No matter what kind of Web site you run, your goal is always the same: to communicate your message as effectively as possible to your intended audience.
If the content of your site represents your message, then typography is the vehicle through which that message is delivered. Ironically, this is probably the most important area where WordPress themes (and Web sites in general) fall short.
While that’s bad news for the masses, it’s actually great news for you, because I’ve got a 3-column cure for all your typographical woes—the Neoclassical Theme for WordPress.
Because it’s always time to change your image…
Probably the coolest feature of the Neoclassical Theme is the huge rotating header image, which I designed with customization in mind. Even the novices among you will have no trouble placing your own images in the rotator, and once you get the hang of it, you’ll be able to rotate as many images as you like.
The bottom line here is that images are cool. Big images are even cooler. But big images that are randomly generated?
Off the charts.
It’s time to cash in on that link equity
The blogosphere has been abuzz of late with news of Google PageRank updates and, more specifically, with news that the big G may be penalizing people for selling links. Whether or not that’s true should be of little issue to you, primarily because this entire fiasco boils down to one central topic: link equity.
Essentially, link equity is the idea that links have a value—a value that search engines can use to gauge the importance of both your page and the page to which you’re linking. Of course, if you have a link-heavy site, it’s going to be much harder to determine (algorithmically) the true value of a particular link.
Moreover, when you throw in a few paid or sponsored links, especially ones that appear site-wide and have little or no topical relevance, you are muddying your own linking waters.
So, what’s a Webmaster to do?
Ultimately, I would recommend that you rule your site with an iron fist, thinking critically and logically every time you place a link on your site. In the short term, though, you can get a head start on improving your internal link equity by using the Neoclassical Theme on your site.
Generally speaking, WordPress themes have become extremely link-intensive through the incorporation of things like category links, page links, calendars, widgets, etc. Because these types of links tend to appear site-wide, they not only dilute your linking landscape, but they also create a “flat” internal linking structure where it’s incredibly difficult for an algorithm to determine the relative importance of an individual link.
The bottom line is that the Neoclassical Theme is crafted so that your links will pack as much punch as possible. I’ve tried to cut the “link fat” wherever it made sense to do so, and the end result is, I believe, likely the most advanced WordPress theme on the market today in terms of SEO.
Did I mention it also has big header images?
183 Comments ↓
Chris, you knew I’d get in early on this one! I agree the photos are key. They make a powerful first impression and this theme makes it very easy to customize.
Lots of SEO work in the theme which means its time for me to say bye-bye to Cutline on some of my other sites.
You might want to explain what the openeducation.net in the footer is all about. No link back to you on the theme?
Thanks again Chris.
This looks great. And just when I thought this blog–or maybe even you–had mysteriously disappeared.
Butler — I’ve added a concise explanation of the footer link to the end of the article.
I’ve chosen not to link back to my site for two main reasons:
Wow… things have been mum here for awhile. Now I see why.. Sweet! Love your posts.. very informative as always.
Looks great!
Nice work Chris…again!
I know you’re busy, but I’d love to see more content here. Every so often I find myself coming back here, and browsing through the archives. As much as you’re a great designer, your writing is equal to it, or perhaps even better.
I blog on blogger. But I think that’s nice:)
I was just reading a rondom blog, and i saw your credit at the bottom AGAIN, one of your older themes. If the medium is the message, then, I am unconciously attracted by yours!
Thank you for making the internet a prettier place
Brilliant !
Clean theme. This has to be my next theme.
Chris, I see this as the logical replacement for Cutline which as really been ruined since you turned it over to the other folks.
The forum is a disaster with no assistance or answers forthcoming.
I had to take Cutline 2.0 off my site because it does not line up properly and I could not get any answers or help with it. I was sorry to have to switch to another theme, but had no choice.
I am going to give Neoclassical a whirl since it appears to offer all the benefits of Cutline, plus the SEO optimization and typography improvements. Looks great!
Excellent work. Simply beautiful.
Though I’ve never been a huge fan of 3-column themes, I must say this one is great! Any chance of a 2-column version of this theme? Not sure how that would work with the current navigation though.
As you always say, Chris, “SWEEEEET!”
Shane
ps. How ’bout them Mountaineers!
Armen — That’s very kind, thank you!
Ming — We’ve got to get you switched over to WordPress
Hopeful Spirit — I’m sorry that your experiences with Cutline 2.0 were less than optimal. Hopefully, Neoclassical will serve you better moving forward!
Rothanak — Like you, I am partial to 2-column themes. Unfortunately, I probably won’t be releasing Neoclassical in 2-column form, but I do have a couple of 2-column tricks up my sleeve for the future.
Shane — Wow. That’s a low blow.
errrr …. mod me down, and don’t get me wrong, but isn’t this just a slightly modified Blue Zinfandel (by Brian Gardner)? And (small) wow for (big) header images (Mistylook-ish) and even rotating, random images. Rotating image scripts have been around for ages, nothing spectacular imho.
Sorry, but I just really fail to see the amazing coolness, but if anyone could enlighten me? Nice theme, just not standing out of the crowd and slightly overrated?
nieuwsnet — I created the Neoclassical Theme entirely from scratch, so no—it’s not just a “slightly modified” version of any other theme.
Also, before commenting on design similarities (especially around here), you may want to learn the difference between Times, Georgia, and Verdana.
And as for my written introduction to the big header images, that’s a little linguistic convention called sarcasm. Do you really think I believe I’m the first guy on Earth to come up with random header images?
And how in the world can the theme be overrated? It’s one day old!
This is a super-duper hot new theme! The rotating header is very good, and who doesn’t want Georgia for their headers? I love it!
I hate to do this, but, I don’t know what else to do, Chris.
I’m going to be switching my host soon, and I’m stuck between Media Temple (GS), and Midphase (Pro-Phase).
I’m really thinking about Midphase, as I know you have a keen eye for quality. But, I was just wondering how they’ve handled when you’ve made it on Digg, etc? Or do you have a more expensive package than the Pro-Phase one with them?
I wouldn’t worry, only I might have a big project in the pipeline, and I don’t want a pesky, useless host, if it gets spikes of traffic.
Delete this comment, and email me if you like.
