Problems with Wordpress themes....

[Old Hack]

I'm verrrry slowly building myself a website, based on Wordpress. I want a nice clean layout, in calm colours: I've tried several Wordpress themes, and the one which seems most suitable so far is Carrington Blog.

However, there are problems (which might be clearer if you look at that little linky thing I've provided).

First up: there are things I don't like about Carrington. I don't want to have the categories showing up in that paler bar in the header: I want them in a sidebar, and then only on the Blog page. I want to get rid of that big "subscribe" button, and change the heading on that wide sidebar box.

Second: if I set the blog to open at a particular page, it causes problems--it opens OK, but then if I click away from the home page and then try clicking back to it, I get a "404 error page not found" message. The solution is to not set a page for the blog to open at--but then it opens at a mostly-blank screen.

I've been advised by several people now to use Thesis, but I'd have to pay out a whole lot of wonga for that and I'd really prefer to keep this as low-cost as possible: it earns me no money to speak of, so I really can't justify any more expense.

So: can anyone suggest a better theme, or tell me how to work round my problems? I would be very grateful.

[Medievalist]

I haven't installed your theme, but I suspect that some of your issues are resolvable by looking at the Appearance-->Widget settings on your WP Dashboard.

Others might require more heavy lifting, in the form of editing the various template's CSS.

The way that WP is installed, your entire site is WP.

That means that the top page of your site is the WP page at the root level of your site.

That top blank page IS the top page of your site.



In other words, you need to have all the site navigation built into your side Bar. Your top /current latest blog post will be the top page of your site.

[squibnocket]

I tried Thesis and didn't like it. I feel cheated out of that 80-something dollars! I've also used Carrington blog in the past. It's a bit of a pain to customize.

Remove subscribe button:
1. Go to the theme's /sidebar/ folder.
2. Open sidebar-default.php in your editor
3. Remove the following code

<div id="carrington-subscribe" class="widget">
        <h2 class="widget-title"><?php _e('Subscribe', 'carrington-blog'); ?></h2>
        <a class="feed alignright" title="RSS 2.0 feed for posts" rel="alternate" href="<?php bloginfo('rss2_url') ?>">
            <img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/img/rss-button.gif" alt="<?php printf( __( '%s latest posts', 'carrington' ), wp_specialchars( get_bloginfo('name'), 1 ) ) ?>" title="<?php printf( __( '%s latest posts', 'carrington' ), wp_specialchars( get_bloginfo('name'), 1 ) ) ?>" />
        </a>
    </div>

4. Save your .php file. Upload. Voila.

Now for the categories. Are you familiar with widgets? That's the easiest way to put categories (or anything else) into the sidebar.

If you want categories directly coded directly into the sidebars:
1. Open up sidebar-default.php again.
2. You have 2 choices for placement, right sidebar or left. Left sidebar is under "<div id="primary-sidebar"> " and the right is under "<div id="secondary-sidebar">".
3. Wherever you want the categories to appear, insert:

<?php wp_list_categories(); ?>

4. Remove the category list from the top bar. Go to the /header/ folder. Open header-default.php.
5. Remove the following code to get rid of the categories:

<div id="all-categories">
					<strong id="all-categories-title"><?php _e('Categories:', 'carrington-blog'); ?></strong>
					<ul class="nav clearfix">
						<?php wp_list_categories('title_li='); ?>
					</ul>
				</div>

If you want to remove that entire bar (including the search bar) take out:

<div id="sub-header" class="section">
			<div class="wrapper">
				<?php cfct_form('search'); ?>
				<div id="all-categories">
					<strong id="all-categories-title"><?php _e('Categories:', 'carrington-blog'); ?></strong>
					<ul class="nav clearfix">
						<?php wp_list_categories('title_li='); ?>
					</ul>
				</div><!-- #list-categories -->
			</div><!-- .wrapper -->
		</div><!--#sub-header-->

[Old Hack]

Medievalist, thank you: I was hoping you might drop by!

I've spent some time looking through the various widgets and can't see any way of changing the things I want to change from there: I can add a "categories" widget to the sidebar, but that doesn't take the one away from the top bar, and there's no option to change that top bar in the widget page.

