As if it wasn’t already feature-packed enough, the latest version of The Abundance Theme offers a facility for uploading theme images straight from the WordPress admin instead of via FTP. In addition, you can now use an image in the central sheet area, tiled across, down, both or not at all.

It’s no longer necessary to edit theme files in order to configure excerpts if the default configuration isn’t appropriate for your needs. Now you can define excerpt length as well as image or video thumbnail dimensions from the theme’s options page.

A ninth widgetized area has been added – this spans the full width of the central sheet and sits below the header and above the content.

It’s now possible to show a single left and right sidebar on either side of the content. Of course, you can still opt instead to show your sidebars on either the right or left if you prefer.

In contrast, the Abundance theme uses a simple script to draw the first image from each post and then re-sizes it – a major time saver if you’re using something like Amazon Autoposter, because it means that you don’t have to open and edit every post in order to add a custom field. If the script can’t find an image in the post, it then looks for a custom field and uses that instead. If it finds nothing, it simply displays nothing.