Custom Header and Footer
One of my goals is to make themes with personalized design. Currently, only the Photo Frame theme allows certain extent of customization by changing the image in the photo frame. In my latest theme (Simple Style), you’ll be able to customize the whole header and part of the footer. How to change the images for the Simple Style theme? Step 1 Create your own header and footer images with the size as follows: Header image size: 1280 x 400 px Footer image size: 400 x 160 px Step 2 Name the header and footer images as bg.jpg and bg_footer.jpg respectively. Step 3 Upload the file to the /images folder. To see how a theme using the same coding can look so differently, we have created a few samples. Sample 1 Original Header Image Original Footer Image Sample 2 Original Header Image Original Footer Image Header Look Footer Look Sample 3 Original Header Image Original Footer Image Actual Header Look Actual Footer Look Sample 4 Original Header Image Original Footer Image Actual Header Look Actual Footer Look Sample 5 Original Header Image Original Footer Image Actual Header Look Actual Footer...
Read MoreTheme Testimonial
This is awesome! Thanks so much for the detailed walk through! The first time I saw this template I was scared to touch it because it looked so hard…yet I downloaded it anyway! Once I took the time to read it I realized how simple you had made it. The template looks great! Thanks for making such amazing ones! Phoenix from Moresims2tales.com The second thing I love about this theme is the customizable, rotating photo at the top. I’ve uploaded about five or six photos, and you should see a different one each time you load the blog. Hit your refresh button to see it change now. This feature makes the blog truly my own, a reflection of my family. Cindy…more story at Fencedinfamily.com/blog Einige haben sich über das letzte “unpersönliche” Theme beschwert, von daher nun etwas persönlicher… Ich benutze nun das WordPress Theme Photo-Frame, das oberste mittlere Bild kann man einfach ändern, bei jeder Aktualisierung der Webseite erscheint ein anderes Bild (natürlich nur wenn man viele Bilder hochgeladen hat). Ansonsten steht der Hintergrund auch als JPG zur Verfügung und kann geändert werden. Ich finde der Hintergrund passt zu dem Wetter – zur Jahreszeit und natürlich auch zu mir 😉 Dieses WordPress Theme ist Wiget – Fähig, daher ideal für meine Spielereien … und damit es persönlicher wird habe ich auch direkt meinen natürlichen Feind (die Blitze) mit eingebaut… mittig findet Ihr nun abwechselnd Bilder von mir – entweder als Motiv oder von mir geschossene Bilder… So – und nun darf gemeckert werden! Jens from Jens-stratmann.de This is probably the best theme in whole WordPress theme directory. Spent approximately 5 hours going through those themes and this was the only suitable one Thanks alot and hopefully I’ll see more of these extreme high quality themes from you someday OmegaZ from wp.dysentria.com OmegaZ, I would agree with that! I also spent a very good amount of time, looking at different themes. When I weighed out looks, with functionality, this was the winner, in my opinion. Mark from blog.hypercubecafe.com It took me just one evening to implement your template, create my site pages, and paste in my content. You are a very talented designer. Thanks so much. My site looks wonderful. Eve from Eveboston.com OMG! I have been looking and looking for a 3 column theme that’s different from all those boring themes that are out there. I had actually bookmarked your page with the RSS icons so I could feature it on my StumbleRumba.com blog. When I saw the word Themes at the top, I had to check it out. And I’m so glad I did. Going to put this one on a couple of other blogs I have too. Thank you so much! Will definitely be watching for more of your outstanding themes! Beamer from Earnbloggingmoney I LOVE your CoffeeDesk theme, and have customized it to reflect my own personality. See http://jahangiri.us/news/2010/07/05/customizing-blog-design/ for a detailed explanation of the changes, if you’re at all interested. Two complaints I get on this theme, though, I feel are worth passing along: First, the load time is comparatively slow (though the graphics are pretty small, so I’m not entirely sure why – seems there’s a .js file that’s slowing things down a bit); second, people hate the wide-narrow-narrow column arrangement. It fits the theme, but visitors might be happier if the planner appeared larger and the right side appeared to be cut off, so that the post area could be WIDER, and there would only be the one sidebar. (Does that make sense??) Anyway, I’m mostly willing to put up with those critics and their...
