Flynn's Paws: My Thoughts, My Gripes

Tag: themes

  • 20091103-Friggin Bored

    I’ve been playing around with my free themes here at WordPress.com by switching among different themes and editing my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade.

    Honestly, I’m really getting tired of tweaking my theme and wanted nothing to do with paying upgrades:

    Custom CSS

    This upgrade allows you to add custom CSS to customize any theme on this current blog. This is recommended mostly for advanced users who understand CSS. (more info)

    5GB

    Add 5GB of space to your upload directory (more info)

    VideoPress

    Upload and embed video on your blog directly (more info)

    My addiction to blogging has gotten out of hand! I’m happy with WordPress.com but I must find a way to be satisfied with one theme. And the only way to stop customizing my paid CSS upgrade is to concentrate on blogging.

  • 20091031-Trying Theme

    Okay! I’m trying another free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Black-LetterHead by Ulysses Ronquillo

    Black Letterhead is a two-column minimalistic theme with a black background, customizable header and widget sidebar.

    Tags: black, dark, two-columns, fixed-width, orange, custom-header, right-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post, rtl-language-support

    Personal PROs:

    • Dark, two-columns.
    • Red, orange, black and yellow colors.
    • Tagline and custom header.
    • Sidebar disappears when posts viewed in single mode.
    • Links to previous and next post entries when posts viewed in single mode.
    • Normal-looking text to captions.

    Personal CONs:

    • Archives mode viewed as excepts.
    • Time stamp viewable in single mode.

    I’ve set the front page to display my `Contents` page. As a result, I’ve removed the `main menu` widget from the sidebar. This means that the most recent (latest) posts are under the `New posts` section.

  • 20091031-Old Theme

    Okay! I’m trying another free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Black-LetterHead by Ulysses Ronquillo

    Black Letterhead is a two-column minimalistic theme with a black background, customizable header and widget sidebar.

    Tags: black, dark, two-columns, fixed-width, orange, custom-header, right-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post, rtl-language-support

    Personal PROs:

    • Dark, two-columns.
    • Red, orange, black and yellow colors.
    • Tagline and custom header.
    • Sidebar disappears when posts viewed in single mode.
    • Links to previous and next post entries when posts viewed in single mode.
    • Normal-looking text to captions.

    Personal CONs:

    • Archives mode viewed as excepts.
    • Time stamp viewable in single mode.

    I’ve set the front page to display my `Contents` page. As a result, I’ve removed the `main menu` widget from the sidebar. This means that the most recent (latest) posts are under the `New posts` section.

  • 20091022-Old Theme

    Okay! I’m trying another free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Thirteen by Becca Wei

    A stylish fixed-width two-column theme in green adorned with interesting flora.

    Tags: two-columns, fixed-width, green, rtl-language-support, left-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post

    Personal PROs:

    • Colors are green, cream and orange.
    • Flowery designs.

    Personal CONs:

    • Nothing, so far.

    I’ve set the front page to display my `Contents` page. As a result, I’ve removed the `main menu` widget from the sidebar. This means that the most recent (latest) posts are under the `New posts` section.

  • 20091022-Trying Theme

    Okay! I’m trying another free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Thirteen by Becca Wei

    A stylish fixed-width two-column theme in green adorned with interesting flora.

    Tags: two-columns, fixed-width, green, rtl-language-support, left-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post

    Personal PROs:

    • Colors are green, cream and orange.
    • Flowery designs.

    Personal CONs:

    • Nothing, so far.

    I’ve set the front page to display my `Contents` page. As a result, I’ve removed the `main menu` widget from the sidebar. This means that the most recent (latest) posts are under the `New posts` section.

  • 20091020-Mobile Theme

    Neat-toe!!!

    I just saw a `WordPress Mobile Edition Theme` by Alex King via my old cellphone! It has 3 selections towards the top: Home, Pages and Archives.

    The most recent blog entry is viewable, followed by four successive blog titles (only), with date of entry and a link for `older posts` below. There is a link for full view and mobile view. So either one is great!

    Unfortunately, the time stamps (and time zones) at first glance w/o having to click each blog entry is missing. Blogging is supposed to be up-to-date and up-to-the-minute. Without that piece of data, it’s like posting content anytime of the day.

    I could be experiencing something and someone else might have the same time data and thereby allow others to compare notes at the same synchronous time of a particular event.

    For example, how would anyone read `news article` and not know how long ago that post was created on the internet? It could have been done, say yesterday, and that’s old news, right?

  • 20091004-Trying Theme

    Well, I’m trying another free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Contempt by Michael Heilemann

    A more professional version of Kubrick, sporting hard lines and 2-columns.

    Tags: blue, custom-header, two-columns, fixed-width, right-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post, white, light, rtl-language-support

    Personal PROs:

    • Blog name, tagline, top/navigation menu bar.
    • Notification on the very top of the sidebar: `You are currently browsing the Flynn’s Blogs blog archives for [whatever here].`
    • Nice shades of gray and white.
    • Neat layers of backgrounds in gray, giving 3-D picture frame effect.