Hi,
I am just learning WP and have new installation of 2.3.1 with your theme.
With classic theme in can see “pages” but with your theme those are not visible.
What happens with pages in your theme? Or most likely I just do not know how to use it…
Hannu
Hi Armen
Don’t go with Midphase!! there servers are really slow. I was in constant contact with their support people, moving servers etc for 2 months. when they couldn’t fix the problem, they refused to refund my money. really poor service and they don’t stand behind their product. they are more interested in signing people up, then giving good service. btw, i was running wordpress.
I use bluehost.com and so far so good.
if you get digged, i’m sure that midphase would be a disaster for you. it was slow without any traffic never mind digg.
I’m with you Dr Marc…bluehost is a GREAT host…very helpful staff and a great Fantastico set up that lets you experiment with all types of Open Source CMS…
and about CUTLINE…still one of my favorites even though those guys are turning it into a piece of crAYP…
CHRIS have you seen their new MOD!!!??? UGH! Thanx for showing those guys how to do the dam thing with NEOCLASSICAL!!!
Really nice theme Chris. Good work. I like the layout especially and the rotating header is a nice touch.
As for some folks bashing Midphase, I’ve had equally bad experiences with Bluehost and Lunarpages. At Midphase, I’ve experienced no issues of any kind to date that weren’t handled quickly and professionally.
Chris, again…excellent work. I’m looking forward to visiting again real soon.
Imani — I have tried to view the newest Cutline release, but whenever I click on the link from the Cutline site, I get a page that doesn’t load properly.
SWilson — As far as hosting goes, I think you could have a bad experience with just about anybody. The bottom line is that you want a company whose low to mid level servers aren’t ridiculously overloaded, and MidPhase does a great job of keeping all their shared servers speedy and up-to-date with the latest versions of PHP, mySQL, and other development services.
Also, I am a huge fan of their technical support, especially since I have a few of the guys on my IM buddy list.
Excellent design, I’m already using it.
Hi Chris,
I’m currently using a customized version of your Copyblogger theme on my blog which I think is great.
This looks like another solid theme so I definitely think that I’ll have to install it on some other sites that I’ve got going. Nice Work!
@ClarkeW - Very nice Copyblogger customization!! I love it.
Chris, I’ve written a message here twice and they’ve been deleted with no response. Am I doing anything wrong?
Hi,
Can someone help me and tell how I can activate the Archives with neoclassical theme. I just do not get it…
H.
Patricia — You left the exact same comment over at the Neoclassical site, where it is more pertinent than it is here. The comment remains over there, but I will continue to delete the ones here because I don’t want duplicate content anywhere on this domain.
Hi Chris, your new theme is great.
Last 2 days I was selecting a free theme for my new site. I was after a theme I could customize as needed and it would need to be solid, slick, appealing and done with a careful attention to details. I’m impressed and I think I found it. Thank you!
Gone to download, apply, etc. …
Ok, Chris, you may be right. The point is that I haven’t received an answer neither here nor there…
Anna — Glad I was able to satisfy those incredibly lofty expectations!
Patricia — Support inquiries have picked up across all of my themes, and I’m doing the best I can to go through and answer everybody’s questions.
Despite that, I just took a look at your question, and now I remember why I haven’t answered it yet…
Unfortunately, the type of navigation menu you’d like to have on your site would require me (or anyone else) to create custom markup (both XHTML and CSS) to handle everything.
Besides, customizations of that sort are precisely the reason why Web designers still have jobs
Chris,
Using your neoclassical theme. When I create a new page the link is not showing up in the sidebar. Do I have to change code to make this happen, and if so, can you please tell me how? Thanks
Tim — By default, the theme is not set up to display a list of all your WordPress pages, but there are two ways that you can force it to do just that:
sidebar.phporleft_bar.php, and add<?php wp_list_pages(); ?>to generate a list of the pages on your site.Excellent theme, Chris. I’ve been a huge fan since Cutline, and Neoclassical goes above and beyond my expectations. Awesome design (love the giant rotating headers!) and the perfect theme for my tastes.
Thanks. Great theme i think.
Would anyone else like to see the incorporation of category or tags displayed in the post?
If not, and if it isn’t a request you’re willing to do for free Chris, what would you charge for a customization like that?
Great theme, started a new blog so used this theme.
I use Cutline on my main blog. I plan on keeping this neoclassical uncluttered.
David — In my opinion, involving categories and tags in the manner you’ve described is detrimental to the overall success of a Web page.
People tend to use both irresponsibly, and in addition, search engines have begun to crack down on “link bloat”—a condition commonly found in blogs (and specifically blog themes). Unfortunately, both category and tag links are the biggest offenders.
I’ve said a lot about this topic over on the Neoclassical site, so check out that thread if you’re interested in a more detailed explanation.
I would really love to see a study on the habits and tendencies of Web users circa late 2007, because if I had to guess, I’d say that people do not use categories and tags to browse most sites. Even in those cases where people do use this type of navigation, I question how useful they find it to be.
Hi Chris,
Yet another greate theme you’ve created!
Who did the nifty icons? I would love to download/buy some more if they are available.
I like the neoclassical theme. But I think I prefer the one used here a Pearsonified. I thinks it’s just perfect for a blog I’m planning. What are the chances?
Christian — The icons are part of the fantastic (and free) Mini Icons 2 set from Timothy Groves.
Simon — Slim to none
This is my custom personal theme, man!
Hi Chris,
Neoclassical is a wonderful (no surprise) canvas for content. I have just one minor suggestion: with most monitors displaying more than 800×640, the white becomes an ocean, overwhelming the center focus. Is there a way of visually confining the center, say by changing the surrounding white to a different color?
Other than that, Neoclassical is bound to be a hit.
Ed — When I develop a theme, I try to make design decisions that will work in ubiquitous environments. One bit of fallout from this type of process is the fact that I can’t be too liberal with coloration in the content area for the following reasons:
Also, I’d like to take this opportunity to comment on an interesting phenomenon that I think is most common among Windows users (as I’m going to assume you are).
For some strange reason, Windows users are used to having their browser window maximized, thus obscuring the desktop (and everything else) underneath. No Web site should ever be designed for anything more than a width of 1000px, and as a result, there really should never be a reason to have a browser window wider than 1024px.