Read MoreBrowser Display Resolutions
Base on the statistics by W3school, more than 90% of the internet users are using a display resolution with 1024×768 pixels or more. If you study the trend, more and more users are switching from lower resolution to higher resolution display over the years. In 2000, only 4% of the users were using a display of more than 1024px. The overall users in this category kept increasing and it reached 57% as of January 2009. All my themes were designed base on 1024px and above. Some of the themes like Maple Leaf (preview) and Beach Holiday (preview) even show nice background when viewed with...
Read MoreTheme Support System
I try my best to make my themes work for everyone. However, due to the big amount of comments I’ve been receiving, I can’t give timely response to every request. I have since figured out a way to address those issues effectively with different priority set as follows: Top Priority If you encounter functionality issues (eg. themes display wrongly in Firefox), I’ll look into that as first priority and will try to address the problems within 3 working days. You can post the problem in the comment section of the most relevant theme page. Note: My themes are not designed to work with ALL plugins. Unless you show me how popular the plugin is, please don’t ask me to fix the compatibility issue with the individual plugins. I consider a plugin as popular when the All-Time downloads in WordPress is above 200,000. Take WordPress Stat plugin as an example, the all-time downloads can be found at http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/stats/ and it is more than 500,000 as of this writing. Therefore, we’ll fix the problem, if any, pertaining to this plugin. However, due to the strict coding standard that I always adhere to, my themes should work well with most of the popular plugins. Less Priority For other issues, I’ll make your comments live and will address them whenever I have time. The solution is not guaranteed. I also hope that other users can help solve your issues while waiting for my reply. However, if you are kind enough to make a small donation, I’ll give the first priority to resolve any of your issues. Simply donate to my Paypal via wpsubmit @ templatelite.com and specify your comment ID. I hope this is the most efficient way to address your problems and...
Read MoreW3C Compliance
I know how important it is to comply with W3C HTML and XHTML standards for ALL of my themes. Most designers find it troublesome to comply with W3C standards. Their main concern is to make the themes look good but ignore the importance of W3C compliance. I not only make sure my themes look nice in all major browsers (IE, Firefox, Safari, Opera, Chrome), but they are also checked for W3C compliance before each theme is launched. The benefits of compliance with W3C standards: Compliance helps ensure that your website is accessible from a number of devices; from different browsers to the growing number of surfers using PDAs and cellular phones. Compliance will also help ensure that regardless of the browser, resolution, device, etc. that your website will look and function in the same or at least a very similar fashion. Compliance helps the search engine rankings as compare with non-compliant...
Read MoreRotating Custom Header Image
Now you can customize your header image with just a few clicks of buttons! This is done with the use of the GD graphics technique. How does it work? First, I will decide which area of the header to allow custom image. Then I’ll program that section and assign a folder for you to upload your own images. How to make it work? Very simple. After you have unzipped the theme, you’ll find a folder named “custom” (for Photo Frame theme) or “photos” (for Postage Sydney theme). Simply upload your image(s) with the correct size to the folder and that image(s) will show up in the header. What is the file extension for the image? Your image should be in .jpg format. What if I upload more than 1 image? Your images will be rotated when you click refresh button a few times. As an example, look at our Photo Frame theme as shown below. As you can see, there are 3 photo frames in the header. I have programmed the theme such that you can change the image in the middle frame. I have uploaded these 2 images to the “custom” folder (for the Postage Sydney theme, upload your images to the “photos” folder) To show the second image, just click the refresh button a few times and the first image will be replaced by the second one. I even rotate and resize the uploaded images so that it fits in the middle frame nicely! What is the server requirement? To make this work, your web server should have GD Library supported. GD is an open source code library for the dynamic creation of images by programmers. To check if your server supports this feature, follow this simple instruction: Download this GD testing file Unzip the file and upload it to your server Open the file in any browser If your server supports GD, all the items should display “Yes” The server report for Templatelite can be seen here. What if my web server doesn’t support GD Library? The effect will not show up. Instead, the header image will show a default image. In the case of the Photo Frame theme, the default image is a butterfly as shown below: Themes that are currently using this effect: – Photo Frame (Recommended image size: 300×240 px and above) – Postage Sydney (Recommended image size: 180×200 px and...
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