    Personal CONs:

    • Time stamp shown only under single view.
    • Cannot hide visibility of `.postmetadata` or `.small` without hiding time stamp via CSS stylesheet.
    • The button effect is narrower via the Gravatar widget. I want the width of the buttons to fill the full width of the sidebar!

  • 20091004-Old Theme

    Well, I’m trying another free theme here at WordPress.com:

    Contempt by Michael Heilemann

    A more professional version of Kubrick, sporting hard lines and 2-columns.

    Tags: blue, custom-header, two-columns, fixed-width, right-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post, white, light, rtl-language-support

    Personal PROs:

    • Blog name, tagline, top/navigation menu bar.
    • Notification on the very top of the sidebar: `You are currently browsing the Flynn’s Blogs blog archives for [whatever here].`
    • Nice shades of gray and white.
    • Neat layers of backgrounds in gray, giving 3-D picture frame effect.

    Personal CONs:

    • Time stamp shown only under single view.
    • Cannot hide visibility of `.postmetadata` or `.small` without hiding time stamp via CSS stylesheet.
    • The button effect is narrower via the Gravatar widget. I want the width of the buttons to fill the full width of the sidebar!

  • 20091002-Tweaking Again

    Yippie! In just a couple of minutes, I made my `Calendar widget` look prettier! It now has the button effect with blue puffing out and yellow denting in! I love tweaking my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade! I cannot get enough with perfection, which explains why I am still SINGLE and UNMARRIED! Brouhaha!

    In addition:

    • Added back my four poems but this time they are inside their colorful tables: light yellow for the angel poem, light blue for the epitaph and light red for the two vertical-shaped poems – elegy and prologue.
    • Added two widgets (month and calendar) to visually balance the horizontal length of both the sidebar floating to the left and the content floating to the right.
    • Reverted back to the `Dusk` theme.
    • Temporarily set the large custom header featuring the sylph to hidden visibility.

  • 20091001-Trying Theme

    Well, I’m trying a new theme for free here at WordPress.com:

    PressRow by Chris Pearson

    Feel like a journalist with this two-column theme with customizable header.

    Tags: custom-header, two-columns, fixed-width, rtl-language-support, right-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post, white, light

    Personal PROs:

    • Time/date stamp under single view.
    • A top navigation bar (without drop-down menu feature).
    • BIG custom header featuring a sylph.
    • Two-columns with width of 760px to fit screen resolution of 800 by 600 pixels.
    • Navigation for older (or previous) and newer (or next) post entries.
    • `Web-safe` colors of light gray and white.
    • Former feel taken from my edited CSS stylesheet done via the `Dusk` theme.

    Personal CONs:

    • Time/date stamp not viewable under archive mode.
    • Annoying date stamp ABOVE post entry title. Yuch.

  • 20091001-Old Theme

    Well, I’m trying a new theme for free here at WordPress.com:

    PressRow by Chris Pearson

    Feel like a journalist with this two-column theme with customizable header.

    Tags: custom-header, two-columns, fixed-width, rtl-language-support, right-sidebar, widgets, sticky-post, white, light

    Personal PROs:

    • Time/date stamp under single view.
    • A top navigation bar (without drop-down menu feature).
    • BIG custom header featuring a sylph.
    • Two-columns with width of 760px to fit screen resolution of 800 by 600 pixels.
    • Navigation for older (or previous) and newer (or next) post entries.
    • `Web-safe` colors of light gray and white.
    • Former feel taken from my edited CSS stylesheet done via the `Dusk` theme.

    Personal CONs:

    • Time/date stamp not viewable under archive mode.
    • Annoying date stamp ABOVE post entry title. Yuch.

  • 20090930-Trying Theme

    I got sick of looking at the three-column theme of Sandbox 1.6.1: It was too busy! It had everything except the full view of post entries in archives mode. So (ONCE AGAIN) I reverted to a two-column theme for free here at WordPress.com: Dusk by Becca Wei.

    The appearance of this particular theme is cleaner and NARROW with a width of 760px, which I tested to fit well (by default) for screen resolutions of 800 by 600 pixels. The colors are `web-safe` in gray shades with font colors of cool blue.

    My previous blog entry mentioned the feel of this weblog as a holy Mosque, all white-washed and such.

    With the today’s new `Image Widget` by the HAPPY ENGINEERS, I’ve expanded the sidebar to include eight widgets:

    • Text widget – A greeting, a tagline, an image and words of encouragement.
    • RSS Link for posts and comments.
    • Text widget – A list of nine parent pages.
    • A search form.
    • Image widget – Recommended reading.
    • Flickr widget – Orgone and orgonite.
    • Image widget – PayPal button for donations.
    • Gravatar widget – Image and four useful links.

    I would have like to add more widgets but it will make scrolling up and down to much work for the lazy readers!

    Oh, look! I see a nice golden heart pendant made of orgone as a recent photo of the Flickr widget labeled `Orgone and orgonite`. I wished I had some money to buy this nice piece and a NANO SHIELD for my handbag, too!