neat features, some bad, and the obligatory conclusion

Along with the nice front page, AutoFocus contains some other good stuff. The theme provides a link to the exif data. It also pseudo-protects your images from download the same way flickr do – by adding a transparent overlay when you hover your pointer above the image. It’s not difficult to bypass, but is an interesting touch. You also get an automatic copyright notice with your name, and navigating between posts is easy since the navigation arrows stays in the center of the screen despite how far down you’ve scrolled. A small touch, but it works wonder for your visitor usability.

The archive page is a bit tricky however. First off you have to create it manually by adding a new page and selecting a template. So far so good, but the next surprise is that it consists of two widget areas only. That could be good for you since you get to customize what is there easily, but it’s not as intuitive for the visitor as seeing a list of images. If you add the Archive widget and click on the links you’re greeted by a pleasant view though – an easy to navigate layout that presents your photography well. Forcing your visitors to make that extra click isn’t optimal, however.

If you’re looking for a photo-focused theme that leaves room for textual content as well, AutoFocus is a great choice. It is not the best choice for a pure photoblog, but would work very well as a portfolio for instance. It’s completely free, so if you got the time it doesn’t hurt to check it out.

Other voices about AutoFocus

It was really hard to find someone else doing a thorough review of AutoFocus, but here are a few resources worth checking out:

• The comments on the authors web site – the comments on Allan Cole’s page for the theme contains some good questions, answers and reactions.
• AutoFocus tag on wordpress.org – Gives you a hint of common problems and solutions people have for this theme.
• Quick browser/SEO check – themegrade.com has a small general test for AutoFocus. They test for cross-browser compliance and how Search Engine Optimized the theme is.

• Name: AutoFocus
• Free or paid: Free
• Author: Allan Cole
• Download from: wordpress.org