How to Install and Set Up WP-Magazine Theme 1.0
Installing and setting up WP-Magazine Theme 1.0 is pretty simple. Read on, and you’ll have it knocked out in a snap.
Step 1 - Unzip the File
The file you downloaded can be unzipped with any standard unzip program (if you don’t have one already installed on your computer, Stuffit Expander is a popular option for PC or MAC users). Within the unzipped file, you will find the actual theme file along with the end user license agreement (please take a moment to read over the license agreement).
Step 2 - Upload the Theme File to Your Wordpress Site
For this step, you’ll need an FTP (file transfer protocol) program. An FTP program allows you to transfer files between your computer and your web hosting account. There are several available, but I use SmartFTP.
You’ll want to upload your theme folder to the /wp-content/themes folder in your Wordpress installation. Be sure you upload the theme folder, which will have one of the following names (depending upon which package you purchased):
- WP-MagTheme10-Basic
- WP-MagTheme10-Prem
- WP-MagTheme10-Dev
Step 3 - Activate Your New Theme
Login into your Wordpress control panel, and click the Presentation link. On the next page you’ll see all your available themes. Simply click on the WP-Magazine Theme 1.0 screen shot.
Step 4 - Set Up Your Featured Articles Section
If you don’t already have a “Featured” category, you’ll need to create one. Click the Manage tab, then Categories on the sub-navigation bar. Create a new category named “Featured.” Also, be sure the category slug is “featured.”
For the Featured Articles function to work correctly, you may also need to modify your permalink structure. To do that, click the Options tab, then “permalinks” on the sub-navigation bar. Just be sure that any option other than the default permalink structure is selected.
Finally, the only thing left to do is to place some of your posts/articles in the Featured category. By default, the theme is set up to display your 5 most recent Featured Articles in the featured article box on your home page. You can change that number, but we’ll save that for a future tutorial.
Step 5 - Install/Activate Plugins for Popular Articles and Most Commented Articles
In the right sidebar, you’ll see a little box I call the “Site Guide.” It’s designed to give your readers quick access to your most popular posts, most commented posts, site search, monthly archives and site tags (if you use them). For the popular posts and most comments posts to function, you’ll need 2 plugins; Alex Kings Popularity Contest (Note: Popularity Contest plugin has not been updated for WP 2.5 and above yet. There is a fix for it though here) and Nick Momrik’s Most Commented.
Be sure you download the latest version of each plugin and upload them to your wp-content/plugins folder. Then activate them. The theme will do the rest. If you’d rather not use one or both of these functions, that’s fine too. The theme will function normally without them.
Step 7 - Install/Activate Plugin For Related Post
If you look at the top of this article just under the post title, you’ll see a link that says “Related.” The related articles are generated by a plugin called WordPress 2.3 Related Posts. It pulls other posts that share the same tags as the post you’re viewing. You’ll want to download, install and activate the latest version. If you prefer not to use the related posts function, the theme will function properly without it.
Step 8 - Be Sure You Have an “About” Page
If you look on the home page in the Featured Article box, you’ll see a link to the right that says “About this Site.” When folks click that link, the theme is designed to display an excerpt of your “About” page. If you already have an About page, that’s perfect; just make sure the Page Slug reads “about.” To find the page slug, click Manage, then Pages. Edit your About page. On the right side of the Write Page, you’ll see a blue box named “Page Slug.”
If you don’t yet have an About page, well, go ahead and create one.
Step 9 - Add Some Content to Your Sidebars
If you’re using the 3-column version of the theme, you’ll need to add some content to your middle sidebar. So,click the Presentation link, then Widgets, and drag some content into Sidebar1. You can also add some content to Sidebar2 if you like, and it will appear just below the Recent Comment section. Be sure to click the Update button when you’re done.
Step 10 (Optional step for Lightbox users)
There is a Javascript conflict between Lightbox and the Featured Article glider. So far, I’ve been unable to find a fix for it, so in the meantime, here are 3 Lightbox alternatives that have been used successfully by other WP-Mag Theme users.
