Another New Theme? Or, What I’ve Been Doing – 38

38 Comments ↓

#Hafiz Dhanani  at 4:55 pm on Mar 29, 2008

Looks great Chris!

I’m going to stick with your free themes for now though.

#Link Building Bible  at 12:38 am on Mar 30, 2008

Hopefully once the site launches we could get some more posts. I’ll just stick to digging through the archives for some awesome gems.

#Shane  at 7:21 am on Mar 30, 2008

I shall become a DIYr for sure.

Rock on C

Shane

#Adam Kayce  at 1:07 pm on Mar 31, 2008

Clean, man… that’s clean. The relationship to Neoclassical is clear, but Thesis looks wonderful. Congratulations (on DIYT and Thesis).

#Lisa  at 3:12 pm on Mar 31, 2008

Congrats on the new venture, Chris.

Quick Q:

Do you have any guidelines for the image size (the source actual size) when you have a dynamically resizeable page like the new Thesis theme? This is, is the best practice to optimize the image a bit larger than it will typically appear at the default, so that when the page is sized larger, the image retains good detail? Or are there other factors to consider when sizing images with ems? TIA.

#Chris P.  at 3:37 pm on Mar 31, 2008

Lisa — Generally speaking, images you insert in posts aren’t going to be dynamically resized like other elements of the theme. This is the case because their sizes are controlled with HTML (through the highly-recommended use of the width and height attributes) instead of CSS.

So, to answer your question, it would be best to simply optimize for the theme’s default settings, unless you know that you will always be posting one standard image size.

Either way, you can use the following guidelines for image sizing with Thesis:

• full-width images with frames — 458 px
• full-width images without frames — 480 px

#Lisa  at 3:47 pm on Mar 31, 2008

Thanks for the quick answer, Chris.

I should have specified that I was speaking of the rotating header images only.

#Stu  at 7:05 pm on Apr 1, 2008

Chris,

Congrats and Kudos. Hope this is a success for you.

I’m using Cutline (although not sure that it’s you doing it now?) on my blog. Just wanted to say thanks for the amazing work you did with that.

Cheers

#raf  at 7:45 am on Apr 3, 2008

hi chris…

no possibility to use the actual theme u are using on your website…? it’s amazing…

i love all the colours and the elegance of it…

all other themes are without elegant colors, and i’m not able to create them… but the way u did in your website is gorgeous…

#Chris P.  at 8:39 am on Apr 3, 2008

raf — While I probably won’t be offering this particular theme for download anytime soon, I will be offering custom mods for Thesis in the near future.

Some of these mods will feature vibrant color palettes like the one used on this site, so hopefully, that will satisfy your desire to add a little color to your theme!

#raf  at 8:48 am on Apr 3, 2008

thanks for the fast answer Chris…

i really love your work… i think this theme is one of the best i have ever seen… just brilliant… yeah, i can say… it’s the best… and it’s better without any images (i see in this way ’cause i use adblock for safari)

now i’m using neoclassical, and i really love its simplicity, and elegance…
i checked your new thesis theme, i like it, but actually it’s too much similar to neoclassical for me (or better: i can’t see any difference usable by me)… and i’m not able to work with css and so on…

so i’ll stay with neoclassical… even because i searched and i think it’s even better of any other not-free wp themes…

waiting for your mods
and always thanks!

#Peppin  at 10:01 am on Apr 3, 2008

Hi Chris,

After a long search i crashed into your site and.. wow! It looks really cool!
This summer i’m starting a photo/video/news blog. I think Thesis is just perfect. Only there’s this tiny thing: I saw this ‘feature article slider’ (http://www.wp-magazine.com) that I really want on my blog. You think it’s possible to integrate this or a similar feature in Thesis?

I’m already learning al lot about blogging. Thanx for that!
Hope to hear from you.

#Chris P.  at 10:30 am on Apr 3, 2008

Peppin — In time, I will be releasing free snippets of code that people can use to further customize their Thesis installations. I haven’t yet produced a “slider” like this, but I will certainly consider something similar for my customized code recommendations.

