The default home page on installing WPMU is a little plain and one of the first things one might think about is changing to another more attractive theme. Apart from this it would be good to offer a reasonable range of themes to users for their own blogs. However, it seems not all WP themes work successfully with WPMU so it is essential to test them before activating them for other users. This is a short list of themes I have come across so far looking through the WPMU chapters in the book WordPress for Dummies, the WPMU Tutorials site, and WPMU.org.
http://cutline.tubetorial.com/
http://www.darrenhoyt.com/2007/08/05/wordpress-magazine-theme-released/
http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/10/20/cellar-heat-a-free-wordpress-theme/
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/doc
http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/emptiness
We are currently playing with a WPMU+BuddyPress installation and I have discovered a theme that emulates to some extent the Ning community platform. This would be fantastic but it looks like it’s a paid for theme.
If you have Buddypress, then you’ll need a buddypress-specific theme for the blog with BP enabled.
http://freebpthemes.com
http://buddydress.com
http://3oneseven.com/wpmu-buddypress-themes/
http://buddypress.org/extend/themes
For the blogs, *most* WP theme work just fine. The advice to double-check is just to lessen user confusion if there’s something in the theme that they can’t fix/change.
Thanks Andrea. My own installation I’m currently working on is a standard WPMU. But we have a WPMU+BP installed where I work at Leeds University for evaluation as a platform for blogging and collaborating for a new research group and project we are setting up. My role is strictly as a user but I’m taking a keen interest in what is going on as I hope to be able to run my own WPMU+BP installation in due course. This would definitely be a step too far for the moment! Probably a post retirment project. I’ll pass these links on to the techie team (just one, thankfully very knowledgeable and helpful, person!). Many thanks.