Flynn's Paws: My Thoughts, My Gripes

Tag: themes

  • 20090902-Trying Theme

    Out of frustration at TPTB and boredom from unemployment, I’m trying out 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

    Everything looks okay except the list style type, which looks more like a halo or an open mouth than the normal disc or circle for bullet lists.

    I’ve placed the search box on the very top. If one were to do a word search on `Nigeria`, for example, a message appears on top of this search form:

    You have searched the Flynn`s Blogs blog archives for ‘Nigeria’. If you are unable to find anything in these search results, you can try one of these links.

    It’s got a customer header, a tagline and the navigation, menu bar all towards the top of the weblog. However, it doesn’t sport a nice time stamp on the home or front pages or while on archives mode.

    In order to see the time stamp, which appears as a meta towards the bottom of each post, one must click each post entry. Other themes, like `Day Dream`, `Sapphire` and `Kubrick`, show the time stamp in this manner.

  • 20090902-Old Theme

    From `Dusk` to `Sandbox`, I’m trying out the `DayDream` theme for free here at WordPress.com. Why?

    • Large `font-family: Georgia, “Book Antiqua”, “Souvenir Lt BT”, “Times New Roman”, serif;`
    • Custom header sporting a UFO cloud.
    • Navigation, menu bar towards the top.
    • Normal blue fonts, white and gray backgrounds.

    All the essential widgets are located on bottom of this one-column theme:

    • pages;
    • archives;
    • categories;
    • calendar;
    • tag cloud;
    • flickr;
    • recent comments;
    • links;
    • blog stats;
    • askimet;
    • and three hard-coded text.

    As a result, major editing for my pages – Content, About and FAQ – had to be done in order to keep the bullet lines from wrapping to the next lines.

  • 20090831-Changed Theme

    Snork! Snork! I’ve changed my free theme here at WordPress.com from `Dusk` to `Sandbox`. Why?

    • Friggin’ bored!
    • I ain’t got NO satisfaction.
    • The `Sandbox` looks visually pleasing with three columns and colors of purple and blue.
    • The time/date stamp is placed nicely underneath the blog entry title.
    • I could show off more widgets, especially the Flickr photos of orgone and orgonite.

  • 20090831-Trying Theme

    Snork! Snork! I’ve changed my free theme here at WordPress.com from `Dusk` to `Sandbox`. Why?

    • Friggin’ bored!
    • I ain’t got NO satisfaction.
    • The `Sandbox` looks visually pleasing with three columns and colors of purple and blue.
    • The time/date stamp is placed nicely underneath the blog entry title.
    • I could show off more widgets, especially the Flickr photos of orgone and orgonite.

  • 20090831-Tweaked Widgets

    Well, I’m still using the `Dusk` theme for `free` here at WordPress.com. But I’ve narrowed down the widgets, three of which are old `text widgets`:

    • Main menu of seven parent pages and one front/home page.
    • Categories now shown horizontally in one row instead of one column of four lines.
    • Useful links of eight internal sources.

    The other four widgets are `default`:

    • Search box form.
    • Flickr widget for `orgone and orgonite`.
    • Blog stats to keep track of how many visits made (including my tests).
    • Askimet to keep track of how many spams blocked.

  • 20090830-Old Theme

    Oh, well. From `ChaosTheory` and `Sandbox` to `DayDream` and `Pool`, I went back to an old theme `Dusk`. Why?

    • Friggin’ bored!
    • I ain’t got no – satisfaction!
    • Time/Date stamps should be underneath the post entry titles.
    • Archives mode shouldn’t be shown as excerpts.
    • Dark colors to avoid eye strain.
    • Some flowers for beauty.

    As a result, I’ve added more widgets and set `Blog pages to show at most – 50`.

    Of course this won’t last for long. If only I know how to work with php.

  • 20090830-Trying Theme

    Oh, well. From `ChaosTheory` and `Sandbox` to `DayDream` and `Pool`, I went back to an old theme `Dusk`. Why?

    • Friggin’ bored!
    • I ain’t got no – satisfaction!
    • Time/Date stamps should be underneath the post entry titles.
    • Archives mode shouldn’t be shown as excerpts.
    • Dark colors to avoid eye strain.
    • Some flowers for beauty.

    As a result, I’ve added more widgets and set `Blog pages to show at most – 50`.

    Of course this won’t last for long. If only I know how to work with php.

