I installed Steam, a theme by Samir M. Nassar, this morning. It didn’t include the theme switcher, so I bolted that on. I still want to add a calendar to this theme. Samir did a very thorough job on this, great work!
I think I finally replaced all the hard-coded unicode out of “Sharepoint like”, but I still need to see how WordPress handles i18n so I can fix this properly. I really wish I could give credit for this theme. If somebody knows who the author is, please drop a comment.
When I was searching for a theme a few days ago, I really wanted a theme that allowed as much “real estate” as possible for articles, while still displaying the necessary bloggy bits, e.g. archive links, search box, “meta” box, etc. This requirement makes three design features very desirable: a smaller masthead; one sidebar (plus articles=two columns); and a floating-width article column (to take advantage of the full browser window). And of course the theme has to be aesthetically pleasing.
I came up with a list of about a dozen themes that had some feature(s) that I liked. The list is below, in reverse alpha order.
Already mentioned in an earlier post were “Elvgren” and “Borderline Chaos”, both of which are already installed on my blog. See the earlier article for my opinions on these themes.
I finally found the Sharepoint theme, but it’s in Greek or Russian or some such. I’ve downloaded it, but have to convert it to English. So much for i18n…
I installed another theme this morning. Heck, I’ve got the theme switcher installed, and one of my readers wanted the Yaaarr (pirate) theme, I figured I might as well add it. The theme lives on the Radical Georgia Moderate’s download page. More information about the “Yaaarr, ’tis me blog!” theme is available here.
See this post for a link to the theme switcher tutorial and theme browser.
Denis has a nice little collection of links in this post which explain how to use templates. (I haven’t seen how this applies to themes, but I’m a novice.) Thanks for the post, Denis, it collects all those articles together very handily!
Special thanks to Chris J. Davis for putting together the info in the first place!
The Electronic Frontier Foundation recently published a legal guide for bloggers. I haven’t read all of it yet, but it seems to cover a lot of territory: political blogging, bloggers as journalists, privacy issues, defamation, all kinds of stuff. Check it out!
A fix to the awesome Borderline Chaos theme. I started noticing that my blog’s date format wasn’t being used, so I started poking around some more in the theme files. I found a couple of places where hard-coded date formats had been used. The following patches take care of these issues. Careful! I have been fiddling with the theme files already, so my line numbers may not match the master files’. A little human intervention may be needed, and the patches only involve three or four lines of code changes so it’s no biggee to take care of this manually.
index.php patch
single.php patch
I tried using the function “the_date()” out of template-functions-general, but it’s a little too smart for its own good–this function automagically hides the date if it’s the same as the “previousday”, i.e. if the first two posts are dated the same, the date will show up on the first one but it will be suppressed on the second one.
Update: 2005-09-03T05:26 UTC
As mentioned in this article, I created a single patchfile containing all the changes I made to Borderline Chaos. I’ll document these later.
I went searching for a new theme yesterday. Don’t get me wrong–the default theme is very nice, easy to read, etc., but I just couldn’t bring myself to use the “just another WordPress blog” theme. Also, I wanted a theme that took advantage of the full width of the browser window.
The WRC Theme Viewer is an awesome tool for checking out a huge number of available themes, and I went through every single one of them. (Took me a while, even with a fat pipe at home.) I found about 20 themes that had feature(s) I liked and/or looked nice. I’ll list all ~20 of them, along with my impressions, in another post. But the two that I decided to install are Elvgren and Borderline Chaos.
I love Denis Somar’s Elvgren theme. The layout suits me, especially the article appearance. The font styles and colors for the articles are very well-chosen, IMO. The Elvgren prints are gorgeous, but they are also the reason I chose not to make this my default theme–the bandwidth required for this theme could be a killer for some users. (Until very recently I had been stuck with a 33kb/s max pipe, and bandwidth considerations are still very important to me!) But since I like this theme so much, I installed a theme switcher plugin so that my readers (all 2 of them) can choose their preferred theme. (More on this below.) This theme worked great for me “right out of the box”, so I haven’t tweaked it (yet).
I chose Marianne’s Borderline Chaos as the site default. I love the bold, striking look of it! And the theme overhead (wrt bandwidth) is almost nil. There were a few things I needed to tweak on this theme. On the nit-picky side, I didn’t like the way my blog title wrapped, so I made that box a fixed width instead of using a width percentage. But the major problem I had with this theme was lack of a “Site Admin” link. Perhaps I’m a complete moron and there’s a knob for this somewhere, but I didn’t find it upon cursory inspection. So I added a “Meta” sidebox and put the appropriate stuff inside it. This caused me to run out of box styles, and instead of doing the simple thing (adding another sidebox style in style.css) I let a brain-o slip and renumbered all the sideboxes, getting rid of the “Pages” sidebox. I’ll go back and fix this tonight. Sigh.
Theme switching (along with everything else about blogging and WordPress) is new to me. I found this tutorial for Ryan Boren’s wp_theme_switcher to be a big help. Who would have thought that theme switching could be this easy? I added theme-switcher code to the WordPress default theme, so now all my themes (except Classic) can be selected on-the-fly by individual readers.
Many thanks to all the authors/designers mentioned in this post! Pingbacks are on the way, but I’ll be leaving comments on everybodys’ blogs “in person” as well.
I stumbled across this post from almost exactly one year ago. Joseph, I salute your effort, and the fact that you made this work is very cool, but I think this approach (relatively low-level network programming) may be the wrong track to pursue. I think a more appropriate method would be network API’s for new or existing applications, or at least higher-level libraries.
