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.

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.

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Shawn,

Unless you’re using a theme like Atahualpa (http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/atahualpa) that enables changes (in CSS, at least) from the dashboard, this is not something we normally allow members to do.

This is a security measure — if we allowed members to have direct access to theme php files, we’d compromise the security of the site.

However, what you can do is create a child theme (http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes) of a parent theme. As long as the Development team approves it, we can then upload the child theme to the site so that you can use it.

Let me know what you think and feel free to contact me by email to discuss this in further detail.

Best,

Matt

[Shawn M. (he/him/his)]

Thanks Matt! I’ll start with the path of least resistance and experiment with Atahualpa. I like their special customization menu. Looks robust.

[Shawn M. (he/him/his)]

Hi All:

I’ve been using Atahualpa 3.3.3 as my theme (formerly 3.3.2) as per Matt’s suggestion. Everything has been great until this morning, when I noticed that my custom header graphic is no longer available, as well as my group’s logo. In the Dashboard, the Atahualpa customization menu is completely gone (the one touting over 200 customization options). Do you know what could have caused this?

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Apologies, Shawn. It sounds like this is related to our recent upgrade. We’ll work on the issue and update this thread soon.

[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Shawn and others using Atahualpa: please follow this ticket on our ticketing website for progress on this issue: http://redmine.gc.cuny.edu/issues/show/461

[Shawn M. (he/him/his)]

Thanks for having that addressed and fixed so quickly. The theme option menu has been restored, but sadly it’s no longer handling image uploads the way it used to…in order to use a custom header and logo, I now need to access the theme directory: /atahualpa/images/ and upload my images to that directory (where previously I could upload it in the Media section of Dashboard and it would make the connection). Do you know what I should do?

[Shawn M. (he/him/his)]

The same applies to header images: .

“All header images are located in /wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/. All images in that directory will be rotated. If you don’t want rotating header images, leave only one image in that directory.”

[Aaron Kendall]

Shawn, I’m having the same problems with Atahualpa, thanks for posting here.

Question: how does one access the directory you mentioned above /wp-content/themes/atahualpa/images/header/?

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi – I’m using Atahualpa (but don’t use the rotating slideshow).
For the custom header area I use (under “Logo Area: Styling”):

background-image: url(http://codex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2010/08/codexBackground3.png)

And for the logo I just use the full url (under “Show Logo Image”):
http://codex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2010/08/cunyLogo.jpg

Do you use the rotator? I will look to see how to configure that.

[Aaron Kendall]

I’m not using the slideshow either, but my header still scrolls through various scales and zooms of my one header image… Anyone know what causes that?

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi Aaron – You have a really cool blog! And I can see that there are problems with the header. I know that Atahualpa documentation says that the %image can be static, and I think that’s what you’re doing here – but I can’t really tell. Maybe there’s a problem that causes it to scale like that – I need to do some more testing. But one suggestion (i.e. – a quick fix) would be to set the “Header: Image Height” to 0 and use the “%logo” area instead.
“%logo” includes both the logo itself (which you can leave blank) and the logo background image which you can specify under “Logo Area: Styling.”

This is the way I do it in my blog – See Attached screenshot.

Just wanted to mention that we now have a really easy to use Google maps plug-in – I would really find it interesting to see the areas you work in!

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Another screenshot

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[Aaron Kendall]

Thanks Scott! I’ll give it a try.

[Rowena Li]

I made a blog with this theme (gslis751.commons.gc.cuny.edu), but my blog title and tagline show up a few seconds and disappear behind the image. I have

HEADER AREA> style and edit HEADER AREA >configure Header Area as %bar1 %image %bar2 %pages

Logo area – blank
Show logo image -blank
Show blog title – no
blog Tagline – no
Search Box – yes

HEADER AREA > Header image >
Header image with Javascript – 3
Face in/out – 4
preload header image -yes
Header image clickable – no
Header image hight – 150
Header image alignment – top left
Opacity Left – blank
Opacity right – blank
Overlay blog title over header images – yes
Overlay blog tagline over header images – yes
Overlay blog title style:

margin-top: 40px;
margin-left: 20px;

padding: 7px;
background: #ffffff;

filter: alpha(opacity=60);
-moz-opacity:.60;
opacity:.60;
-moz-border-radius: 7px;
-khtml-border-radius: 7px;
-webkit-border-radius: 7px;
border-radius: 7px;

I cannot figure out what the problem is. And I would like to delete the two black bars behind the screen. How do I do that?

