Customize theme installation

• 

  Posted by Shawn M. (he/him/his) on October 26, 2010 at 9:46 am

  Hello everyone:

  I need to get under the hood of a WP theme I activated for a group blog. Is it possible to do this? I don’t see the area where you can normally access php/header/footer files in the dashboard.

• Scott Voth (he/him)

  Member

  December 22, 2010 at 6:50 pm

  Hi Aaron – maybe the easiest way to troubleshoot this is for you to export your Atahualpa settings and send me the file. I can then import them into a test blog and I play around with them. To export your settings, you need to go to the the theme options, “Export/Import Settings” – I think it’s just a couple things that need to be adjusted.
  Scott Voth (he/him)

  Member

  December 22, 2010 at 11:29 pm

  Hi Aaron – When the theme’s header is rendered, Atahualpa lets you decide which areas you want to display. I think you either want to display the image, the page, and the categories or else the logo, the page, and the categories. So it would either be “%image %page %cat” or “%logo %page %cat” . see attachment 1

  I’m not sure – maybe you’d like to show other areas too.

  Your page can be fixed or fluid in width. If it is fixed, maybe you want to make a nice shadowed container. (see attachment 2)

  If you pick %image – you can decide whether the image is centered on the page, or flushed left or right. You can overlay the image with the title – but it might not be very visible. You also may want to overlay the image with the title, or put the title in an optional horizontal bar.

  I’m not exactly sure of you design – but maybe play around with these options and see what you think. Let me know if you have any questions. And you can always send me another settings file. That worked really well!

  Attachments:

  You must be logged in to view attached files.
  Scott Voth (he/him)

  Member

  December 22, 2010 at 11:38 pm

  sorry – attachments are reversed–

  – Nice shadowed container (attachment 1) for fixed width page
  So if you see the red arrow – by default – this is commented out. Remove the /* at the beginning and the */ at the end to activate. Screenshot is after removal of comments. Looks good in most browsers (except IE, I think)

  – Decide on what areas to display in header (attachment 2)
  %image %pages %cats
  or
  %logo %pages %cats
  or
  whatever you really want
  Aaron Kendall

  Participant

  December 23, 2010 at 1:55 pm

  Got it! Thank you so much. I can’t believe how easy that was, and my page finally looks nice again.
  Scott Voth (he/him)

  Member

  December 23, 2010 at 5:44 pm

  Great!
  Rowena Li

  Member

  December 24, 2010 at 12:54 am

  I have several questions for this Atahualpa theme.
  First, in Header Area > RSS settings, I set up RSS box as default 280px, and everything afterward I set up as “yes”. But no RSS or Comment icons show up. So I went to Varies Content Items > Add HTML/CSS inserts, and set up the search box, RSS, and Comments icons. But the icons are not colored, only when I mouse over them, they are colored. Is there a way to change them to colored without mouse-over?

  Secondly, is there any way that I can re-define the footer with CUNY Commons banner? I would like to change the background color and the height, plus it is not fluid (when the computer screen is narrow, it cuts off at least 40px on the right.)
  The blog is gslis751 digital classroom.

  Thanks.
  Rowena
  Matthew K. Gold (he/him)

  Member

  December 24, 2010 at 9:51 am

  First, I want to say that this wonderful thread is evidence of the collaborative spirt that we have always hoped to foster here on the Commons. Thanks to all of you for jumping in and helping one another — it has been a truly spectacular process to observe.

  Rowena, it’s important for the Commons footer to appear on every page of the site, as it contains important legal information (Privacy Policy/Terms of Service) and useful links. Since it is inserted into pages outside of the theme-based structures of blogs, I don’t know how we’d allow members to customize the background color, or even whether that would be advisable. I do think that your point about a fluid layout is important, so I’ll bring it up with the Dev team for discussion.

  Thanks to all of you for using the Commons and for contributing in very material ways towards the building of its community.
  Rowena Li

  Member

  December 24, 2010 at 1:53 pm

  Thanks, Matt. I was thinking if I can change the height of the footer, but it seems not possible. That is fine. Thanks.
  Rowena Li

  Member

  December 25, 2010 at 12:12 am

  I read posts saying I can download plugins and upload them to WP plugins folder. How can I get to the folder? Also, for the images in the header section, I would like to change images, where should I upload them to? I am not sure how to access the directory. Thanks.
  Matthew K. Gold (he/him)

  Member

  December 25, 2010 at 9:54 am

  Hi Rowena,

  While we don’t give members the ability to upload their own plugins, we do take requests, and we have recently added many plugins asked for by our community. You can request plugins in multiple ways: by email, by posting here, by submitting a ticket to our ticketing system (http://redmine.gc.cuny.edu), or by our “Feedback” button by the right-hand scroll bar.

  I believe that the information regarding header images is covered in the above thread. Basically, you can use the Dashboard > Media > Upload tool to add images to your blog; if you name the images as noted above for the Atahualpa theme, they will become header images (Scott — please correct me if I’m wrong).

  Happy holidays, all!

  Matt
  Rowena Li

  Member

  December 25, 2010 at 12:46 pm

  Thanks, Matt. Happy holidays to everyone!
  Scott Voth (he/him)

  Member

  December 26, 2010 at 11:34 am

  Hi – Yes, Matt’s right about the images – you can look at the recent post and/or the wiki page in the Codex for further details – http://help.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2010/12/22/atahualpa-users-rejoice/
  http://codex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/blogs/themes/atahualpa-theme/
  Rowena Li

  Member

  December 27, 2010 at 1:09 am

  Thanks, Scott.
  Rowena Li

  Member

  December 27, 2010 at 3:33 am

  I was trying to embed a Meebo widget to the sidebar. Is there any way to do this? It looks like the codes are not allowed.

  Thanks.
  Scott Voth (he/him)

  Member

  December 27, 2010 at 11:07 am

  I believe the text widget lets you embed html like the Meebo embed codes