#Lisa  at 12:31 pm on Apr 3, 2008

Just as an FYI, there are wonderful sliding widgets available at http://www.projectseven.com

I’ve used them on many of my sites and the code is ingenious, reliable, standards-compliant and accessible.

Not sure how WordPress mods would work, though.

#Dave  at 5:56 pm on Apr 3, 2008

Chris, another winner in the books.

Wondering if it would be easy to throw in some of those 125 X 125 ads spots right below the photo.

#Bruce Keener  at 7:20 pm on Apr 3, 2008

Chris
Re: “Some of these mods will feature vibrant color palettes like the one used on this site, so hopefully, that will satisfy your desire to add a little color to your theme!”

Super! I look forward to seeing what you roll out.

#bimus  at 1:27 pm on Apr 4, 2008

off topic:
wow ! i like your wp theme. i would like to have one like yours. nice

#Chris P.  at 12:30 pm on Apr 5, 2008

Dave — Adding content beneath the photo is a snap. In right_side.php, locate the following line of code:

<div id="sidebars">

You may want to try placing code both before and after the above line for experimentation purposes, but either way will result in content appearing beneath the rotating image.

#Daniel  at 11:03 pm on Apr 5, 2008

Hey Chris, Love the new theme. I’m upgrading my site-investedcitizens.org-up to 2.5 and switching over to thesis from neoclassical. Any way to get the code for the top login bar from the demo page? Keep up the good work.

#Chris P.  at 11:42 am on Apr 6, 2008

Daniel — The login bar code is tied into Amember (and not WordPress), which is the administrative software I use to run the DIY Themes Marketplace. Because of this, it wouldn’t do any good to share the code, and moreover, I think there might be a pretty solid niche market for it that I’ll be exploring soon

#Daniel  at 8:56 am on Apr 7, 2008

Thanks Chris. I’ll checkout Amember and can’t wait to see what else is coming for Thesis. Great work!

#Tony  at 9:36 am on Apr 8, 2008

Hi Chris,

Bought your theme as it looks splendid. One quick question - is there an option to display all pages on the navigation bar as only the home and about page appear by default?

cheers
Tony

#daniel  at 10:18 am on Apr 8, 2008

tony, you need to modify the nav_menu.php file under theme editor. Copy the code for the ‘about’ page. Then paste and modify as often as you like. Don’t know if theres another way, but that worked for me.

#Tony  at 4:34 pm on Apr 8, 2008

cheers Daniel - I’ll edit the code

#Lisa  at 1:34 pm on Apr 10, 2008

Chris — I think I’ve fixed the blog-won’t-display-in-IE7 problem. It appears to have been a combination of server particulars (only affects WordPress bloggers using host servers running IIS) and the transition to WP 2.5. There’s a snippet of code in the wp-settings file from the 2.3 install that didn’t carry over into the 2.5 file. I find that when I added this back in (leaving all the other new code in the settings file for 2.5 alone) my blog now loads in IE7.

#Bruce Keener  at 1:51 pm on Apr 10, 2008

Lisa - I sure would like to know what line you are talking about so I can make sure I have it, too.

#Lisa  at 3:47 pm on Apr 10, 2008

In the wp-settings.php file of the 2.3 install (in the root installation folder), it’s lines 39-43.

These should be positioned just after line 68 in the wp-settings.php file for 2.5.

Cautionary Notes™ — your mileage may vary / don’t edit code files with MS Word or any other program that isn’t meant for plain text editing / create backup copies FIRST and put them in a safe place outside of your installation folders / don’t blame me if you gank your install / good luck

#Lisa  at 12:37 pm on Apr 11, 2008

Cautionary notes continued: I would advise against making the above changes to your wp-settings file. Further testing shows it creates a problem with the admin dashboard. Until WordPress folk patch the file themselves, the choice seems to be to revert to WP 2.3, not host WP 2.5 on a Microsoft server (IIS is the problem; this issue doesn’t come up on Apache or Linux servers), or live with the fact that that if you do, your site will be AWOL in IE7. And, again, none of this has anything to do with Chris’ great themes. Sorry for taking up space in the discussion…

#Kiley  at 1:36 pm on Apr 11, 2008

Chris, sorry to put this in the comments, but couldn’t find an e-mail for you. I’m using your cutline 3-column theme and love it, thanks a bunch. But quick question–I want to put an ad after the top post, before the second post and can’t find where to put the code. Could you (or one of your fine commenters) show me the right place? Thanks.