Update - Temp Fix for Lightbox Issue
This is not a perfect fix, but it should make possible to use Lightbox without causing a problem in the Featured Article glider on the home page.
1. Open your Header template, and find these lines of code:
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/js/tabber.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/js/prototype.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/js/effects.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/js/glider.js"></script>
2. Change it to just this line:
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/js/tabber.js"></script>
3. Scroll down a bit further and find this line:
<body>
4. Just after that line, place the following block of code:
<?php if (is_home()) { ?>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/js/prototype.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/js/effects.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_directory'); ?>/js/glider.js"></script>
<?php } ?>
5. Click the Update File button.
Hi Doug:
It's a bit tricky, but I think this will work.
1. You probably added this to the About section on ...
Hi Michael,
how can I get the theme to use the new Identicons instead of the gravatar picture, which it currently ...
Hi Michael, Thanks for a great theme. Its fantastic and yor mods are always explained perfectly.
I've set up including adding ...
Hi Michael,
Thank you for the great instructions. They worked perfectly!
Comment by Dan on 4 December 2007:
Test post. Great theme.
Comment by teknolojik internet magazini on 6 December 2007:
great theme
Comment by John on 8 December 2007:
Great Theme!
Comment by Marc on 18 December 2007:
Great theme! Just purchased it from you. For some reason the “Site Guide” is not showing up? Any chance you can help me with this?
Comment by Scott Noon on 24 December 2007:
Michael, is there a trick to being able to use the Categories without them being in alphabetical order? I’d like to re-order my tabs across the page, but so far they seem stuck in alphabetical order.
Scott
Comment by Greg on 30 December 2007:
I second Scott’s concern. Can you give instruction or add functionality to WP-Magazine Theme to set the order of Categories like we do with Pages. Thanks so much, Michael.
Comment by Michael Pollock on 31 December 2007:
greg and scott: unless you hard-code the category navigation, you’ll need to use a plugin to customize the category order. try a google search for “wordpress category order.”
best - michael
Comment by Carla on 3 January 2008:
There are actually three plugins: My Category Order, My Page Order and My Link Order all in the WordPress.org plugins/widgets directory. All work great in the WP-Magazine Theme! You can set the page order by ID, alpha or your custom order you simply drag and drop.
Comment by Dante on 4 January 2008:
I tried the my category order plugin. It allows me to change the order but the order remains the same on my site. Any suggestions?
Comment by Carla on 7 January 2008:
Dante,
One thing I’ve learned is to ALWAYS refer to the developer’s site for install/features/functions of any plugins - it will save you many headbanging sessions … the readme.txts are very basic.
http://geekyweekly.com/mycategoryorder - explains everything. Though very simple, I don’t want to create a support nightmare for Michael by posting code edit instructions here.
If you can’t get it to work from the info on the site - contact me from my blog.
GREAT idea for your using a WP-Magazine blog!
Comment by Darrell on 12 January 2008:
Michael,
Which page has the call for the # of feature articles? I would like to push mine out of a bit and haven’t seen it yet.
Thanks!
Comment by Steve Outing on 25 January 2008:
I’m adding some manually inserted links alongside the categories in the gray categories bar. I want one of them to be a drop-down with sub-links. Where do I find the code to accomplish that? Thanks!
Comment by Jeffrey Posner on 27 January 2008:
I seem to be having a problem with the tags working on the site. I am using Version 2.3.2.
Can you please look at my site and let me know what I may be missing?
http://capitalistcookbook.com
Comment by Mark @ TheLocoMono on 29 January 2008:
You wrote,
Just be sure that any option other than the default permalink structure is selected.
Can this include the custom link for just the post title?
Comment by Frank on 30 January 2008:
For some reason, the tabbed menu is not showing up on my site. I thought it might be due to different plugins, but i’ve tried everything and it’s still not working. Any ideas? Thanks!
BTW, i’m in love with your code. So nice and clean. The css is all laid out how it should be. Hard to find nowadays!