Thanks.

[Aaron Kendall]

I got the header image to show up and stay put, thanks for all your help Scott. Just working on getting it formatted to fit the page a bit better, and will also use the Google map plug-in, great idea!

[Shawn M. (he/him/his)]

The header feature is pretty buggy, as it keeps resizing my header images as well (visible when refreshing the page). I suspect this is a residual effect from the former settings/images in place before the upgrade. For example, my rotating header images were taken out of my media section a while ago, yet they’re still in rotation. This suggests they were copied into a directory that we (as WPmu users) cannot access.

I zeroed the header height as Scott suggested and inserted my [now static] header into one of the available horizontal bars. I used horizontal bar 1:

height: 150px;
margin-bottom: 5px;
background-image: url(http://nycnect.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2010/11/atahualpa_header_1.jpg);

…no translucent overlays on the side, but I’m willing to live with that until this bug gets hammered out. Thanks for your help, Scott.

[Shawn M. (he/him/his)]

Rowena,

It looks like your problem is caused by the ‘Fade in/out header images with Javascript’ option. When I set this to 0, the title overlay doesn’t disappear. Another bug I guess.

[Rowena Li]

Thanks, Shawn. I am going to change the Fade in/out option to 0 tonight and see. Also, do you know how to get ride of the two gray lines behind? I am going to upload my own pictures to see what will happen. Thanks a million.

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi – Please see the attached. There is some sort of background image that the authors put in the background. If you remove it, you will get rid of those lines. Hope this helps!

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[Scott Voth (he/him)]

(Screenshot above is after removing the background image.)

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi Shawn – Boone is going to put in a fix for that theme that should resolve the resizing. I will let you know when it’s done. Thanks for helping out!

[Rowena Li]

Thanks, Scott. I deleted the background image.

[Daisy (Domínguez) Singh (she)]

Thanks, Scott and also everyone else for all the questions. I was so excited to be able to customize with just a few clicks. I actually haven’t even tried this with my other blog which is hosted outside the Commons so I’m going to have to experiment there, too. Thanks so much!

[Rowena Li]

Shawn, Thanks for your advice. Now I changed the setting, so that the blog title doesn’t overlap over the photos.

[Sarah Morgano]

Hi everyone,

Boone just posted on the CUNY Academic Commons Development blog that he released Commons 1.1.6 which, “improves the way that the Atahualpa theme handles custom headers” (http://dev.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2010/12/22/commons-1-1-6/). Hopefully, this should resolve issues that folks have been experiencing with their blogs.

Best,

Sarah

[Aaron Kendall]

Thanks to everyone for all the great feedback. I’m finally getting really close to having my blog header fixed, with only one issue remaining…the header image is covering up the title and tagline. I have my header image in the logo area and the header height set to zero. Any ideas?

[Daisy (Domínguez) Singh (she)]

Hey Aaron,

Not sure if this is the answer, but under the Style and Edit Header Area tab, do you have Show Blog Title and Show Blog Tagline set to “yes”?

D

[Aaron Kendall]

Hi Daisy, yes I do have that value set to “yes”. I feel like the problem may be that I have my header image as part of the logo and not the actual header, with my header height set to “0”. This prevents any header formatting. However, due to all the glitches with Atahualpa, that was the only way I could even get my header image to show up. I see now that Boone has possibly fixed these issues with the recent Commons upgrade; so maybe I should just start from scratch and put the image back into the header and see what happens.

[Shawn M. (he/him/his)]

The banner graphic is actually pushing your title to the right, since the logo div was only meant for smaller graphics. I would move your banner to one of the available horizontal bars instead (mentioned in a previous post).

…but it sounds like Boone fixed the bug by updating Commons, so you could revert back to placing your header graphic where it was originally intended.

[Aaron Kendall]

I reverted back to putting my header image in the “header image”. The problem now seems to be that the image doesn’t sit above the page as I would expect a “header” to do, but sits right on top of everything. Does anyone know of a way to push everything down, or else push my header up above?

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

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)]

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:

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[Scott Voth (he/him)]

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]

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)]

Great!

[Rowena Li]

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)]

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]

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]

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)]

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]

Thanks, Matt. Happy holidays to everyone!

