Free app converts PSD to Wordpress Themes

[$5 submissions]

With Divine Free Edition, you can convert ANY Photoshop design to a Wordpress theme

Tutorial here: http://www.divine-project.com/tutorials

Download page: http://www.divine-project.com/download

[BradM]

Thats insane if it works... and will fuck designers out of the extra $50-100 they have been charging for splicing.

[Young]

Interesting Gene. Though I think that it will probably produce crappy code much in the same way that Dreamweaver does.

I don't do outside work for anyone other than myself so my numbers may be skewed but I wouldn't open up TextMate for $100....never mind coding a Wordpress template in XHTML/CSS/JS.

[$5 submissions]

Originally Posted by Young

Interesting Gene. Though I think that it will probably produce crappy code much in the same way that Dreamweaver does.

I see its value primarily in quickly testing rough design parameters for CTR effectiveness using EVOLUTIONARY methods. Here's how an evolutionary design method would work:

Create a small set of very different designs with ad blocks

Convert them into themes using Divine

Rotate the themes on your blog and track CTR/payout

Pick the best performing theme and create a new set of VARIATIONS of that theme

Rotate the themes again and track CTR/payout

Keep doing this until you get the theme that converts your traffic best. At that point, I'd hand over the theme to a designer to smooth it out.

Of course there's drawbacks to this. Generally, people click based on CONTENT not design. The design is there to facilitate the click not force it (unless you're copying some banned blogs' techniques). So there has to be a way to CONTROL for content variability when you're tracking your CTR above or else you might pick the wrong theme to optimize.

[candyflip]

It doesn't work like you would hope. But it does do what it says.

[fris]

its horrible, does an awful job

[harvey]

Originally Posted by $5 submissions

I see its value primarily in quickly testing rough design parameters for CTR effectiveness using EVOLUTIONARY methods. Here's how an evolutionary design method would work:

Create a small set of very different designs with ad blocks

Convert them into themes using Divine

Rotate the themes on your blog and track CTR/payout

Pick the best performing theme and create a new set of VARIATIONS of that theme

Rotate the themes again and track CTR/payout

Keep doing this until you get the theme that converts your traffic best. At that point, I'd hand over the theme to a designer to smooth it out.

Of course there's drawbacks to this. Generally, people click based on CONTENT not design. The design is there to facilitate the click not force it (unless you're copying some banned blogs' techniques). So there has to be a way to CONTROL for content variability when you're tracking your CTR above or else you might pick the wrong theme to optimize.

Gene, not to burst your bubble, but everything you mention can be done with most free themes (if you don't want to pay), in 1/20 to 1/100 of the time (depending on your skills) and without the MASSIVE LIMITATIONS that piece of crap has. Check the "create a theme" page and see that everything you're saying is almost impossible since you're limited to do this:
and nothing else. You can't add more than 5 links, you can't test placements, you can't do anything at all, just build some extremely simple featureless theme 100 times worse than even the most stupid free theme. Sorry, but I see no point in wasting time with this. The idea is good, but the output isn't. And I'm comparing this to basic free themes to be fair, let alone premium FREE themes or some premium paid themes. Personally, I think it's worthy for people that don't care at all about their business and have too much free time