Not only does a smaller browser window allow for easier multitasking, but it also solves the problem of the color overload that can result from a canvas being too wide.
Great new theme. You are a WP theme genius. I have added it to my collection.
Another great theme Chris…
I’ve noticed that if I make and modifications to either sidebar, i.e., an additional “li class=widget” element or just adding or removing text from the existing li elements, the entire sidebar justifies down about 10 pixels or so in Internet Explorer.
What am I doing wrong???
Robb — I understand what you’re saying, but I cannot properly diagnose or solve your problem without a live example. Could you get me a link?
Sorry about that…
http://blackberrygamer.com/index.php
In Internet Explorer 7, the left sidebar seems to have been moved down 10 pix or so. But not in FireFox.
All I did was add another li class=”widget” to the ul class=”sidebar_list”
Robb
After looking over the html source code for your page and not seeing an problems, I ran your page through the W3C validator, and it had the following warning:
The Unicode Byte-Order Mark (BOM) in UTF-8 encoded files is known to cause problems for some text editors and older browsers. You may want to consider avoiding its use until it is better supported.
Perhaps an extra character at the end of one of the php files (left sidebar would be my guess)? Not certain, but might be worth a look.
Robb — The CSS declarations you’ve added to your
custom.cssfile are causing the theme to behave strangely. If you simply comment them all out, your theme will go back to its default state.Also, you may want to consider upgrading to the new Neoclassical version 1.1—I just released it earlier today.
Thanks for the help Bruce and Chris…
[...] of free WordPress templates on which to base your design. This site is based on a template called Neoclassical developed by Chris [...]
Hey Chris,
I noticed that in the 1.1 version of neoclassical custom.css is not an included file, however, custom.css is still called in the header section of header.php and that the body tag has the class custom.
I am using the custom.css from the 1.0 version but was wondering if you intended something different.
Hello Chris,
I am new to WP, and so far, so good. My wife loves her new blog and thinks I am a genius. We won’t tell her about you.
She wants a picture of her book cover in the left side bar. I pasted the file url into a text widget and moved it into the left side bar. The image shows up but everything on the right side bar disappears. I looked for the file that contains the code for the left side bar and could not find it.
Thanks for your help.
Randy — I have purposely excluded
custom.cssfrom version 1.1 and all future downloads. Check out the installation/upgrade notes over at Neoclassical for more info on this.Tim — Because you’re using widgets, you can’t actually see or manipulate the code that is generated within a particular widget. If, however, you want absolute control over the output code in the left sidebar, you can edit
left_bar.php. Conversely,sidebar.phpcontrols the sidebar on the right.Again, though, if you’re using widgets in your sidebars, the core contents of those sidebar files won’t matter at all.
Based on your explanation and a quick look at your site, I think that you simply are not referencing the image properly from within the text widget. Also, it could be possible that WordPress automatically strips HTML tags from certain widgets… I’m not well-versed in that department, though, because I prefer to control my sidebars manually.
Nice work, as usual, I would use this if it was two columns, the content just seems to narrow with the three columns.
Thanks for the great theme - been using Cutline until I found Neoclassical!
Chris
If I changed the sidebars from 190px to 170px and added 40px to the content (and comments), would the 170px allow 160px Google ads or does padding result in less than 160px available?
Thank you.
Bruce — If you were to make the changes you’ve suggested here, your new, modified sidebars would be able to accommodate the 160px skyscraper ads without a hitch.
Christ — Thank you very much! I’ll begin the mod today and probably migrate over to Neoclassical within the next week.
Take care and have great holidays!
A Freudian slip? Chris can seem rather god-like at time, handing down designs from the mount.
Yup, Freud would have loved me. Good catch.
Classic case of operator error, I’m sure, but as I am utterly new to WordPress and CSS, PHP, et al, in general — what am I missing?!
On the left sidebar of Neoclassical, there is a link for Home and a link for About. I created the “About” page in Wordpress, but if you click on “About” in the left sidebar, you get a 404 error. What have I fouled up, location-wise, to make it do that, do you know? (or where can I look to redirect the template to the correct location of the About page?)
I have managed to get the headers going and it makes me ridiculously happy to hit refresh and see new images pop up each time, so THANK YOU for a clean, easy-to-read style that’s also visually appealing and fun to play with, even for we newbie-types.
…and that’s what I get for posting the comment before actually digesting what I’ve read. It was the permalink structure issue, which, once fixed, also fixed the “where’s my about page?” issue. ~headdesk~
Thanks again for a great theme, with wonderful documentation — even if I didn’t actually process it all in the brain fast enough.
[...] world!As a side note, however, I’d recommend taking a look at Chris’ latest release, Neoclassical. By using it instead of Cutline, you’ll be able to get support from Chris if you need [...]
[...] be done, as in editing the blogroll, setting up the theme (for now I just decided to use one of the WP themes by Chris Pearson - can’t be a bad choice for anything at all - hey Chris ), setting up links to the home page [...]
Hi Chris,
I’m a bit new to this CSS editing thing so I will have to ask
Which lines of CSS (sidebar, content, etc) do I have to modify to make the content in the center larger consequently reducing the width of the right and left sidebars? Basically I would like to have more space in the center and make the both righ and left sidebars thinner, if that makes sense.
Could please point out the exact names as there so many types of content, content_box, content_inner, etc. It is taking me hours and I made so little progress.
Thanks for the template, great piece of work.
Gustavo
Chris,
I just checked my web stats and /robots.txt/ is my second most viewed page? Please explain, thanks.
Tim — Your
robots.txtfile is unique to your server, and it has nothing to do with your theme or even WordPress in general. Essentially, it is a tool you can use to tell search engines which pages to ignore when they crawl your site.It’s the second-most heavily trafficked page on your site right now because your site is relatively new, and you simply don’t have that many visitors yet. In a few months’ time, you probably won’t even notice
robots.txtanymore because your “real” traffic will completely drown it out.The bottom line is that this is not something you need to worry about. While we’re on the subject, though, if you’d like a more accurate visitor count, I’d suggest checking out Google Analytics.
Hi Chris,
I didn’t realise typography was the key till i started using NeoClassical. A Great theme. But i seem to have broken it.