Network overhead is obviously vastly more “expensive” than local function calls, so you should probably reserve network functions for heavyweight applications. You mentioned databases–I think this is actually a good use of network programming! I have in mind something like the USPS’s ZIP code lookup. There is obviously a database backend on this web app. Granted, one cannot make arbitrary database queries (nor inserts, updates, deletes), but it does serve up the data quickly and competently. The database sits on the same machine (or topologically “close”) to the API server. Google is another example, and smarter people than I will come up with many more already-existing web services with DB backends. I think this is where Internet programming can really shine!
Some awesome satire in this post (link broken, see update below). I think I need to add another listing to my blogroll…
Update: Daniel voiced his conscience, and now his blog has been shut down. Behold, the land of the free and the home of the brave. Pay no attention to the so-called Bill of Rights, we live in George Bush’s Amerika now. Heil!
But the chickenhawks can’t stop all of us! Daniel’s fiancee has a backup of his work, and I’m copying my favorite piece of Daniel’s, “Club Fed,” below. I don’t have his permission to re-post this. With all due respect, Daniel, if you object to this I’ll need to hear it in person or through legal channels.
Club Fed
By Daniel
Are you tired of your nine-to-five job? Have you had enough from your routine? Are you looking for respite from the tedium of a monotonous life, barricaded from reality behind the crumbling walls of derelict delusions of success? If you are looking for an escape from the downward spiral of every-day-life, then consider an interlude from depression and escapism; consider a sabbatical from the doldrums; consider Club Fed.
Club Fed (Federal Military Service) is a dramatic getaway from it all, where you can put concerns of your 401k and job security behind you. In Club Fed – just like any world-class resort – your worries will be half a world away! As a member of Club Fed, you will be transported to luxurious getaways in distant and exotic lands, where you will participate in any number of our guided activities, closely supervised by a specialized team of highly-trained “activity coordinators”.
Customized packages tailored to meet every need are available, but no matter where you spend your time in Club Fed, you will have access to our extensive and exclusive members-only amenities. At every Club Fed facility, for example, you will find an enormous array of all-terrain vehicles, robust enough to satisfy even the most intrepid off-road enthusiasts. Do you prefer to fly? Most of our special packages include aerial tours in any one of our helicopters; our’s is one of the largest fleets in the world!
If you enjoy athletic activities, you will be delighted with the fantastic selection Club Fed offers. Your “activities coordinator” will take direct responsibility for the development of your physique, and will provide the type of outstanding motivation to excel that has become a world-renowned trademark of Club Fed. For those who would like to pursue even greater variety, there are daily “boutique exercises”, examples of which include the Stairmaster Juggernaut, a grueling two-hundred foot ascent, burdened by a forty-pound “comfort vest” in temperatures that soar into triple-digits.
After a good day of the Stairmaster Juggernaut, it will be time to feed the body and mind. You will find that Club Fed spares no expense in feeding you. In fact, the lavishness of our meals has thrice prompted senate committees to examine how we can possibly spend such astronomical amounts on our food! And that is our commitment to you: we promise that each time you sit down to eat, your dining experience will be one whose price is on-par with that of five-star restaurants. With that type of investment, it is no wonder that our customers are constantly re-evaluating their expectations!
In the evening and after dinner, it’s time to retreat to your all-expenses-paid resort chalet. Accommodations vary dramatically, but almost always include somewhere to sleep. Your personally-assigned “activity coordinator” will be on-hand to provide guidance should you be at a loss for what to do. Club Fed guarantees that no minute of your day will be misspent.
As an added bonus for our Club Fed “regulars”, returning customers are awarded VIP passes, where – in exchange for assuming some “activity coordinator” responsibilities, you will be offered a team of indentured servants who will bend to your every whim. Customers who wish to can also apply to any of the managerial vacancies at Club Fed (but are encouraged not to since this can jeopardize the overlord-client relationship so integral to the Club Fed experience).
Our customers can choose from a variety of our package sabbaticals, but specials are now available for The Mediterranean (or vicinity). We are now pleased to offer free airfare for all Mediterranean (or vicinity) destinations. Furthermore, clients who select the Mediterranean (or vicinity) package will be awarded a bonus extended-stay, but this is a limited time offer. New slots are constantly becoming available for our Mediterranean (or vicinity) package at an average rate of two per day, so keep alert; you don’t want to miss out on this terrific deal!
Don’t take our word for it, though. Click on “comments”, below to see some of our client testimony, or add your own Club Fed story! Millions of satisfied customers can’t be wrong! Come experience Club Fed for yourself today and you’ll see why our motto is, “You’ll come for five years, but stay for six… guaranteed!”
Disclaimer: Club Fed is not responsible for any injury or death incurred while the client is under our purview. The client accepts all responsibility for his or her welfare. Club Fed food is not suitable to be eaten. Club Fed accepts no responsibility for loss of life, limb, or eyesight as a result of eating our food. Although Club Fed extends every possible opportunity to make living accommodations as pleasant as possible, Club Fed does not guarantee that they will exist. Each of Club Fed’s lodgings presents a real and grave fire risk, and Club Fed accepts no responsibility for loss of life, limb, or eyesight caused by the imminent conflagration or subsequent structure-collapse. Club Fed guarantees that you will come for five years, but stay for six. Club Fed reserves the right to make you stay longer. Club Fed reserves the right to your life. Club Fed reserves the right to reserve your rights.
