I’m trying the new theme, since Automattic’s recent policy of hiring professionals to produce .com themes is broadly to be applauded. Yes, it would be nice if they could also release them for .org in the conventional manner rather than expecting people to grab an svn checkout, but I suppose they need to maintain some semblance of exclusivity or what would be the point in spending the money? The release of another professional theme for free also pretty much confirms that the half-baked theme marketplace idea has been shelved, though I think we’d all figured that out anyway.
Of course, if my previous wordpress.com theme experiences are anything to go by, something will be horribly broken and I’ll be back on Almost Spring by tomorrow. But it looks pretty so I’ll give it a go.
ETA: ok, thirty seconds and I’ve found the brokenness; the widget implementation is a weirdly partial thing which has a static sidebar of search, categories and a funny little module you can switch between top posts/latest comments/tags. You can’t move or remove the top three ‘widgets’ regardless of whether you need or want them.
If you want to enable widgets, enable the whole damn sidebar, not just the bottom half of it. Fail.
[sighs and goes back to Almost Spring]
wordpress™ wank 
wpvstp said
I was about to make a post about the #¤%&!!##%%!!! theme myself, but you saved me from doing that. The default and non-removable widget thing I can live with but not all the other bugs: http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/albeo-the-new-one?replies=13
No captions support (none that makes sense). No numbered lists. Just to mention two things. I’m pretty sure there’s more…sigh.
Noel Jackson said
Albeo is now fully widgetized… We enabled the theme with some fixed widgets, not recognizing this as an issue. I’m sorry for the mistake.
I hope you enjoy Albeo in all its widgetized glory!
Kissing Bandit said
Re: The theme’s forum thread
I find it incredibly interesting and disheartening that the first two responses the OP’s query tell her she’s in the wrong forum and to visit .org when, had those two responders bothered to look more closely, it’s clear she’s hosted on WP.com. No wonder people new to WP (.org and .com) are so confused.
Sorry for veering slightly off topic TGA.
-KB
that girl again said
Thank you for fixing the widgets and the lists. Unfortunately, unstyled comment blockquotes are a dealbreaker for me, at least on this blog. Not exactly loving the placement of the stats smiley either, though that’s more an irritation than a bug.
I know that custom CSS exists for people who care about these details, but something jars for me about paying to fix other people’s mistakes. I know, it’s weird.
And that is why theme announcement posts should be made simultaneously with the theme going live. (Yes, you’re going to get hit with exponentially more bug reports than if you do a stealth release, but bug reports are a good thing, especially if you don’t have the time to do adequate testing beforehand.)
Forum volunteers know the theme selection pretty well: it doesn’t change very often and the same core of popular themes crops up in questions over and over again. So when someone comes along talking about a theme they don’t recognise, it’s natural to assume that they are either a clueless .org user, or a clueless .com user wanting to install an .org theme. The other possibility — that it’s a secret new theme staff haven’t bothered telling them about — is comparatively rare.
Richard said
Another new theme with bugs: http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2008/09/12/depo-masthead-theme-launch/ .