If you view my site, I have just added a new post and since then , the sidebars are re-aligning themselves underneath the content section. But if i do remove the post, it goes back to normal. Seems to be in the php.
Your thoughts please
Thank you
Vinay — Your post titled “Children in Need of Attention: Bullies and Manipulators: School Yard Blitz” contains a bunch of HTML that is causing some really strange and unexpected styling issues to take place. If you remove these renegade tags, everything will display properly.
It’s clear that you’ve imported your posts from somewhere, and when you try to perform an operation like that, you have to be extremely careful. Basically, if you want to run a successful site by importing posts, then you’re going to have to be a great editor
Hi Chris,
Thanks for the quick response. Appreciate it. Unfortunately , i’m the Partner of a blogger who is not very Technology-abled. She writes in Word and is vert specific about word placements( alignment and style) and her idea of using Making a new post is drag and drop.
I tried putting on the Advanced TinyMCE Editor on our Wordpress Blog, but that had too many bugs.
Do you have any suggestions on how to make life easier for a blogger who loves to style her text and images? Its just twice the work writing in word and cutting and copying into the blog.
Thanks again
Vinay
Vinay — I really don’t know what to tell you. If the tags are included in the markup, then you’re going to mess up any design.
Hey Chris,
So Basically stay away from styling your text when you write a blog huh?
I’m gonna print this out in 76 font and hope my partner understands
Thanks Vinay
Vinay — I just want to make sure you’re not missing the point here…
I am extremely concerned with styling my blog posts, but I use a specific subset of HTML to get the job done. The Web is a far different medium from a Word document, and I think your colleague could benefit from learning about how to properly format posts for publishing online.
Based on the very brief look I took at the code from your posts, I’d say that at least 90% of the styling tags she used are not only unnecessary, but also inappropriate for use on the Web.
Hi Chris,
“but I use a specific subset of HTML to get the job done.” -> is this something i can learn or teach my colleague?
My colleague is extremely concerned with styling as well, but the only styler she is aware of is Word. I understand that there a lot of stuff that is unnecessary, how can I learn and/or teach her how to format posts for publishing online?
Thanks for the feedback
[...] The Neoclassical 3-Column Theme for WordPress - nice, clean. Worthy of a bookmark for my Wordpress template list. Tags: Templates, Wordpress [...]
Hi Chris,
I am comparing CopyBlogger with NeoClassical for a new site I am developing. I like the general looks of NeoClassical. I like the readability of the typography in CopyBlogger. I can’t decide about 3 columns vs two.
Here’s three questions that might help me clarify things:
1) Is NeoClassical beter SEO optimized than CopyBlogger?
2) On the CopyBlogger pages, you provide lots of info on image insertion, widget support, styling elements, quote handling, etc. Does all that info apply accurately to NeoClassical as well? If not, what are the differences?
3) Which theme would you recommend to someone who’s priorities are: SEO, ease of readability and navigation, monetization through adsense and affilaite programs, and quality of visual impact.
I’d greatly appreciate hearing your thoughts.
Cheers,
John
Whooops — this is the correct web address for the above — not that it’s critical to my comment or anything, but I may as well be correct huh?
John
Hi - I’ve been using the theme for a while now and I really like it. However, I’d like to widen it a bit and after tinkering with it I can’t seem to get it to look right. Has anyone else asked about how to widen the center column? I’d be interested to know… thanks!
I’m having the exact same issue over here Steve. I haven’t published my blog with the Neoclassical theme just because of that.
Chris, could you please help us.
Thanks
Hi Chris, I love this theme. Thank you so much!
I noticed someone up above was looking for tag support in NeoClassical. I’ve just written up a tutorial on how to modify this theme to support tags.
Chris, I followed the link you provided to explain the common misuse of categories and tags. I’m interested in using tags as you suggested—as folks used to use categories, while keeping an eye on the number. I am interested in displaying my tags though—would you be willing to clarify the SEO issues involved in displaying tags and tag clouds?
Thanks again, I’ve found your themes and articles to be the single most useful resource as I’ve been digging into WordPress.
Nadya
The Neoclassical Theme is fantastic! You did a great job and you’re really helpful! I love the huge header image! Thanks Chris:)
Very nice themes, I will be checking them out just as soon as I clean up after the neoclassical accident.
One suggestions: when you’re packing up the zip file, please include the parent folder. I just downloaded and unzipped the neoclassical.zip file and was greeted with a pile of loose files and folders instead of a single “neoclassical” folder with all of its contents. Messy, messy in my “themes” folder.
While I’m waiting for some info re my above questions, does anyone know if NeoClassical is optimized to ensure search robots read the center column FIRST after the header area? Unless optimized for that, the robots would read and prioritize the left column first and of course that would hurt the content’s SEO.
I know how to check for that in a table-based design (an empty table above the left table), but I have no knowledge of CSS.
Thanks,
John
John — Personally, I only feel that a 3-column layout is necessary if you simply must accommodate more elements above a certain “fold” on the page. By its very nature, a 3-column layout is going to introduce a higher degree of visual density, and I think this is something that should be avoided unless it’s absolutely critical to the success of the layout.
As for your other questions, let’s start from the top:
Hi Chris,
Thanks for your response to my questions. Your comments have helped my decision making quite a bit.
Can I ask also for your thoughts on my last comment question (immediately above your last comment) regarding the optimization for the center column priority over the left column, for search engine crawls?
I really like the readability of your themes. The way you use typography reminds me of the individual article pages on the New York Times web site. Whenever I go there I appreciate that my eye falls comfortably on the type.
I think the only thing I would customize for myself if I went with NeoClassical, is to change the rotating header for a static logo image, as I will be using images with the posts.
Thanks again,
John
Steve & Gustavo — Widening the theme implies making sweeping CSS changes that will be different depending upon how you choose to widen and/or contract the three columns.
Because of this unpredictably dynamic situation, I’d recommend having a reasonably good base of CSS knowledge before attempting to adjust layout widths. I wish it were easier, but unfortunately, it’s just not the case.
Nadya — Under the current default WordPress setup, displaying tags and tag clouds greatly increases the number of followed links on a given page of your site, thus weakening both the clarity and individual authority of other links on the page.
