Wooden 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...
Read MoreDoggy Love
Latest Version: 1.00 Added on: 2015/05/30 Dogs are man’s best friend. I used to have a Chow Chow (a breed of dog that was first developed in Mongolia) 15 years ago. A dense double coat and thick fur around the neck made it look like a lion. Though looked fierce, she was extremely obedient to me. Unfortunately, she was killed in an accident and was the last dog I rear 🙁 This theme is a tribute to my Chow Chow named Toffy. Click on the “Free Download” link above to get the theme now! By using this theme for FREE, you agree to accept the external links. Gain access to the fully layered Photoshop file for quick and easy tweakage. PSD files included for both the main and the sub themes. Ad-Free PackageRemoving the credit links will make the theme to not function properly. Unencrypted main and sub theme files can be purchased at $20. Theme CustomizationDo you want to customize this theme to include images that suit your blog's topic? I can help you with the graphical customization. For more details, please visit the theme customization service page. Main Features – Different design for sticky post feature – Compatible with IE7, IE8, Firefox, Chrome, Safari, Opera – W3C XHTML and CSS compliant – Gravatar enable Blog Title and Description The demo is showing a special font as below: By default, after you install the theme, the blog title and description are showing the Arial font. You can change the font style by following this instruction: – Download this PSD zip file (also include the font that I use that is available free from fontstock.net.) – Extract and open the PSD file in the Photoshop program – Add the title and description using your desired font – Save the image using this name: bg_header_new.jpg – Upload the image to your server in the /images folder User Showcase The followings are a few examples of nice modification of this theme from other users. You can view all the nice design in the forum theme showcase. View all my themes Change log 2009-05-30 v1.00 – Release 2009-07-14 – Theme is compatible with WP 2.8 2010-04-25 – Fixed template.php to allow static...
Read MoreWptavern.com – A New Kid on the Block in the WordPress community
WordPress.org is operated under a company named Automattic, Inc. Besides WordPress, there are several big projects which are gaining a lot of popularity. bbPress – a forum software with a twist BuddyPress – a suite of WordPress plugins and themes aim to let members interact socially. WordPress.com – a hosted and completely maintained WordPress platform In my search for the WordPress resources, I have yet to see a site which includes ALL the projects under the Automattic umbrella until I stumbled upon Wptavern.com. It looks interesting to me so I decided to find out more about this site. Checking the archive and the “About” page is a good way to get an overview of a blog. The first article was posted on Jan 23, 2009. It seems that Jeff, the owner of this site, has a clear vision about what to do with the site. He bought the domain from Wphacks.com and aims to make this site a central community for WordPress users. Let’s take a look at the site structure of Wptavern. Since this site discusses everything about the Automattic projects, it is good to create different categories for the projects. Wptavern only has categories for big projects like bbPress, BuddyPress and WPMU. There is no designated place for the smaller projects yet. I think having a category listing all the articles relating to the smaller projects would help users to find what they want. One limitation in fostering good relationship with the readers using the blog comment system is that the interaction interface is not as friendly as the forum. That’s why Wptavern installed a forum and used that as the main communication channel instead of the blog comment system. I am wondering since bbPress is a forum software developed by the Automattic team, why doesn’t Jeff use it instead of the vBulletin. bbPress may be less functional than the well-developed vBullentin, but wouldn’t it be exciting to install it in the first place and witness the improvement of this software made along the way? There is another innovative way that Jeff promotes his site. Every week, a new podcast is posted (in fact, more than 1 podcast is posted weekly). Anyone can participate in the podcasts discussing a wide range of topics about WordPress. You can even find podcast interview with Matt Mullenweg, the founder of WordPress. Instead of being a fanatic follower of WordPress, Jeff looks at the projects undergoing in Automattic in a critical way. He doesn’t always agree with the decision made within the team. One of his posts foresees 6 ways in which WordPress could die. I cannot be more agreeable with the article. Just as I am committed to making my themes a success in the WordPress community, I can see that Jeff is also committed to making his site a prime location for WordPress users to hang...
Read MoreFind your next WordPress hosting at Webhostingsearch
Having been with Hostgator for about a year, I am very happy with their service so far. Indeed, finding a good host is not easy especially if your site/blog is getting a lot of traffic. I want to find out besides Hostgator, what other hosts stand out from the crowd. So I did a search for the keyword “web hosting” on Google and took one of the top 10 site, Webhostingsearch.com and decided to do a review on this site. Web Hosting Search is a web hosting directory listing different types of web hosting services from basic hosting like shared and php hosting to advanced hosting like dedicated and coldfusion hosting. I like the way they group the hosting services. Every host listed on the site has its own review by both the Webhostingsearch’s editor and the users. The editor rates a host base on a few factors: support response time, support quality, server uptime, server response time, features and control panel usability. The users, on the other hand, can participate in the review process by rating the host based on the score from 1 to 10 on the host review page. They can also input their comments about the host. I think this type of the review process involving both the editor and the users are less biased. However, there are only a few input from the users. I am hoping to see more reviews from the users to get better judgment about the quality of the hosts. With that said, generally, I think the hosting providers found on Webhostingsearch.com are of high quality because some of my sites are hosted by Bluehost and Lunarpages (and of course, Hostgator) having no big issues so far. You can also do a specific search for a web hosting plan using their advance search feature. It is such a powerful feature that you can refine your search by web hosting type, control panel and even easy-install forum programs. You can also find a list of hosts with built-in WordPress program for easy installation. Simply select “WordPress” under the “Easy-install Blogs”. This site also has a knowledge base section about web hosting and design. I particularly like the video tutorials. The tutorials are presented in a step-by-step manner and in a simple but professional way. It is so well-presented that I include the WordPress installation tutorial in this post. I hope the webmaster will later add a video tutorial detailing the steps of installing WordPress theme. I have made the proposal. Hope they’ll consider it...
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