  • 20090830-Old Theme

    Okay, fine! My apologizes to the readers. For once again, I’ve got NO satisfaction!

    I’m back to a tried and true but free WordPress.com theme:

    ChaosTheory

    A dark single-column monster developed exclusively for WordPress.com

    Tags: black, dark, one-column, fixed-width, widgets, sticky-post, blue, rtl-language-support

    It works for me personally because the `archives mode` now shows the posts in its entirety instead of just excerpts. But I prefer the layout of the `Sandbox` theme because it’s visually pleasing to my eyes. But function overrules looks in this case.

    I’ve used the lighter colors used from the `Sandbox` theme and will probably make the fonts smaller, too.

  • 20090830-Trying Theme

    Okay, fine! My apologizes to the readers. For once again, I’ve got NO satisfaction!

    I’m back to a tried and true but free WordPress.com theme:

    ChaosTheory

    A dark single-column monster developed exclusively for WordPress.com

    Tags: black, dark, one-column, fixed-width, widgets, sticky-post, blue, rtl-language-support

    It works for me personally because the `archives mode` now shows the posts in its entirety instead of just excerpts. But I prefer the layout of the `Sandbox` theme because it’s visually pleasing to my eyes. But function overrules looks in this case.

    I’ve used the lighter colors used from the `Sandbox` theme and will probably make the fonts smaller, too.

  • 20090829-Duhh, Thanks

    Duhh, i think this [new WordPress.com] works pretty good. 🙂

    Duh! Gee! Thanks. I have no real complains with my new `Sandbox` theme. BUT there are two areas, which did not make me happy:

    1. When viewing in `archives` mode, the list of posts are viewed as `EXCERPTS` and not in its entirety! This means I’ll have to switch back to the `Dusk` theme and do the copy and paste schmeal to a Word document, in case the servers of Automattic loses my precious, hard work!
    2. The HTML code – visibility:hidden` – is not hidden (or suppressed) when viewed from my outdated cellphone. The meta is show for the `single views` of each posts and when viewed from the home (or front page) of the weblog.

  • 20090829-Damn Widgets

    I noticed that hardcoding `text widgets` doesn’t line up properly or flushed left when view through an old cellphone, like mine. Further, I saw a list style type – `disc` – floating annoyingly somewhere on the upper right hand corner of the `Dusk` theme. AND to tick me off, when viewing my weblog site with an Internet Explorer browser, the very last`text widget` ended up on the bottom near the footer!

    Out of frustration, I ended up switching from `Dusk` theme to `Sandbox` theme and used more `default` widgets than I’d like; since less visual junk loads up faster for those with slower internet connections.

    I’m not a big fan of widgets or sidebars for the matter. I’m hoping that team Automattic would program more shortcodes to save under `pages` and/or `posts` to allow admin users the option to use shortcodes or widgets or combination of both. Here is my wish list for more shortcodes:

    • Flickr: In addition to videos, I want multiple photos.
    • Stats: In addition to `Summary Tables`, I want for `Referrers`, `Top Posts and Pages`, `Search Engine Terms` and `Clicks`.
    • Pages: A nice d-tree would be nice.
    • Links: A nice d-tree would be nice.
    • Categories: A nice d-tree would be nice.

  • 20090828-Tweaked CSS

    After selecting my newest `free` theme here at WordPress.com:

    Sandbox 0.6.1 by Andy Skelton & Scott Allan Wallick

    A theme with powerful, semantic CSS selectors and the ability to add new skins.

    Tags: white, left-sidebar, theme-options, widgets, two-columns, one-column, three-columns, right-sidebar, flexible-width, microformats, rtl-language-support

    I made the following changes through my paid CSS stylesheet upgrade.

    Since I don’t really care for the `category`, `tags` or `comments` showing for each post entry, I’ve made the following edits:

    `body.home .entry-meta,body.archive .entry-meta` {

    `visibility:hidden;`

    `margin:0 0 4em;`

    }`

    Other changes to the layout of my weblog were: background-colors to the sidebar, content, header and entry-meta; font -size in percentages; colors for the`a` and `a:hover`; and adjustments to padding, margin, unlisted and listed style types.

    What I particularly like about this Sandbox theme is the auto width adjustments for screen resolutions (i.e. 800 by 600 pixels and 1024 by 768 pixels). The overflow for the bottom scroll bar of the internet browser is `hidden`, too.