At this time, there are so many inlinking options on blogs that one can literally link oneself out of commission. From a usability perspective, adding more and more links is a nightmare because it negatively affects people’s ability to view your site in a spatial context.
Even though your site may only have 80 pages, hordes of inlinks make it seem as though the user has thousands of navigational options on your site. Although that may seem like something you’d want, this is where basic human psychology kicks in.
If you present people with just a few options, they can easily make a choice and usually have no trouble doing so. However, give them tons of options (and little time to make a decision, like life on the Web), and in addition to feelings of being overwhelmed, many people won’t make a decision at all.
Essentially, this entire debate boils down to proper information design. Without a doubt, tags work for sites like del.icio.us and Technorati, but in all honesty, they have no business on an overwhelming majority of sites run on platforms like WordPress. They are an unrefined, extremely subjective way of browsing content, and people know it. Thus, they become less useful in this context, and when you couple this with the fact that they contribute to link saturation, I just simply cannot recommend using tags.
John — Neoclassical features a streamlined, semantically-sound HTML structure that is almost perfectly optimized for high-impact, in-site SEO. Naturally, the content is served first in the markup, followed by the two sidebars (first the left, then the right).
In order to tell if a site is properly structured in this manner, all you have to do is view the source and see where the content is served in the HTML. If it occurs before the sidebars and footer, then you’re looking at a markup structure that is at least somewhat compliant with established standards and best practices.
Thanks Chris.
I just checked the NeoClassical theme home page using the Linx browser (text only), which simulates the robots read of the page, and sure enough, as you say, the center column is served first. Don’t know why I didn’t think of that method of checking before.
Good stuff,
John
Hello, Chris
Thanks for the beautiful theme.
I have one question though: how can I get rid of those 2 thin vertical lines separating sidebars? I messed with stylesheet for a while, but couldn’t figure out where are they.
Any hints would be very much appreciated.
Thanks,
Boris
Hello Chris,
Made my first blog site over the holidays using your wonderful theme. Thank you so much! Learning things one step at a time but now have a foot in the door. Again thanks for your hard work and for helping people in this forum.
My site is http://www.cityfarmer.info
Hi Chris,
Love the clean simplicity of this theme! I’m in the process of making a few minor modifications and I was hoping you could help me out. These requests are probably extremely basic, but so is my knowledge of CSS.
Can I easily change the font and size of the blog name/masthead? I’d like it to be just a tiny bit more prominent and a tad more decorative. Logic tells me that I should be able to just go into the stylesheet to make this change, but I’m a little hesitant in case I screw up.
Update: I figured out the masthead question, but I am having difficulty with the post titles. Would you mind clarifying what each header number represents? h1, h2, h3, h4
Also, I’d like to change the post font - how is it identified?
Hi Cat,
Do you use firefox as a browser. If not, get it right now and then add an extension called Firebug to it. This extension will show you all the tags on a live page. You can actually edit a live page and see what happens. I find this very useful and has helped me do a lot of minor changes to the css. No more guessing games, atleast for me. Hope that helps
I’ve had a great time using this theme but have another quick question:
What is the appropriate code to insert in the CSS file (and where should it go) to put some space between images in posts? I tried the solution listed at the URL below, but it doesn’t seem to work with this template:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/111289
Thanks!
Chris,
I’m learning tons as I go along, but I’m still having some difficulties.
Through this ‘journey’ I’m learning about fonts and why we should use certain ones - easier readability being one reason, but the other main reason is because not everyone who views our sites has the ability to view all fonts. ie. Just because I have loaded a certain font for my use, doesn’t mean Joe Schmoe next door has that font. Therefore, we try to use fonts that are relatively standard or very similar.
Somewhere in one of your comment sections, I’m sure I read something about using an image for a logo. It turns out that this is what I’m going to need to do to have my ‘pretty’ logo be readable/viewable. I think I’m part way there. I’ve created an image of my blog name using the font and color I wanted, saved it as a gif, uploaded it via FTP to the images file of neoclassical and now I’d like to insert it in place of the existing logo. I can get my image to show up, but it is showing up on top of the original blog name. How do I get rid of the original logo? What am I missing here?
I do use Firefox and grabbed the Firebug extension. (Thanks Vinay!)
Also, just out of curiosity, is there any way to combine all of the comments from all of posts about the neoclassical theme in one central area? Kind of like a general help/reference area. I’ve found the information contained in the comments to be very helpful, but because they are spread out in different locations and over multiple posts it is difficult/confusing to go back to find something specific. Or am I the only one who is confused?
Any info. or assistance you can provide would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!
Chris,
Another question:
How do I align banners in the sidebars. I’ve added one to the left sidebar which looks okay, but the one I added to the right sidebar needs to be centred. I’ve tried several different things that haven’t worked.
I promise this will be my last question! (for today at least)
Something strange has happened. The banner that I added to the left sidebar is also appearing on my about page.
The question: What have I done?!
Let me know your thoughts please.
Thank you.
Hi Cat,
You can use the edit button on Firebug to edit the html and the css to add banners/ images etc. I use the inspect button on firebug and rollover the item on the webpage. It shows the corresponding css and html. modify the padding to get the banner right.
Inspect first .. then edit… give that a go.
Hi Vinay,
How do you save your edits?
i don’t think you are able to save the edits.
But the way i do it is, i see what the edits do and have the css/ html open in another tab and save the changes in the dashboard.
Vinay,
How do I open the css/html in another tab?
What I mean is log into your wordpress dashboard in another tab and go into “theme editor” and edit the css in there
Hello,
I am a big fan of your work as it is extremely appealing. But I have a problem. I have a few pages I created once. The problem is that the pages don’t get displayed on my blog while using CopyBlogger or Neoclassical. Can you tell me how to get around this as those pages are extremely important and need to be displayed on my blog (http://shriphani.com/blog).
Hello Shriphani,
Take a look the instructions: http://www.pearsonified.com/theme/copyblogger/header-navigation-links/
Apply those to Neoclassical to the part where you want pages to be shown e.g. nav_left module.
H.
Hello,
So I very much a newbie at blogging and wordpress so I think I’m just missing something very simple. ‘mI just getting started at setting up my Neoclassical theme. I love the header and it’s working great. I would like to create my About page and I just can’t figure out how to make it work.
