WordPress Theme Changes
in Reviews
as chai, change, desk mess, excerpts, google, iphone, ipod touch, orange, themes, widget
I really like the current theme I am using. It was one of about ten or so WordPress themes I started with. Desk Mess has life; and, a good representation of some of my interests, hobbies and aspirations. I’ve kept the main header graphic intact for now, but may look at some adjustments to it in the future. Perhaps I will change the iPhone icons to look like my iPod Touch’s home screen. Maybe I will change the dancing unicorn image to something more relevant to my life. What’s with the orange in the cup?! It looks interesting, but I’m more a Chai person.
Currently I have made a few changes to some of the base theme PHP files and fixed some of the CSS used by the theme as well. I finished the code to create the second widgetized sidebar, essentially extending the length of the sidebar. I also limited the page list used across the top of the template to only show parent pages. Further adjustments to the graphic and other related code may be done in the future as the length of the page title is very limiting. I added a simple archives page that displays excerpts only, just in case Google is watching. The widget CSS for the standard calendar needed adjusting for a better aesthetic display in my opinion; and, a few other minor common alignment elements were added to round out the initial review.
Overall, I still like the theme and for that reason I posted previously the original author’s details so others may start with a “fresh” copy.
Tell me what you think in the comments section, and if you would like the minor modifications I have done for yourself let me know that too.
New Home
in News
as change, copperplate font, dbjb, lucida grande, plugins, themes, upgrade, widget, WordPress
We have just moved to a more flexible home. This is a sub-domain of one of our longest standing web sites, BuyNowShop.com.
Our former home at WordPress.com was a great place to start, but the lack of Plugin and widget access provided the impetus to move to a self-hosted WordPress blog.
We finally decided to go with the Desk Mess theme, below are some notes taken directly from the original authors details. We found a few corrections were needed, and will be making further modifications as we grow.
Original Theme Name: Desk Mess
Original Theme URI: http://www.geekwithlaptop.com/desk-mess-wordpress-theme
Original Description: Casual work-desk theme for a different blogging experience. Brought to you Geek with Laptop
Original Version: 1.4
Original Author: Geek With Laptop
Original Author URL: http://www.geekwithlaptop.com
The CSS/XHTML is released under GPL: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php
Some fonts used in this theme that may or may not be installed on the reader’s computer:
- Lucida Grande – general text (an Apple font – Windows emulation font package as Googled from this site)
- Lucida Sans Unicode – general text
- Copperplate Gothic Bold – the header text (one of our computers needed this font)
A final note, buyer beware: This theme was originally downloaded from www.ThemesPreview.com where we found they are adding an encoded “relay.php” file to most every theme they have available to be downloaded for free. This file is included in the “footer.php” file and creates a link to ad sites of one sort or another. I was disappointed.
I searched out the original author’s web site to download a clean and current version. I have no idea what else may be in these relay.php files but please, as a matter of peace of mind, be aware and check each file (line-by-line) in a text editor of any theme you acquire to make sure you are hopefully not getting something you did not want.
