You may have heard the news going around that there is a new version of Stacks from YourHead Software has made its way into public beta. Stacks 2 is about the biggest, baddest, coolest version of Stacks ever released and we wanted to jump right on board and update the ExtraContent Stack to take advantage of all that’s new and cool in Stacks 2.

Ok, so the ExtraContent Stack is still just a box, but it has a new icon and does take advantage of some of the new organizational features in Stacks 2. And really we can’t take all the credit since @edbrenner actually got the ball rolling and sent us a nearly complete, updated version this morning.

Anyhow, you can grab the new version here.

Tags: extracontent | stack

RapidWeaver theme developers should take note that ExtraContent has been updated to slightly increase performance, especially when a theme has numerous ExtraContent areas. There is also a new version available that doesn’t require jQuery.

Only the scripts have been changed, there is no change in user experience or developer implementation. While these updates should make ExtraContent slightly faster, they are not critical updates and your existing scripts continue to function. Update at your convenience.

New

Hosted ExtraContent Developer SDK

The ExtraContent Developer SDK is now hosted on github. This should allow for more collaboration and faster updates. Please feel free to collaborate.

ExtraContent r0.5 sans-jQuery

The native javascript concept came about when Jeroen challenged the notion that ExtraContent needed jQuery. Of course it did not, but my initial thinking was that most of my own themes rely on jQuery quite a bit so why bother writing a script without it?

Needless to say I was won over by the idea and some time ago Jeroen and I started exchanging ideas. The final script is based on his proof of concept with a heavy dose of best practices mixed in.

Here are the key points:

• runs free of jQuery
• properly scoped
• properly encapsulated in it’s own closure
• auto-invoking
• nice light ready handler (courtesy of DomReady)

Changed

ExtraContent r1.4.2 w/jQuery

I made some best-practice changes to the jQuery version of ExtraContent to improve how it runs and interacts with other programs around it.

Again, the key points:

• properly scoped
• properly encapsulated in it’s own closure
• auto-invoking

Well that’s it for now. Enjoy.

WeaverThemes Vision

WeaverThemes has recently released Vision, their latest all new RapidWeaver theme. Vision includes a vertical drop menu, @font-face options, prettyPhoto enabled, 3 ExtraContent areas, CSS 3 features, background images and custom banners and more.

Check out Vision.

Rapid-Ideas Usine

Rapid-Ideas has updated their Usine theme to allow for ExtraContent, among other things. Some of the new features of Usine are new title and logo options, slideshow capability, shadowbox for photo album pages, iPhone and iPad optimized. Usine also includes some bug fixes.

Check out Usine.

Jonathan Head of NimbleHost has recently launched another superb theme, Dexture, that includes a whole host of excellent features including 7 ExtraContent areas.

Dexture boasts iPad/iPhone support, color control, lots of options, built-in lightbox, and slideshow support. But Dexture’s real key point of interest is it’s VIP panel which allows site visitors to adjust their user experience to suit them by way of changing the site width, some colors and also the font size.

Check out Dexture.

Spatium

Theme veteran, but ExtraContent new comer, Rapid Ideas has released a new ExtraContent enabled theme called Spatium. It also boasts 8 widths, sidebar variation, slide show, shadowbox and much more.

Check out Spatium.

Showslides

Henk is back with another trusty ExtraContent theme called Showslides. Henk has put 3 ExtraContent areas in this one, as well as 11 widths, 9 heights, 7 vertical positions of the slideshow, 13 different fonts and more.

Check out Showslides.

The past two weeks have seen two new ExtraContent enabled themes — one from ExtraContent vetran, Henk Vrieselaar and another from RapidWeaver theme veteran turned ExtraContent rookie, Bluebal Design.

Out of the Box

On August 20th Henk released his latest RapidWeaver theme, Out of the Box. With a full page background, Out of the Box has an open, unique feel. Out of the Box also has 6 ExtraContent areas, 11 widths, font control and more.

Check out Henk’s Out of the Box.

Synergy

After a brief timeout to develop Stacks, Charlie from Blueball Design is back in the RapidWeaver theme arena with Synergy, a strong showing and his first ExtraContent enabled theme. Synergy has two ExtraContent areas and is packed with many other options such as sidebar position, font control, gradient backgrounds, custom headers and lots of color variations.

Check out Blueball’s Synergy.

Creami3 carries on Creamy’s great heritage of stunning looks and couples it with more power than even Creamux could dream of. With the new smart navigation and smart layout abilities, almost any look is possible with Creami3. With the ability to detect what options you are using and which ones you are not, Creami3 intelligently sets up the best layout for you — rounding corners when they need to be and displaying ExtraContent when it’s present, for example.

Creami3 is packed with many great features like 6 ExtraContent areas, built in slide show with 20 customizable banners, variable size rounded corners, many widths to choose from, sidebar width and positioning and a great selection of typographical control. But it’s the intelligent features you don’t see that are Creami3′s greatest strength.

The last few weeks have seen a number of great new ExtraContent enabled RapidWeaver themes come to market. Here are three of the latest offerings:

A wood-textured theme – it features built-in jQuery, FancyZoom support for Photo Albums, a sliding ExtraContainer to use ExtraContent, built-in Google or RapidSearch support and a selection of gorgeous headers.

Also features finely tuned text control — change the font style, size and colour of the various text displayed throughout the page. Extremely customizable — there’s a whole array of options for text and link colour, sidebar position, header background and size, as well as a jQuery powered sliding panel to store content for use with ExtraContent.

Check out Bella.

The best designs are the most simple, and most beautiful. It doesn’t take a lot of work to make a great website – especially when you’re using the Qube RapidWeaver theme from NimbleHost.

Enjoy a clean and professional design that gives you immense power and flexibility. Use Qube right out of the box for a beautiful site that’s versatile, functional, and easy to use and navigate. And when you’re ready to take RapidWeaver web design to the next level, browse Qube’s tremendous selection of theme options to customize it for virtually every situation.

Check out Qube.

Elixir is always looking for a way to make clean, classy themes that are not “over done.” The Adventure theme is beautifully designed and allows you to customize it to your likes. This theme has some features that makes customizing its look and feel just a few clicks away. They’ve also added a blog design variation to this new theme that they’ve yet to see in a RapidWeaver theme — a columnized layout variation.

Check out Adventure

Earlier this week, RWT released Mainline, their latest ExtraContent enabled RapidWeaver theme. Mainline has 7 ExtraContent areas, but also comes with a lot other great features and add-ons, such as smart navigation, social links bar, slideshow snippet, quote stack, search bar.

Check out RWT’s Mainline.

Henk has brought us another ExtraContent enabled theme, Eclipse. It’s a stylish, elegant, modern and minimalistic look with a splitmenu: a horizontal floating mainmenu with sliding tabs at the top of the browser and a submenu in the sidebar. With ECLIPSE the horizontal menu is always visible with scrolling.

As usual, there are many theme and color variations. ECLIPSE has up to 7 ExtraContent areas that allows the user to add more content then RapidWeaver typically allows. Eclipse also comes with width variation, custom headers, header height control, rounded corners on the tabs, font control, sidebar positioning, search box option and many color variations.

Check out Eclipse.