I know how to create new pages in Wordpress and have them show up in the sidebar by adding the pages widget to the left or right side. But I’m having problems with making the current links under “Navigation” work. When I click on About I’m just taken to an error page. How do I make the current “About” link to an actual page. I’m at a loss as to how to do it and have been searching the Wordpress support pages for hours now.
Thanks for any helpful insight!
Hi Chris & Everyone:
I just started using the Neoclassical Theme.
I would like to add an *Archive* page that would be a link under the Navigation Section.
1) I created a page called Archives
2) I added the page to the nav_menu.php
3) The links shows up under Navigation (top left column)
4) NO ARCHIVES.
Please help… Can someone explain how to generate the archives?
Thanks.
Roz
I also have the same problem as Roz. Both this and the CopyBlogger theme display 404 when you try and load the archives. I could live without this as I just want an archive for each category but I also get a 404 when trying to view page 2 of a category listing.
E.g. I go to URL myblog.com/news/2/ or myblog.com/category/news/2/ and I get a 404 instead of seeing page 2 of the news category.
When I revert back to the default WP theme everything works, does anyone have a suggestion?
Update to my above post.. the page 2 navigation was some of my manual mod_rewrites.
Jazz and All:
RE: Archives
The problem with using the widgets is that IF you want to use *just one* widget element you can’t. Once you put one widget element (I am not sure what you call them) in a sidebar, the default elements for that sidebar disappear and you have to use the widgets for all.
My point… If we wanted to create the archives using the widget we would have to do the entire sidebar in widgets and then the search box looks crummy as it defaults to whatever. It is not the nice one the Chris designed as the default.
I would even be happy with a site map with categories, etc.
Hope this makes sense. I have been here too long and need some sleep.
It is beyond me why the archives do not work, cause the page I created for the archives shows up, but it is empty.
Thanks in advance for the help.
Roz
For everyone having trouble with the Archives page, make sure to go into your Manage Pages within WordPress and, for the Archives page, select its Page Template as Archives. If you do not do this, WordPress defaults to using a blank page template. The template settings are on the right “sidebar” under Manage Pages.
I do not use Neoclassical … I use Chris’ Copyblogger instead, but the archives scheme works the same on both.
[...] Release Page | More Information [...]
Thanks Bruce, that fixed my problem.
My problem was two fold and in case anyone else is wondering why the Archives template doesn’t show in the list.. I’d made my own theme using this as a starting point and had accidentally removed the comment in the archives file that is needed for WP to show the template in the list.
Bruce:
*Thank You* so very much!
That fixed my archive problem.
I am a bit new to this customizing stuff.
I would have used the Widgets, but then I lose the spiffy seach box that Chris made.
Would I have been able to do this by placing code in the sidebars? If so, where would I find this code… it would be nice to know. (I can read and write HTML, so I am not at a complete loss for that kind of stuff, I am just not familiar with PHP and the like.)
Thanks again. I now have an Archive.
I will be honest, I do like the idea about having the archives on a different page and perhaps later will make it a sitemap.
I gave Chris’ comments about cluttering up the main page of the blog with the archives and I have to agree, it is better on another page with just a link.
I just wanted it someplace in case someone wanted it.
Thanks Bruce and thanks Chris for such a fabulous theme. NeoClassical is great!
Roz
Roz and Jazz,
Glad to help. As for adding code to the sidebar, the WordPress codex gives several good examples of how to modify coding in the sidebar or elsewhere, using such functions as is_home() to limit something to being shown on the sidebar only in the home page view, and so on. There are tons of good examples floating around on the web. Just takes a bit of time to sort through it all, but I have learned a lot by just searching. Still far from a guru, but I get the job done for my needs.
Best to you.
I am learning too as I go. It is just hard to get help sometimes.
I had originally tried to use Cutline, but I wanted it to display on 800 x 600 for those who still used those settings. I, myself use 1028 x 768.
Anyway… we fixed it to display at 800 x 600 is necessary, but then the comments went into the left margin and I did not know how to fix that. I tried, but whatever I did, did not work.
I put it to rest for awhile, and then found NeoClassical. I decided at that point if so many people were not that concerned about the horizontal scroll on the Blogs at 800 x 600, maybe it was time for me to give it a rest and move on.
Actually the horizontal scroll on NeoClassical is less than on Cutline.
So I started reading about NeoClassical and found a few of my questions answered in the notes.
I still have a few more questions, but will put them in a separate message if I can’t find the answers first.
Thanks Bruce and Everyone here, especially Chris for his generosity in allowing us the privilege of using such lovely themes free and making them so customizable. Chris’ added insight is also food for thought!
Have a good day.
Roz
I am not sure where to post this…
On NeoClassical I would like to make the top random images *active links* so that when anyone clicks on them it will take them to my website.
Can anyone tell me how to do this?
TIA.
Roz
I just installed the NeoClassical Theme on my new site. I really like the clean fresh look. As an artist, simplicity is key. Some questions.
1. In the Navigation area, there are two links, how do I get the About link to work? or t create links to addditional pages?
2. In a similiar vein and for simplicity, it would look really great in the links were above the header image, is there a way to change that?
thanks, and I do like all your themes, but this one is the best
susan b
Hi Susan:
Fabulous artwork.
To do the About page:
1) Log into the WP Dashboard
2) Choose MANAGE
3) PAGE
4) Create New Page
5) Name the page About
6) Save
That should get the About page activated in this case as the l ink is already in the Navigation Coding.
—————————————–
The file to edit to add new links is:
nav_menu.php
It is in the NeoClassical folder / make a copy of the file first / good to backup the entire blog before making changes you are unfamiliar with.
Look at the code in nav_menu.php and it should become clear as to what to do.
Copy and paste one of the lines of code and change the code to the appropriate name of the page you are creating.
I am just learning as I go. Everyone here has been very helpful. I am glad I got a chance to give back for all the help I got.
I have not added my own images yet as I have been trying to get the Blog to do what I wanted first.
Hope this helps.
