Yes, I haven't posted for a long time. I won't lie, AvantGarde as a whole has been in crisis, and I've seriously thought about disbanding the whole project. Mozilla's Add-on editors refused to allow the latest updates of my themes to become available to the public, citing "coding errors".

I make no secret of my liabilities with css code. I try to stay away from altering any code at all, so it stunned by that Mozilla were able to list about 20 different code errors, all of which I did not understand, let alone know how to fix. This was doubly annoying since the vast majority of the code I've used is Mozilla's own user interface css code. I suppose the problem is that it is outdated - I started working on AvantGarde themes nearly two years ago now, and quite a lot of that code has remained exactly the same ever since.

So the future of AvantGarde was in limbo. I couldn't release any new themes, and the themes I've got at the moment are beginning to look a bit tired (in my humble opinion), and I just didn't have the time to dedicate myself to the demand for new colours, and fixing all the coding errors I don't even understand.

But, when all hope seems lost, we tend to think of our greatest ideas. I can't quite formally announce those ideas just yet, but suffice to say that AvantGarde will live on, and become stronger in the future. I have a plan that will fulfil the following goals:

  1. Make AvantGarde one of the top 10 most downloaded Firefox themes
  2. Keep the bright, colourful personality you all know and love
  3. Add the flexibility to mould the AvantGarde theme into your own personality
  4. Cut the size of the theme (in bytes, of course, so Firefox loads quicker)
  5. Make AvantGarde compatible with more add-ons than you'd ever dream of using
  6. Enhanced ease of use, user support, and accessibility
  7. Make developing my theme less of a laborious chore, and more of an innovative and creative process (in other words, have less demands on my precious time)
This all sounds rather like wishful thinking. I can see that, and I can also see that it is wildly ambitious, but I think I can pull it off. I've started making mockups of a new AvantGarde theme, and although I won't say just yet how I've fixed the problems, it looks amazing. I don't normally like to brag, but you really have to see this to believe it. But just not yet!

In the meantime, I've decided to give you a preview of what the new main buttons will look like - in the new AvantGarde Logo! Along with it, I've revamped the blog design, which should hopefully make it more user friendly in the long run. Before I finish this post, I really must thank all of you who have supported and encouraged my involvement in AvantGarde - I can now really see the potential for what it can do, so get ready - I'm going to blow your mind.