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

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]

Thanks, Scott.

[Rowena Li]

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)]

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

[Rowena Li]

The text widget does not work. I think because wordpress does not allow “iframe” and “object”, the codes automatically disappear after I click “save”. The same is for Google calendar, unless we have special WPNG Calendar widget for Google Calendar. But I am not sure if there is another way around it or if we can set up to allow these functions.

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi – Not sure about the Meebo – I tried and the text widget was stripped out. There is a “WordPress Google Calendars” plugin available. After installing, you need to configure it in the settings tab on the dashboard. I believe you also need to set you google calendar to be shared. There is a separate thread for this one. I will look for it.

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

check out this thread for details concerning google calendar – http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/wordpress-help/forum/topic/calendar/

[Rowena Li]

Thanks, Scott. I got Google calendar widget working, but not the Meebo, though.

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Not sure if there are networking concerns with Meebo on the Commons – Matt or Boone would know best. I noticed that there is a “Meebo Me” wordpress plugin available – you might request that and the dev team will evaluate whether it’s feasible. Probably be best to start a new topic for Meebo if you want to pursue this.

[Rowena Li]

Thanks, Scott. I found the Meebo Me plugin for WordPress and am going to put in a request for this widget. Thanks again.

[Rowena Li]

I have a dilemma here.

I set up the menu bar background gray and font color blue. When a button is hovered, its background is set to blue and font color to white. When I move the mouse to its sub menu, the main menu button background should remain blue and font color white, but the font color changed back to blue because it is not hovered anymore. Any way to redefined it to white? Here is the blog: http://gslis751.commons.gc.cuny.edu

Here is the css code under Add HTML/CSS Inserts.
/* Menu Bars */
div#menu1 ul.rMenu {
background: transparent;}

/* Adjustments for the menu bars, which in their default state have 1px borders plus -1px margins to avoid 1+1=2px borders between neighbor items. */

ul.rMenu-hor ul, ul.rMenu-hRight ul { margin-top: 4px; background-color: #1b336f; color: #ffffff;}
ul.rMenu-hor li { margin-bottom: 0px; margin-top: 0px; margin-left: 0px; }
ul.rMenu-hor { padding-left: 0px; }
ul.rMenu-ver li { margin-top: 0px; }

div#menu1 ul.rMenu li a, div#menu2 ul.rMenu li a {
padding: 8px 15px 8px 15px; }

/* different padding for parents with arrow image */
div#menu1 ul.rMenu li.rMenu-expand a, div#menu2 ul.rMenu li.rMenu-expand a {
padding: 8px 16px 8px 16px !important;
background-position: 97% 50% !important;}

/* less padding for children with arrow image */
div#menu1 ul.rMenu li.rMenu-expand li a, div#menu2 ul.rMenu li.rMenu-expand li a {
padding: 5px 10px 5px 10px !important;
background-position: 97% 50% !important;
text-transform: lowercase;
background: #1b336f;
color:#fff;}

ul#rmenu {
padding:5px;}

div#menu1 {
height: 18px;}

Thanks.

[Rowena Li]

Another question: how to upload images to /atahualpa/images/ ? When I upload an image, I do Media > Add New > Find the image and Upload. It tells me on the screen that the image will be saved to http://gslis751.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2010/12/cs3.jpg. This path cannot be changed to /atahualpa/images. Did I miss anything?

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi – You need to upload your media Media>Add New – but you need to use the naming convention as described in the Codex – http://codex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/blogs/themes/atahualpa-theme/

Changing the Rotating Images

By default, Atahualpa looks in your upload media folders for files using the naming convention “atahualpa_header_x” where “x” is an integer. So, if you upload images “atahualpa_header_3” and “atahualpa_header_5,” the theme will cycle through these two images. If no files in your upload folders meet this naming convention, Atahualpa will use the three default, floral images found in its “/images/header” folder. Commons users don’t have access to “/images/header” folder and need to use their upload media folders to change the rotating images.

[Rowena Li]

Thanks, Scott. I am trying to upload a logo and it says I should upload the logo to /atahualpa/images/ . Could you please let me know how to upload an image to that directory?

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Commons users don’t have access to /atahualpa/images/ , but the plugin will look in your upload media folder, if you use the naming convention – atahualpa_header_x” where “x” is an integer, and it will grab those images for the rotator.

