Amendment of License Terms for my Free Themes
WordPress themes’ license has been a debating issue among the WordPress community. Due to the fact that WordPress is an open source program and releases under a GPL license, many assume that all WordPress themes should also be GPL-licensed. Indeed, a lot of free downloadable themes are released under GPL license. But the problem with those themes is that majority of them can’t match the quality of other themes that are released under a different license. I have researched major players who design WordPress themes and none of them released the themes under GPL license with one exception from Studiopress.com. This site releases professional magazine style WordPress themes. Their themes’ license is GPL but still, you have to purchase to use it. All my themes are free to download. To sustain the site, I have to get advertisers to sponsor my themes so I can use the proceeds to continue releasing more high quality themes. Therefore, I can’t afford making my themes available for free under GPL license. My themes have been using Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial 3.0 Unported license and it will continue to stay that way. In addition to the current license, there is one amendment that I’d like to include as follows: Permissions beyond the scope of this license may be available at http://www.templatelite.com/terms-of-use/ The reason behind this change is that the current CC license doesn’t specifically mention about the footer links and script of my themes. Now I make it clear that removing the footer links and script of my themes is against the terms! In short, the license allows you to share and remix the work of my themes but you have to make sure that 1) you keep the footer link and a footer script intact 2) you can’t use my themes on your commercial sites Those found in violation of my terms and conditions will be ordered to remove my themes from the affected...
Read MoreWooden Fence Theme Reviewed by WPtavern
My Wooden Fence theme has got a candid review by WPtavern.com, a fast growing site focuses on topics about WordPress and projects under Automatic Inc. Thanks for the review, I found a few things that I could improve for my future themes. However, I also need to clarify a few things about the review here. Let’s talk about the license and the footer part of my themes. The CC license looks complicated but my main intention is only two things: 1) you have to keep the footer link and a footer script intact 2) you can’t use my themes on your commercial sites. Other than that, you can manipulate my themes freely without any cost. Unlike other themes, my themes are coded using the most basic elements. No options pages and plugins are found on the Wooden Fence theme as well as most of my themes. I created them that way because of 3 issues as follows: 1) Some plugins might not be compatible with the latest WordPress version and the plugins designers fail to fix the problem. 2) Some plugins have security loopholes. I don’t want your site to get hacked because of the security faults pertaining to the plugins. 3) I’ll be able to fix the WordPress compatibility issues in the shortest time whenever a new WordPress version is available. With that said, I am actually planning to design a theme with extra options for advance users. Anyway, it is still in the conceptual stage. As for the graphic design, I am appreciated to see some great pointers to improve the graphic part of this theme. I am especially grateful for one of the commenters, Terri for his critics from the aspect of a graphic designer. I take his words in mind. For those who want to suggest some useful features that I could add to my themes, please share with me your suggestions and ideas. I appreciate...
Read MoreMy Themes’ CSS Structure
WordPress is a powerful CMS program that is capable of turning a complicated graphic design into a web page. You can see a list of 50 stunning template designs that are running on WordPress here. The design of these websites may look complicated but if done in an organized way, they aren’t really hard to code. From the designers’ perspective, a website can be divided into 5 main sections: Background Header Content Sidebar Footer There are several elements found in the main sections where you can define the styles. The styling of each elements can be controlled in the css file. Normally, we name it style.css. Different designers have their own ways of doing it. I’ll show you how I configure my CSS file in an well-organized way. I made it easy to understand so you can modify the styles of each element without much difficulties. Open any of my themes’ style.css file and you’ll see that I grouped them into 9 categories: General Layout Header Menu Content Sidebar RSS and Search Comments Widgets The elements found in each category below are general items and differ from theme to theme. 1 General This section include general elements like body font and link style, image alignment, font size of H1, H2, H3, H4, H5, H6, blockquote style, break line(hr), field input style etc. body{;} img {;} a {;} a:hover {;} h1 {;} h2 {;} h3 {;} h4 {;} h5 {;} h6 {;} p {;} hr {;} del {;} ins {;} blockquote {;} input,select,textarea {;} code{;} .alignleft {;} .alignright {;} .aligncenter,div.aligncenter{;} img.alignleft {;} img.alignright {;} img.centered {;} .clear {;} .spacer {;} 2 Layout This section controls the image and position of the background, header, menu, content, sidebar, RSS and footer. /********** LAYOUT **********/ #base{;} #menu{;} #header{;} #container_btm{;} #container{;} #content{;} #sidebar1{;} #sidebar2{;} [if the theme is 2 column, sidebar2 is not needed] #rss_search{;} #footer{;} #footer a{;} 3 Header This section controls the position and text style for the blog title, blog tagline (subtitle) and the header image position. /********** header *************/ #blogtitle{;} #blogtitle a, #blogtitle a:hover {;} #subtitle {;} #header img.home {;} 4 Menu This section controls the display of the page menu link which can normally be found in the header. /************* MENU ***********/ #menu ul {;} #menu ul li {;} #menu ul li a {;} #menu ul li a:hover{;} #menu ul li.current_page_item a {;} 5 Content This is where the content section is defined. You can change the setting of the normal or the sticky post, post title, post date and the page information. /************* content *************/ .archivetitle {;} .post{;} .sticky{;} .post_title{;} .page_title{;} .post_title a,.post_title a:hover,.page_title a,.page_title a:hover{;} .post_date{;} .post_date_d {;} .post_date_m {;} .post_author{;} .post_author a{;} .entry{;} .info {;} .category {;} .tags {;} .bubble {;} .navigation {;} .navigation {;} .sorry {;} 6 Sidebar Control the everything related to the sidebar which includes the image position, text, links and fields styles etc. /************ sidebar ************/ #sidebar1 {;} #sidebar1 a{;} #sidebar1 a:hover {;} #sidebar1 ul {;} #sidebar1 li {;} #sidebar1 h4 {;} #sidebar1 ul ul li {;} #sidebar1 select{;} #sidebar2 {;} #sidebar2 a{;} #sidebar2 a:hover {;} #sidebar2 ul {;} #sidebar2 li {;} #sidebar2 h4 {;} #sidebar2 ul li{;} #sidebar2 ul ul li {;} #sidebar2 select{;} Note: sidebar2 is not needed if the theme is 2 column. 7 RSS and Search Control the position of RSS icon, position and text style of the RSS as well as the search input area. /*********** RSS and Search ***********/ #rss_search .input {;} #rss_search .submit{;} #rss_search a.rss{;} #rss_search a.rss:hover{;} 8 Comment You can control the comment section that includes...
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