The front page issue continues to confuse me. There's an option under "settings" to make any page I like the one which people arrive at when they visit my site: it works fine, and I can name any page that front page. The problem happens after I click to another page, and then try to click back--that's when the 404 error happens. And I don't know how to resolve that. (Or have I missed the entire point of your comment? Highly likely, as I am not the most techy person in the world.)

[Old Hack]

Squib, thanks for those directions: I can manage widgets, and you've made the rest look pretty easy to follow, but I wonder if I'd be better off just using a better theme... or am I going to have to rummage around in the innards of all those themes if I want to get them to look right?

I chose Carrington Blog because it looked like it was easy to fiddle with, but perhaps I was wrong. Is there another template I could try which looks clean, is easy to customise without having to change the code (that is, which can be customised as easily as widgets can be added), and has a right-hand sidebar?

Bah, I hoped this would be easier than this!

[Medievalist]

Originally Posted by Old Hack

Bah, I hoped this would be easier than this!

There are thousands of themes.

Let me go see if I can find something that you'll like.

Can you use FTP?

If you go here

http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/tag-filter/

And check off Right side bar, you might find something that you like and that will required less modification.

[Old Hack]

I've just been told that there might be another problem: apparently people can see all sorts of numbers in my website address which shouldn't be there, when they click on any page other than my home-page. I'm told it might be my IP address (really?) or have something to do with being on dial-up, but I don't know if that's the case.

[Old Hack]

Originally Posted by Medievalist

There are thousands of themes.

Let me go see if I can find something that you'll like.

Can you use FTP?

Oh, my sweet: you SO overestimate my capabilities. I don't even know what FTP is, I'm afraid. But I really appreciate that you're trying to help me. You are being very kind.

I've worked my way through many of the themes, but it's made very difficult by my sloooow connection. I tried a couple which showed no content and only returned error messages when I activated them, and one (Whitehouse?) which looked lovely but apparently won't work because my host uses PHP4 (I think) and the theme required PHP5.

It would be easier if there were fewer options, and if I were less picky. It's not a good combination.

[Medievalist]

If you click Home, you see the IP *of your Web server*--not your IP.

http://79.170.44.117/howpublishingre...om/?page_id=66

And that, I suspect is an issue you're going to have to discuss with your ISP/Web host.

[Old Hack]

That's cleared that up for me, at least! Thank you.

I'll go back to sorting through those themes again. I've found a couple I must have overlooked before, which look promising.

[Matera the Mad]

I use a modified version of the WordPress Classic theme, because it's easiest to hack. You have to put something on your page....

My (bitty baby) blog
-- you don't want to attempt the header modification, it involves more than a minor CSS tweak. This is just a wee blog in a state of flux. I might be re-doing my entire site in Joomla -- which I don't recommend for beginners because it is more complicated and it can be a big PITA.

Here's a recently evolved one where I used WordPress as the site root. Not much has been done here yet.

If you like, I could whip up a theme for you in my copious free time (I find it relaxing LOL).

This is the front of another site, a page I made to match the wordpress theme -- the bugger hasn't blogged at all though.

ETA: Good grief, you need a decent host

[Old Hack]

As far as the host goes, it's used by a couple of independent publishers that I know of here in the UK, who have great sites--I've been in contact with one of them, and they've said that one of their sites is also having that same issue with the IP addresses showing up, which is a new issue. They're going to work with me to resolve it tomorrow, which is good.

Thanks for your help, everyone. I'll be back tomorrow when I've heard from the host.

[Matera the Mad]

They'll probably get that all straightened out, then. But they really should update their PHP (and whatever else is obsolete), just for the sake of security.

[SeattleGhostWriter]

I prefer the pre-formatted themes. I do not have the time to load up my own at this time so I choose the one that best suits the blogs.

Took me awhile though and now I have the one for my main blog going strong. Love the format, the pages are reflective of particular interests and the main blog page. Plus, I like the fact that people can actually vote on the blog content as well.

[gamelord1000]

I use wordpress themes quite a lot, although the best looking ones tend to be Premium themes which are paid for rather than free. www.woothemes.com have some nice templates available.