Roz
Hi Roz,
thank you for getting back to me so fast
thank you for your help,
creating a new link was easy, getting a page to work notso good,
I created the new page, but would it still won’t link correctly from the navigation section, though it showed up in the sidebar widget called Pages.
so now i am stuck.
glad you like my art
susan
Susan:
Sorry, I know how frustrating it can be. I had enough issues of my own, but I finally got what I needed to work with the Navigation Links. IF I were able to get the fancy Seach Box, I would just use the Widgets.
How I did it was:
Here is the code in the nav_menu.php
<a href=”/contact/” rel=”nofollow”>Contact
1) You need to create the Page first: DashBoard/Manage/Pages/Create Page.
2) Create the page Contact
3) Then code the link in the nav_menu.php
(Copy the link above EXACTLY.)
4) Save the file nav_menu.php and upload it to the server via FTP
See if you can click on the CONTACT link now successfully. IF so…
THEN go back into nav_menu.php and CHANGE the code like this:
<a href=”/contact/” rel=”nofollow”>Contact Me
Save the file and re-upload it to the server via http://FTP.
Now go back to the Dashboard/Manage/Pages/Edit (the Contact Page)
CHANGE Contact to Contact Me
Save!
That should work. It seems a convoluted way to do it, but when I did it like that I got it to work.
Let me know.
Roz
CORRECTION:
Susan, when I copied (probably when I edited it here) and pasted I left off the end of the code line. I am not sure how I did that.
First step…
<a href=”/contact/” rel=”nofollow”>Contact
On the second step CHANGE to:
<a href=”/contact/” rel=”nofollow”>Contact Me
Sorry, I am not sure how that happened.
Roz
That’s really odd, I had the code correct apparently initially, but when it saved here it left some of it out, so I did not do it incorrectly.
If you want Susan, write to me through email and I will send you the code as I wrote it.
Sorry,
Roz
Roz, I keep trying to make it work, and it’s not happening. Could you resend me the code, and I will try one more time.
thanks
susan
Susan:
The code would not paste in here. I treid three times yesterday.
Contact me via email and I will try again.
I only know what worked for me, after many tries. But I could not paste the entire code here for some reason. The Blog stripped out most of it.
Go to my Blog… http://www.SayItWithEcards.com/blog
Click the Contact Roz link in the Navigation bar and send me an email. I will respond back in email.
Sorry for your frustation. I went through the same thing until I finally got it to work.
Roz
why is it not loading categories or tags to each post ?
Hey Chris,
I installed the neoclassical them at http://xokmax.com/ingles-em-30-dias/ but the comment box is longer than the page. Ho can I get a comment box like this…or the one you have on your neoclassical theme page?
Thanks in advance,
David
Hello Chris,
great theme.
Good to see your excellent site online again:-) Hope you got the message via facebook.
The trouble I experience with the neoclassical theme makes me a little sad. I already reinstalled it a few minutes ago hoping to fix it, but….
WP 2.3.4 / neoclassical theme
When opening it in Firefox or IE (or Opera sometimes) the leftbar, text, right bar and footer are not in place. The right bar is extreme on the left, followed by the left bar, then the text field and the footer on the right with the link to open education.org.
If I select one of the links, it is in shape again.
The reinstall didn’t help to fix it.
What might be the problem: I tried to add another page to the provided navigation bar - a contact page. While executing this hack I noticed that it provided this contact page, but with some additional text, (I remember \par something, which I didn’t insert, when hacking the nav_menu.php. So I put the original nav_menu.php in place hoping to fix it that way.
Since this incidence I experience this “broken” website structure. What can I do to make it as pretty again as it should be - and stable?
Thank you
Andrew
well first of all thanks for this wordpress theme as Disnan said i also encounter this problem on categories. i hope someone here can give as a good answer..
Hi All - could anyone clarify that this theme is a fully wordpress compliant theme as I am having problems with a plugin that is conflicting with this theme. The plugin developer believes its the theme not his plugin that is the problem and want to fix it either way.
I have finally found time and adapted the theme for my website ! Changed the color scheme to fit my newly made logo. I have added 11 headers till now, adding more later. Don’t you just Loove the typography !
Hello Chris! I love your template! I’ve spent some time customizing it to my liking, which is easy thanks to the very clean code you made.
I have a few questions regarding more customization:
#1: I was able to change the white background, links colors, typographies and other things by toying around the “style.css” distributed in the theme. What I wasn’t able to do his change the color of the center column where posts and content is usually shown? Is there anyway to customize this area?
#2: Is there a way to replace the text logo (the one that names the blog) by an image?
Thank you! Continue your great work!
Nicolas -RE: #2 - try this ….. comment out some/ all the code in header.php > div - masthead using upload the php file again. (I commented all of it out)
Then go to your style sheet - find “#masthead {” - then add - background-image: url(../../uploads/Logos/your logo.gif);
(this is an example)
upload this … you should see your new logo minus the text.
RE:#1 find the content sections with in your style sheet and have a play around this to add a background colour
hope this helped in some way … ; )
G.
How do I add navigation that links to an outside url? For example, I want to link to my flickr page by adding Flickr to the nav.
Thanks for the help!
You can use a flickr plugin and / or add a link in the nav_menu.php
copy a line and paste it underneath - eg
a href=”/about-us/” title=”about-us”>about-us (minus the html code)
take out /about-us/ between the semi colons and add any url between the ” s
this should work
eg
a href=”http://wadsworthquads.com/about-us/” title=”about-us”>about-us (minus the html code)
hope this helps
G
Graham, not sure if you meant to do it that way, but your *quotation marks* are going the wrong way on the left.
Roz
duhh - Thanks for picking this up!!! red cheeks!!! i meant to write *quotation marks* (its too early in the morning ) and I copied the line of code from the nav_menu.php so they copied over like this. I did this to show as an example - not to copy!!!! thanks again G
Thanks Graham! Added links now it’s time to add my own photos.
No worries - any time!!
I’ve got another question. How do I add the post date to the individual post pages? The pressrow theme does this but I don’t see any differences in the page.php file.
Hi Graham:
I find it is very hard to copy and paste code here. The script does not accept it well.
The only reason I mentioned the backward quotes was because those who are not familiar might have thought it was supposed to be that way.
Thanks for helping.
