The more time I spend digging around themes, the more I learn about WordPress, PHP, and CSS. I am consistently downloading themes that don’t work correctly with my Gallery2 plug-in. Don’t confuse this with the new, built-in WordPress gallery. This is the independent application with a plug-in that powers my photos page. With few exceptions, the themes I download consistently break the footer on my photo page or the sidebar on my library page generated by Now Reading. I really like the current theme, Fall Season 1.1, but the footer on the photo page was not playing well with the plug-in. For a while, I wanted to blame the two previously mentioned plug-ins, but they both play well with WordPress Default theme. That fact lead me to the logical conclusion that the themes are broken. I have also started to “fix” the themes that don’t come with dynamic (changeable) sidebars. I downloaded Fresh Editorial today looked to be dynamic when I grabbed it, the proper code was in place for the functions file, but was absent in the sidebar file. I think I understand why, it was a bit complicated to make the sidebar look the same after updating it, but with a little tweaking, it would be possible. I have chosen not to spend more time on it at this point, as their site doesn’t support FireFox 3 so i am unable to leave comments unless I visit their site with Internet Explorer. See comments for why I was unable to leave a comment. I also found a wonderful Christmas theme, Winter Red. Winter Red will need tweaking as both the library page and the photo page are seriously out of whack.
All this to say I think I am the only one getting anything out of metablogging, but in the hopes that someone else using WordPress and these themes happens to search for how to fix things, I’d like to have an answer for them.
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Tags: plug-in, plugin, theme, WordPress
Hey Debra,
In reference to the site not supporting Firefox 3- were you talking about BrightCherry.co.uk?
I’ve tested the site with all browsers (including FF3), and everything seems to be accessible. It would be interesting to find out what problems you’re experiencing.
If you’re having problems with the dynamic sidebar, just let me know. We offer free support with all our released themes.
Kind regards,
Maruf.
[Reply]
debra reply on September 4th, 2008 12:11 pm:
Yes, yesterday when I attempted to leave a comment on the post about Fresh Editorial, I was unable to view the comment section. When I opened the site in Internet Explorer, the comment section was just fine.
[Reply]
That’s odd.
I was working on the comments file yesterday, so perhaps you looked at it in FF3 while I was uploading the new file. Extremely odd though, because that would have been pin-point timing, to the millisecond.
Can you just check if you’re still having the problem now.
Many thanks
[Reply]
debra reply on September 4th, 2008 4:42 pm:
It seems to be working now. I must have tried when you were updating the files. I know I tried a few times over a 3-5 minute period. I even tried again after I saw that it worked in IE before deciding it was a FF3 problem. On to the dynamic sidebar, I’d love to use the theme with widgets. I think the sidebar.php file is missing a statement like this: < ?php
if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar() ) : ?>
However, when I put it in, the css style is out of whack. And the categories are a bit out of sorts as well. I have waaaayyy to many categories to actually display, so I could go in to the header.php file and limit the level to show, but I’m afraid there are still too many to be dealt with properly. They start to go over and under the header graphic. In IE, they stretch across the top and then begin to fill the sidebar, pushing intro & actual sidebar further down the page.
[Reply]
First thing is first, let’s tackle the category issue. You’re right, you have a lot of categories. Perhaps it would be better to list them in your sidebar. Would you be happy with that?
[Reply]
debra reply on September 4th, 2008 5:49 pm:
I don’t usually list my categories because there are so many, I would be fine removing it, or subbing in the search bar. I tried moving the search bar in up to the white bar with a right alignment, but the icon didn’t stay placed correctly
[Reply]
Let me know if this version works better: fresh-editorial-1.6
[Reply]
debra reply on September 4th, 2008 11:06 pm:
Yes, 1.6 solves the category problems and makes the sidebar dynamic, thank you ever so much for the quick response. I really liked the style (white rectangle) and wrap (dark gray border) on the “standard” sidebar. Those seem to be missing if I choose the dynamic sidebar option. Is there a way to get those back?
[Reply]
No worries at all.
Yup, the wrap should be pretty straight forward to apply to your dynamic sidebar. Just make the theme live, so I can grab all the new elements, and then i’ll give you a new CSS stylesheet that will fix that problem.
Just leave me a comment on my blog when the theme is live, and i’ll come over and grab the code I need.
[Reply]