After receiving a number of emails, I’d like to answer a question. Yes, the Sandbox is no longer being developed. And that’s just fine. Let me explain.
The three functions that were the heart and soul of the Sandbox are now in the WordPress core. These functions, sandbox_body_class(), sandbox_post_class(), and sandbox_comment_class(), can now be convinently found in your recent WordPress download, artfully renamed as body_class(), post_class(), and comment_class(), respectively. Mission accomplished.
Now you might believe that this does not render the Sandbox useless as there are no equal starting point themes for users and developers. You still need a blank slate. Fair enough. But the Sandbox does live on in ‘frameworks’ inspired by and based on the Sandbox, such as Thematic and Carrington (to name a couple).
I would also suggest that the prospect of a new default theme for WordPress in 2010 further diminishes the usefulness of yet another ’standard’ starting point theme. Instead, the new theoretical default theme should satisfy the need for a clean, accessible, and well organized ‘base’ theme for aspiring designers and seasoned developers.
Like it or not, Kubric was this base theme for years and years. Users didn’t know where else to turn for starting point in creating their own theme, and since Kubric just came with the software, that’s what it was. And after said years, the need for an updated theme that could be the default ‘blank slate’ theme grew. The Sandbox was successful simply because it filled that need. It would not have been as popular as it was if the default WordPress theme hadn’t been old.
Because the core functions once exclusive to the Sandbox can be found in the WordPress core and further enhanced in theme frameworks (see above), there is no need to update the Sandbox. Considering the possible new default theme, there may still be a need for a new blank slate theme, but it won’t be the Sandbox. Just as the Sandbox was a new answer to an old question, simply repackaging the Sandbox is just an old answer to an old question.
Everything in the Sandbox is GNU GPL. It’s there for you to use. If you want to create a new theme with it, there’s no need to ask. Go for it. Your project will not be the ‘new’ Sandbox, but it will be yours and (hopefully) it will be new. Innovate.
And so you are left with an old Sandbox theme that did what it did very well: clean files that easily resembled a recognizable XHTML structure, semantic markup enriched with Microformats standards, a lot of knowledgeable users within the community to share experiences, and its major organs transplanted to WordPress. The Sandbox is dead; long live the Sandbox.