Roz
I would like to have comments added to my Pages similar to the Cutline theme. Can anyone help me? I love the neoclassic theme and the header rotation is great.
thanks
Keith
Hi Keith:
You can use the Widgets, but be aware if you use the Widgets you need to choose *all* the items you want in “that” panel - left or right. You can’t just use one Widget and have the rest of the theme’s default stay in tact in that panel.
Perhaps someone else could tell you what code to insert in the default theme so you do not have to change anything else.
Also, when you use the Widgets the nice Search Box reverts back to the WordPress Search Box, but that can be fixed. The code is around here someplace.
I am not sure how much this helped, but I figured I would jump in and give some alternatives.
Roz
Thanks Roz:
I will give it a try.
Keith
I am pretty pumped. I uploaded cforms II a plugin for comments and it works like a charm. My first successful plugin. Feel like I may get this blog up and running pretty soon.
Keith
i have uploaded the templates and got some problem there
Hi - I just started using Neoclassical recently and love it. However, I was wondering is there a custom 404 error page for this theme? That is really the only thing I miss and I don’t know how to get one. The other theme I had used previously came with one.
Thank you for any help anyone can provide.
Well, I see that the theme does come with a 404.php page, it just doesn’t seem to be working with my installation. Can anyone help me figure out what may be going wrong? Again, I’ve had a custom 404.php file work with the previous theme I was using.
Thank you.
I would first try to upload it again but use good ftp up loader - I use filezilla and D.weaver - if this doesn’t work try unzip the file again then upload again . If this doesn’t do it I’d start at the beginning and download the theme again and go on from there… hope this helps in some way . G
Sorry for duplicate post! could you delete first one - Ta.
Well written article….you’ve got a great site!
I see lots of useful posts on your site. Nice.
No doubt your site will be my favorite one when it comes to blog posts.
Cheers
Chris, themes are great and thanks for that… I don’t know what theme would be best for me to use to make a site for my univ dept. Not really a blog, but I’d like to use WP. Banner, left nav bar, central content area. Any suggestions? I know only a bit of CSS but am willing to get my hands dirty… Thanks a million, Jeff.
Jeff: I use Neo classical for my seniors paper. Being a neophite I found it quite straight forward using a little help from the forums. It is features my contributers on pages and I have a personal blog as well.
Have a look to see if you like to see if the concept would work for you.
It may give an idea of what you can do.
Keith
Hi Chris,
I’m a newbie setting up my blog using Neoclassical. I love it. I just put my first post today. I am gathering photos. This will be great. My question; The left sidebar, Navigation drops to below my post. I would like to have items in the upper left side, either above or below Navigation — just like the right sidebar. I have been reading thru the comments and it seems I am not finding the answer. I understand your feelings about too much clutter, etc. But, I am wondering if it is possible to modify the code to get the theme to do what I would like? I apologize in advance if this issue has been addressed.
Michael
Hey, I’m loving your website and have been frequenting for several months. I’m mad about your dropcaps on your homepage and have tried my best creating the same thing on my website. I have Google my brains out over that one and have come up with variations on how to best do this, but I can’t get the alignment and spacing to match yours. Anyone know the best way to do this so that it’s browser happy and looks as elegant as Pearsonified’s does? Thanks!
Chris,
The .zip file for this theme contains all the separate files instead of having them in a “neoclassical” folder. This is a real pain with most hosting account software, and a potential showstopper for anyone not expert in unix file permissions, etc.
Other than that, great work! I’m using Cutline, Copyblogger, and now Neoclassical on various sites. Of the dozens of themes I’ve looked over, these are the best by far for out of the box SEO and typography. I’m anxious to see your next one — free or not!
Chris,
Have to say that I’m new to your work and loving Neoclassical. I just downloaded it and am trying to work within it. I do have one question…
When I migrated from Wp.com to .org, all of my posts and comments came through without a hitch. However, now with Neoclassical, the post comments show, but the page comments don’t. And, I’ve checked. Page comments are allowed. Any thoughts?
Ellen,
Not a pro here, but I have extensively modified CopyBlogger (not live yet though). Not sure what the files look like in NeoClassical, but my guess is that the page.php file does not call for the comment template to be loaded. It wouldn’t matter what you set within the WP Admin.
To get comments to show on pages, you’ll have to copy and paste the code for that into the page.php file. You’ll find the code in the single.php file. Scroll through single.php until you see something like: . Then copy and paste that into the page.php file. In CopyBlogger, I would place it right before this line: . Try and duplicate what you find that relates to comments in the single.php file into the page.php file. Just make note of any changes or backup the files before you change them.
Also note that you should be using an editor like EditPad lite or something similar before editing files, so you don’t add formatting to the files or delete any hidden carriage returns.
Good Luck,
John
Ellen,
I see that my lines of code didn’t show in the message. I guess you can’t paste code into these comments.
What you’ll look for in single.php is a line with the following words in it: “comments_template.” Copy and paste that line into the page.php file right above the line that contains the following word: “endwhile.”
As I said I’m no expert, but I have found my way around quite a bit, by such tinkering. It’s kinda fun really
I know how it feels to need an answer and then having to wait with no response, so I thought I’d offer what I can.
John
Thanks a lot for a beautiful minimalist theme for Wordpress. I use it for great effect on our news blog at the Danish Maritime Museum, and lots of people have already commented on the stylish look of the site, thanks to your great theme!
Hi Chris,
While I was adding a text widget and after I saved it in my dashboard I noticed that when I went back in to edit it again the text edit link disappeared from the text widget button . Any thoughts?
Thanks Jay
Hi Chris, just a question: is it possible to fiddle with the header so that it is a little higher, i.e. taller? I’ve installed the theme and love the look, but I’d prefer the image slightly larger (even though it is, of course, BIG). Thanks!
Alda - not sure of your technical ability but if you look at the style.css within the themes folder you can edit the hight of the header in there, or if you are even more adventurous you can edit it using the custom.css file !!
Good luck
G
Graham,
Thanks for the response - I’m pretty challenged when it comes to css (learning fast!); however I can find no header height in the stylesheet, but do see it in the stylesheet. On closer look there’s a file called rotating images - I’m assuming it’s there. Will try out. Thanks!
Oops, I meant to say I do see it in the page source!