Comment by Frank on 31 January 2008:
Frank again…
I’m stuck on how to make the Recent Comments only show 5 or so comments like this site does. Mine shows 10, and it’s hoggin up the sidebar.
Thanks.
Comment by Frank on 31 January 2008:
And disregard that one too.
To change the number of Recent Comments showing in the sidebar, go to the sidebar.php, and look for the following code:
<?php $comments = $wpdb->get_results("SELECT comment_author, comment_author_url, comment_ID, comment_post_ID, comment_content, comment_author_email, comment_date FROM $wpdb->comments WHERE comment_approved = '1' AND comment_type = '' ORDER BY comment_date_gmt DESC LIMIT 10") ?>See that number 10 there at the end? Change that 10 to whatever you like. Mine is changed to 5.
Easy peasy.
Comment by Michael Pollock on 31 January 2008:
Good work Frank!
Comment by Greg Sicotte on 1 February 2008:
Hi Michael,
For the benefit of your visitors I want to ask this question here:
I installed “Popularity Contest” recently per your suggestion in setup, but I want to disable the individual post popularity display. PC readme file says to move a file outside the LOOP, but since I am only a self-proclaimed webmaster, I need some insight, please.
Thanks for your help.
Greg
Comment by Frank on 2 February 2008:
The Loop is what makes Wordpress possible.
http://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop
Comment by Allen on 3 February 2008:
I can’t get the related post plugin to work. Does anyone have any ideas. I am running 2.3.2 with magazine theme.
Comment by Michael G Cohen on 4 February 2008:
Hi wondering if Michael or Frank (the Heroes site) could help me out with a couple of questions.
1. Frank how did you get the big Get the Feed image at the top of the site?
2. Michael if I wanted to use Home Page Option #5, how could I insert a banner ad above the articles and what would be the proper size to use?
3. Finally, for ALL, what services have you used for your advertising space beyond Google? I am not trying to start a debate on the value of which service is better than which, I am just looking for some other options that suit the ad supported sizes.
Thanks so much, your answers are much appreciated.
Comment by Michael Pollock on 4 February 2008:
Greg:
Just open the popularity-contest.php file and follow the directions here:
/* -- INSTALLATION --------------------- */// Change this to "0" below if you don't want to show each post's popularity with the post content@define('AKPC_SHOWPOP', 1);Comment by Mark @ TheLocoMono on 4 February 2008:
In the sidebar where it displays the most popular and most commented, is there a way to change it from 5 to 10 posts? I read the recent comment but that’s not what I am looking for. I am not sure if this is a plugin or a template change.
Comment by Michael G Cohen on 5 February 2008:
Hi Mike,
This may seem like a most rudamentary question, but how can I change the color that the Site Categories (e.g. About, Featured, Tutorials etc…) show up in when moused over, both the background color and the text color.
Fantastic job by the way.
Thank you,
Michael
Comment by Chris on 6 February 2008:
Hi,
I installed the theme, but now I cannot use Slickr, the Photo album plugin I use to have a flickr photo album on my blog, because it uses the Lightbox 2 plugin.
Will there be a fix or does anyone know a better photo album plugin which is compatible with Flickr?
Thanks,
Chris
Comment by Michael Pollock on 8 February 2008:
There is a Javascript conflict between Lightbox and the Featured Article glider. So far, I’ve been unable to find a fix for it, so in the meantime, here are 3 Lightbox alternatives that have been used successfully by other WP-Mag Theme users.
1. Shutter Reloaded plugin
2. Highslide
3. akWpLightBox
Comment by Michael G Cohen on 9 February 2008:
Hi Michael,
I know you had said you might cover this in a tutorial, but if not, could you possibly look at my site and see what piece of css I can change to make the Share This link not come up white…
Thanks very much,
Michael
Comment by Chris on 10 February 2008:
Great theme and very good support as well. I recommend buying from this author. I used to use the Simplicity theme (when it was still freeware).
Biggest issue I have is with Lightbox related plugins. I had a photoalbum online which would extract pictures from my Flickr account. Lightbox does not let posts scroll in the feature box. I tried other Photo album plugins, but most of them have Lightbox integrated.