#linbug  at 5:36 am on Apr 14, 2008

Hi Chris. I haven’t studied much here (although its the best I’ve seen even if lots is over my head) so this might be out of context. Nevertheless, I just had to tell you that I’m gobsmacked at my Google rankings since I changed to your Cutline Wordpress theme. For all 3 of the search terms that I casually checked last night, my blog made PAGE ONE OF GOOGLE! Ranked 1st, 3rd and 5th. I’m totally blown away. Even got me in some sort of “grouped” Wordpress links which meant I got listed *3 times* on that first page for one of them! I’m just racing around doing some tweaking now. I figure its gotta be worth the extra effort. I seem to be getting rankings that others struggle months and years for, and it happened overnight and almost without my knowledge. Thanks.

#Chris  at 10:59 am on Apr 17, 2008

Is there any rough eta on the mods to add colours, etc? I’m using Thesis as the basis for a refresh of my website and would love to be able to take advantage of any additional graphics you create!

Thanks, keep up the great work

#Javier [EmaStudios]  at 9:28 pm on Apr 23, 2008

Hi Chris,
That’s very chevere my friend, muy bien!
Looks amazing even on my EEEpc (small screen and all); this blog the same. Love the wordpress theme too, working on one of my own!

Javier

#John  at 8:46 pm on Apr 30, 2008

As long as you are following web standards you claiming a certain design is more SEO friendly is completely and utterly false - and I feel bad for the people who think that your DESIGN is what is helping them and not their own content. Based on the other comments I have seen you leave on other websites Mr. Pearson you sound like a complete bafoon.

Anyone that knows a damn thing about search engine optimization will let you know that the design DOES NOT MATTER (unless you are just throwing a jumbled mess at the spiders). However, a GREAT design (eye appealing) will often lead to external links which WILL improve your ranking. You do not include any of this information in your page claiming it will make a person’s website better by using your theme. What matters is hierarchy, organization, and most importantly unique and key content. Claiming that your design will improve a person’s search engine rank should come with a disclaimer because that is a farce.

The fact that this: “SEO: the degree to which your code and content are organized and optimized for both search engines and people” is your definition of SEO really bothers me and makes me sorry that people are buying something from somebody so uneducated.

#John  at 8:51 pm on Apr 30, 2008

Also, your theme is not dynamically resizable. It is statically sized. What you are referring to by “dynamically resizable” is called a “fluid design”. Look it up.

#Chris P.  at 8:55 pm on Apr 30, 2008

John — If I wanted to refer to a fluid design, I would have done so. Obviously, the design is not fluid, but it can be dynamically resized by the user. Bigger, smaller—it all works. It’s dynamic.

Nice site, btw. Of course, it would have been nice for you to provide some more information to back up your asshattery, but I suppose that would’ve been too much work. Enjoy the rest of my site, as I can see you’re obsessed.

#John  at 9:06 pm on Apr 30, 2008

Chris P. — I just found your site about 20 minutes ago after reading a comment you left on another website. After reading through a number of articles on your homepage here I am sorry for over-reacting but you should not be giving out advice such as you have been because it is not true. Google does not release the way their spiders work, nor Yahoo, nor any of the other major search engines. From what any of us working with the W3C since 1997 will tell you is that moving towards standards and using key content is the only way to “help” search engine spiders. Aside from that, the website popularity “ranking” which is based on a number of factors including the number of websites linking to your own will determine your location in search engine results. This is about all the information Google will give out about how their engine works - even though it is much more complicated.

Best of luck!

#Mike  at 4:42 pm on May 1, 2008

Chris,

Are you available for site designs?

Thanks,

Mike

#Chris P.  at 10:16 pm on May 1, 2008

Mike — No, but thanks for asking!

Hoot and/or Holler ↓