If you mean the logo image (not the rotator) –

for the logo backaground you can use something like this:
background-image: url(http://codex.commons.gc.cuny.edu/files/2010/08/codexBackground3.png)

and for the logo itself, just use the fully qualified url, starting with http://

[Rowena Li]

Thanks, Scott. I got it.

[Rowena Li]

Hi,
Anyone tried to float a picture to left or right on a page? I tried to float a photo, but the float function does not work. Any ideas? I did put in style=”float: right;”

[Rowena Li]

The theme is Atahualpa 3.5.3. I checked with another theme. It works. Should I define it in Atahualpa 3.5.3 somewhere or this is a bug I should report?

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi – Are you just trying to position an image on a regular page? There are some built-in CSS classes that do alignleft, aligncenter, and alignright that you can access from your media library before you click “Insert into Post.” I just tried in Atahualpa 3.5.3 and it worked fine for me.

[Rowena Li]

Hi Scott,
Thanks. I can alight right, but I cannot float right. I would like my writing to fill on the left, while the pic is on the right. Check my Contact page at http://gslis751.commons.gc.cuny.edu. Thanks.

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi – I was able to wrap the text around an image by clicking on HTML in the edit screen and adding

and

around each of the first four or five lines: see my test blog: http://svsandbox.commons.gc.cuny.edu/contact/

I have attached the HTML that I used

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

You could play around with other html tags – like unordered list –

…

and add list items

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

oops – looks like the tags got stripped out – they are ul and li, surrounded by greater than and lesser than signs

[Rowena Li]

Thanks, Scott. I finally figured it out. Because I do not like it to be a list, so if I put the lines into paragraphs, they skip lines (like you did in the sandbox), so I put them into div s and defined padding-left. Here is the codex – I did a screenshot. But I still think this is a bug for this theme, because I put them between p with greater than and lesser than signs, and they worked fine in another theme. Thanks.

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[Arne Christensen]

I’m putting together a simple web page to serve as a schedule of speakers for a seminar series. This page will get updated each semester to reflect the new seminar series. I’m using the Atahualpa theme, because it seems pretty flexible and I need to strip most of the bells and whistles. I’d like to have a right hand panel which includes an archive of past speakers and a few links, but I’m having trouble tailoring it the way I’d like, does anyone know how to remove the “New Posts” header? It isn’t appropriate for this relatively static page.

http://nsssyork.commons.gc.cuny.edu/

TLDR: How do I remove the New Posts header in the right-hand panel of the Atahualpa theme?

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi Arne – Do you mean “Recent Posts”? (these can be controlled in the Widget area). But I clicked on your link but didn’t see the “New Posts”. Also could be because you are the admin for the site, and can add New Posts (and I can’t – so it is not visible). You could log out and then come back in and see if it disappears. Maybe you can provide a screen shot of what you are seeing?

[Arne Christensen]

Hi Scott,

Thank you for your reply. I had totally removed the right panel, which is why you didn’t see “Recent Posts”. I’ve added the right panel again. “Recent posts” is still there when I log off. ScreenShot2.

I’ve checked out the widgets, and the right panels do not have any widgets loaded. See ScreenShot1.

I’d like to remove “Recent Posts” but keep “York College Links”.

Thank you for your input.

Arne

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[Matthew K. Gold (he/him)]

Hi Arne,

Since, as admin on the site, I have admin privileges on all blogs, I took the liberty of looking at your dashboard and fixing the problem. As shown in the screenshot you took, you had the “Links” widget in the “Left Sidebar” area rather than the “Right Sidebar” area, where you wanted it to appear. Moving “Links” to the right sidebar area fixed the problem; when I look at the blog now, all I see are the York College links.

Please let us know whether we can help you in any other way!!

Best,

Matt

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Thanks Matt!

[Arne Christensen]

Question 1.

Am I posting requests for assistance in the right place?

Question 2.

How do I remove the gray borders from images in my post (Shot1). I’ve removed the link from the image (Shot2) and set the borders to “0” (Shot3).

Thanks,
Arne

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[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Hi Arne – The format of this thread is a little messed up. I am going to open another thread, so we can better communicate.

[Scott Voth (he/him)]

Can we use this thread instead: http://commons.gc.cuny.edu/groups/wordpress-help/forum/topic/image-borders-with-atahualpa-theme/