Who has a sollution or who has a photoalbum running with this theme AND the scrolling posts in the feature box still working?
Comment by David on 11 February 2008:
Hi Michael,
I am using hulu video to display video on my video page which is working fine in IE, however, when I look at the page in Firefox the video is aligned to the left.
Could you please direct to where I can learn what code I need to make the video(s) display the same in Firefox as it does in IE?
Thank you in advance.
-David
Comment by Greg Sicotte on 11 February 2008:
Hi Michael,
Why do the top “page” links look different between Internet Explorer and Firefox? In IE I am not able to view all the links (About - Site Map - RSS — these are missing)… can you tell me how to fix this? Please see: http://www.allstaragents.com. Thank you for your time!
Best Regards,
Greg
Comment by Emmett Jones on 14 February 2008:
Great theme, and great help so far, Mike. I just have one question. Actually another person (Allen on February 3rd) asked the same question…I can’t get the related posts plugin to even show up when working within the wordpress dashboard. I definitely have it in my plugin folder, but it never shows up.
In an attempt to circumvent that, I went and got the similar posts plugin, but now I don’t know where in the code I need to go to add the necessary code to get the related posts to show. So, i guess my question is, where can I find the code dealing with the related posts tab you see in single post mode?
Thanks
Comment by Dante on 14 February 2008:
I’m uncertain how to get posts to show up under “popular” can anybody “enlighten” me?
Comment by Chris Baskind on 17 February 2008:
@Dante: Have you downloaded installed, and configured the Popularity Contest plugin?
By the way, I don’t think this plugin will work properly if you are running a caching program (such as WP-Cache).
Comment by Mark @ TheLocoMOno on 21 February 2008:
Chris/Dante
I think I am having the same issue with the Popularity Contest plugin and my WP-Super Cache plugin, I am still investigating the cause for this because my “popular” articles have been stuck for a few weeks now and I already have two articles rated highly.
Comment by Mark @ TheLocoMono on 22 February 2008:
Cohen - I think the Share This link coming up white is more of a Share This plugin issue. I have the same reaction on my site but a box appears in its place explaining what the plugin does. I have no idea how that is happening but I believe it is how they developed the new plugin. You may need to switch to the old one.
Michael - You say the Site Box will work fine without the Popularity plugin, does this mean there will still be a popularity of sorts listed?
Comment by René on 25 February 2008:
Question to Step 4 in the Installation guide: do you have to create a Category named “Feature” or is it actually possible to pic an existing e.g. Dunno What it is?
Comment by Michael Pollock on 25 February 2008:
>>>>> Question to Step 4 in the Installation guide: do you have to create a Category named “Feature” or is it actually possible to pic an existing e.g. Dunno What it is?
Rene:
You can use an existing category if you like as long as the category slug is “featured”
Best - Michael
Comment by Oluwarotimi Kehinde on 27 February 2008:
hi Michael,
Is it possible to display RSS feeds from other websites in any of the WP themes especially the WP Glory?
Comment by Frank on 29 February 2008:
Michael, any new thoughts on the Lightbox plugin? It’s the only thing i’m not satisfied with concerning this theme. I assume you’ve seen all the other stuff i’ve done to it?
Comment by Chris on 1 March 2008:
I would like a sollution for the Lightbox plugin as well, since I had to put my photoalbum offline… Or.. Who has a good tip on which photo album (flickr compatible) plugin to use with this theme?
Comment by Herve on 4 March 2008:
I tried to had description tag for category but i didn’t find out where to paste it
is somebody can help me? thks
Comment by Michael Pollock on 5 March 2008:
>>>>> I tried to had description tag for category but i didn’t find out where to paste it is somebody can help me?
Herve:
You need to paste it in the Archives template.
Look for this block of code and place it after that:
<?php /* If this is a category archive */ if (is_category()) { ?><h1><?php echo single_cat_title(); ?></h1>
You’ll probably need to use
<?php echo category_description(); ?>Comment by Allen on 6 March 2008:
I need help with three more things. I know nothing about css so I am having huge troubles.
I want to change the navigation menu in the sidebar a bit. I want to change the search and tags section.
I want the search to display a google search (I tried but it did not work…I am guessing the search area in the style sheet needs modified somewhat).
I want the tags to show a tag cloud. I saw this on another site and like it. It matches my site well.
Lastly, I want to figure out how to get a full logo across the top of my home page. I don’t like it being stuffed in the corner.
These things are needed badly to balance out my site. Any help would be appreciated. I am having trouble finding people that know css.
Comment by Ryan on 7 March 2008:
Is there anyway to get brians threaded comments working with this theme without screwing up the formatting? You can find the threaded comments here: http://meidell.dk/archives/2004/09/04/nested-comments/
Comment by Mark @ TheLocoMOno on 7 March 2008:
Michael,
Judging from the comments all over the place, it appears you are turning into a WP-Magazine god. I found some terrific tips to tune-up my site with as soon as I get my Internet connection back up at home.
I am curious about something.
While I know how to increase or decrease the number of comments in my recent comment area in the sidebar, my question is this,
Is there a way to increase the number of words appearing in the comments? It seems the max is 18 words so I am not sure if it is due to the size of the box for each comment or the number of words?
Comment by Jeremiah on 9 March 2008:
How do I have “Trackbacks” show at the bottom of each post?
Comment by Ryan on 10 March 2008:
Is there a way to get the featured articles to also show up in the article list on the main page? I’m using hte default layout
Comment by Michael Pollock on 13 March 2008:
>>>>> Is there a way to get the featured articles to also show up in the article list on the main page? I’m using hte default layout
Ryan:
Yes, you can have the Featured articles appear in the regular flow of posts. Just open you Main Index template and delete each instance of this code:
if( $post->ID == $do_not_duplicate[$post->ID] ) continue;You should have 2 instances of that code.
So, after you delete that piece of code, the full code should look like this:
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?><?php $post_class = ('home-post-1' == $post_class) ? 'alt-home-post-1' : 'home-post-1'; ?>
instead of this:
<?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post();if( $post->ID == $do_not_duplicate[$post->ID] ) continue; ?>
<?php $post_class = ('home-post-1' == $post_class) ? 'alt-home-post-1' : 'home-post-1'; ?>
Comment by Michael Pollock on 13 March 2008:
>>>>> How do I have “Trackbacks” show at the bottom of each post?
Jeremiah:
They should show up automatically. See this comment as an example: http://www.wp-magazine.com/2007/11/test-post-4/#comment-875
Also, make sure your Wordpress site is set up to accept trackbacks. To do that, see your Discussion Options page on your WP control panel.
Comment by Joel on 14 March 2008:
I’m finding that if someone leaves a comment that is very short, when it shows up in “recent comments,” the gravatar image takes up more than one cell, making everything look all funny. I’ll leave a one-liner after this to see if the issue is replicated, but do you know of any solution? Perhaps a way to force a line break in “recent comments” if the comment is too short?
Comment by Joel on 14 March 2008:
Test comment.
Comment by Perry Crosbie on 16 March 2008:
Michael,
Great theme. I am however having a slight problem with the gravatar images on the main pages. In the Recent Comments table, the gravatar in not vertically centered in the table, it’s out of the table down below it. If you could shed some light, it would be appreciated. All of your gravatars are centered, I’m not sure why mine aren’t? Thank You,
Perry
Comment by Frances on 17 March 2008:
How do you style the text widgets? Mine are coming up see through - I want them to look the same as the other widgets.
Comment by Richard Telofski on 18 March 2008:
Hi Michael,
Relating to Ryan’s question about having the Feature articles flow on the Main Page also. I’m just trying to understand the relationship between the two.
Right now I have my main page set so the regular posts are separate from the features. The features appear in the feature box and the posts appear on the Main Page.
It seems that in order for a post to appear on the Main Page, the date of the post must be after the post date for the latest feature.
Is that correct?
Comment by Graeme Grant on 19 March 2008:
Is it possible to link within a blog article to another article on the same blog? I basically want a hyperlink that will enable a reader to click on a phrase, for example, and go to another article on that topic.
Comment by Hooman on 21 March 2008:
Hi I have the WP-magazine, and I was wondering about 2 things. First off, is it possible to feature Pages instead of Posts? And secondly, is it possible to remove the “About” from the Featured loop?
Comment by Hooman on 21 March 2008:
Because basically I have the dilemma of either formatting the featured posts to look like pages, or being able to feature pages somehow. Regardless of that though, I would like to remove “About” from the Featured block. But since it is there in the first place, it makes me wonder if you can feature Pages.
Thanks for any insight.
Comment by Oscar on 23 March 2008:
Joel: I have the same problem, I guess everyone has. If the comment is one line, or just a word - it’s looking a bit sketchy in the recent comments on the front page.
Comment by Matthew on 24 March 2008:
Comment by Frances on 17 March 2008:
How do you style the text widgets? Mine are coming up see through - I want them to look the same as the other widgets.
I would love to know how to do this also!!
Comment by Harold on 24 March 2008:
Just wanted to drop a note and let you know that I am extremely pleased with this theme.
It’s the best money ever spent on my blog.
Comment by Michael Pollock on 25 March 2008:
>>>>> How do you style the text widgets? Mine are coming up see through - I want them to look the same as the other widgets.
Matthew:
Try adding this to the bottom of your stylesheet:
#sidebar li.widget, #midcontent li.widget {border:1px solid #ddd;
background:#fff;
padding:1px 1px 0;
}
#sidebar li.widget h2, #midcontent li.widget h2 {border:0;
font-size:9pt;
letter-spacing:0px;
border-bottom:1px solid #fff;
padding:5px 10px;
margin:0;
color:#000;
background:#ccc;
}
#sidebar li.widget li, #midcontent li.widget li {margin:0;
background:#eee;
padding:5px 10px;
border-bottom:1px solid #fff;
}
Comment by Michael Pollock on 25 March 2008:
>>>>> I’m finding that if someone leaves a comment that is very short, when it shows up in “recent comments,” the gravatar image takes up more than one cell, making everything look all funny. I’ll leave a one-liner after this to see if the issue is replicated, but do you know of any solution? Perhaps a way to force a line break in “recent comments” if the comment is too short?
Oscar and Joel:
Try this:
Open your Sidebar template and find this block of code:
<li style="clear:both;"><?php if ( !empty( $comment->comment_author_email ) ) { $md5 = md5( $comment->comment_author_email ); echo "<img class='home-grav' src='http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=$md5&size=48' alt='' />"; } ?>
Then change it to this:
<li class="clearfix"><?php if ( !empty( $comment->comment_author_email ) ) { $md5 = md5( $comment->comment_author_email ); echo "<img class='home-grav' src='http://www.gravatar.com/avatar.php?gravatar_id=$md5&size=48' alt='' />"; } ?>
Comment by BryGuy on 27 March 2008:
In response to:
>>>>> How do you style the text widgets? Mine are coming up see through - I want them to look the same as the other widgets.
I was happy to see the question by Matthew & your comment Michael, as I was wondering the same thing.
I copied the code at the bottom of my stylesheet as you recommended and it worked for the most part…….But it added a border around the 300×250 Banner & yet another border around the Tabber Navigation.
Comment by Virtual Bird's Eye on 27 March 2008:
How about the best placement on the Main Index Template for feedburner adsense placement - where to place the script.
“Paste the code you copied in step 1 just above the line . If you don’t see this code, don’t panic! Just paste the code near the post metadata (author, date, comments, etc) or contact us for help.”
I don’t see class postmetadata…
Comment by Oscar on 31 March 2008:
Works great Michael, thanks!
Comment by Michael on 5 April 2008:
Hi Michael et al,
I just installed WP 2.5 which does not work with the Popularity Contest Plugin. Any suggestions for a work around?
Thanks
Comment by Harold on 8 April 2008:
Michael,
I love what this theme has done for my blog.
I urgently want to purchase a new license to use on a new blog launch, on which I already have Word Press 2.5 installed.
How is the functionality?
Is there to be an updated version that I should wait for, or is this theme already compatible ?
Comment by Michael on 9 April 2008:
Hi Michael and all,
I am just getting my new blog up and running and obviously love the theme. As you will see from my link, I have the most recent comments coming up fine on the right hand side, but the comments, tags, search and archive seem to be missing. Could it be a plugin I installed or am I just missing something. Using WP 2.5
Thanks
Comment by Steve Nash on 9 April 2008:
Fantastic Theme. Using it for my blog.
Anyone know how to make the text links stand out a bit more in the comments? I would just like them to be a little bolder and maybe a deeper blue colour?
Comment by Mats on 10 April 2008:
Hello Michael.
Thanks for a nice Theme!
From the install info of “Related Posts”:
“Place in your templates.”
Which .php site(s) in this theme should I paste that code into?
By the way: If someone are having problems to install “Popularity Contest”, see my post here for a solution:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/163895
Thanks,
Mats.
Comment by Chris Baskind on 12 April 2008:
To change your link colors, find this in the Links section of style.css:
a, a:link, a:visited {
color:#003399;
text-decoration:none;
}
… and change the #color value to whatever you wish. I’ve already changed the value of this example, as you can see. #003399 may not be appropriate to your needs.
You might also want to change the hover color to match:
a:hover, a:active {
color:#fff;
text-decoration:none;
background:#003399;
}
… and the “more” link:
a.more-link:hover, a.more-link:active {
text-decoration:none;
background:#003399 url(images/arrow-rt.gif) 100% 70% no-repeat;
}
They’re all in the same section.
Comment by Michael G. Cohen on 13 April 2008:
Hi Chris et al,
Thanks for the great tip…I am a bit more of a novice I guess and was wondering if you know if the hover colour (which is white) on the Share This icon (see http://www.nextonthescene.com/2008/04/13/test-post-2/) can be changed?
It looks fine until you mouse-over and then it becomes white on white.
Thanks for any help you can offer
Comment by traci on 14 April 2008:
How do I create the drop-down navigation menu for this theme? I’ve added new pages with various “parents” but it still isn’t working…
Would love your help!
=)
Traci
Comment by Chris Baskind on 15 April 2008:
Michael, I don’t remember the details of how I beat the Share This styling problem. I used the Classic version, which has its own CSS located in the file share-this.php. That’s inside wp-content/plugins/share-this/. It’s about 2/3rds down the script.
Comment by Chris Baskind on 15 April 2008:
Thanks for the great theme, Michael. I’m using WP-magazine at EcoTech Daily, which has just launched:
http://EcoTechDaily.com
Comment by Bruno on 15 April 2008:
Great template thanks!
Comment by Michael on 15 April 2008:
Michael was kind enough to share a fix on the Share This plugin with me, the answer worked perfectly.
Try adding this to the bottom of your stylesheet:
#sharethis_0 a:hover, #sharethis_0 a:active {
color: black !important;
}
Comment by antonio on 16 April 2008:
Is the wp-magazine theme compatible with wordpress 2.5?
Comment by TodaysTopTrends on 16 April 2008:
Hi,
How do I change the # of other recent articles?
Thanks.
Mark
Comment by Iskwew on 16 April 2008:
Hi,
I’m testing Wordpress 2.5 and everything is fine, except for the Popularity contest plugin. There is a fix mentioned for it, but that didn’t work for me at least.
Does anyone have a suggesting for a plugin doing roughly the same, and is compatible with 2.5?
Comment by Michael on 19 April 2008:
My question goes out to the group. I am about to get my blog under way after a few weeks of tweaking and testing. I am wondering how people use the Featured articles.
Do you
1) Keep them featured for a certain amount of time and then take off the featured category so they just appear in the normal articles?
2) Have them show up in both the featured articles and the normal articles?
If you have some other way of “retiring” them from the featured space I would be appreciative of your trick.
Thanks…
Michael
Comment by Michael on 19 April 2008:
Hopefully my last question for a while and Michael I hope you can offer support on this one…
So I want to have my site update daily, but I cannot write on a daily basis. Therefore I would like to pull RSS feeds and display them as posts on my site (I would give credit of course)…Basically I want them to show up under a category and if possible I would pull an image (but that might be asking too much)…
Does anyone have any thoughts on how I could add RSS articles as regular posts?
Thanks again
Comment by Jim on 22 April 2008:
Hi Michael, Is it possible for an idiot to change the colours of this excellent template, I just want to make it a bit more blue. If you could post an idiots guide on how this is done, even I might be able to do it.
Thanks in anticipation, great theme, I hope its making you rich
Comment by Steve Nash on 23 April 2008:
re comment from Michael and Featured Articles.
I have my Features allocated to another category but do not have them show in the Recent Articles as well, as I feel this can look a bit repetitive unless you have lots of other articles.
From time to time, I then just untick the featured box for the article and it reverts back to a standard article only.
I do this manually.
I would like to know if there is a way of having this done through a date or timed element so the Featured article automatically reverts back to a standard article after say 2 weeks.
Comment by Frank on 23 April 2008:
For those of you that had wanted to use Lightbox 2 with this theme, you may have found, it doesn’t work. It will break the featured articles scroller. But, I found an alternative, and it appears to be working fine. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/lightview-plus/
Comment by Frank on 23 April 2008:
Sorry. Disregard my last. Michael, you can delete it. The plugin was working fine, but now it’s not I don’t know what happened. I wasn’t even here. Lame.
Comment by Dean on 24 April 2008:
In response to:
>>>>> How do you style the text widgets? Mine are coming up see through - I want them to look the same as the other widgets.
>>>>> I copied the code at the bottom of my stylesheet as you recommended and it worked for the most part…….But it added a border around the 300×250 Banner & yet another border around the Tabber Navigation.
I’m having the same problem… any idea on how to fix this?
Thanks!
Dean
Comment by John Lessnau on 25 April 2008:
As soon as I selected a permalink structure other then default, it completely broke all page and post links in my blog.
I am using the all-in-SEO plug-in, maybe that has something to do with it?
Comment by Dean on 25 April 2008:
I was hoping to change the Bottom Page Navigation from Newer Entries/Older Entries to page numbers like they have on this site:
http://sportscardigest.com/
Does anyone know how to this?
Thanks!
Dean
Comment by Emmett Jones on 28 April 2008:
I know I should probably know how to do this, even though I am a noob…but how do you change the colors of the background of the entire site? Right now i have the default black design, and I’d like to change it. Where do i go?
Comment by Harold Mansfield on 28 April 2008:
Michael,
I am having one heck of a time with my original installation on 124bpms.com
Everything is fine when I upgraded imixremix to wordpress 2.5.1, but not so on the other.
admin is working fine, but It just will not load properly.
I have even gone so far as to uninstall (loosing my CSS changes) and re installing, and still nothing.
Any help on why I am experiencing such a problem?
Comment by Michael on 29 April 2008:
Hi Michael,
I was wondering how I can set the number of words that show up for the regular (non featured) articles on the home page. As you can see (http://www.nextonthescene.com), for at least one of my posts the text flows a little too long on the home page even though I have a “more” link in the actual post.
Thanks,
Michael
Comment by Michael Pollock on 5 May 2008:
>>>>> How do you style the text widgets? Mine are coming up see through - I want them to look the same as the other widgets.
Mary:
Add this to the bottom of your Stylesheet:
#sidebar li.widget, #midcontent li.widget {
border:1px solid #ddd;
background:#fff;
padding:1px 1px 0;
}
#sidebar li.widget h2, #midcontent li.widget h2 {
border:0;
font-size:9pt;
letter-spacing:0px;
border-bottom:1px solid #fff;
padding:5px 10px;
margin:0;
color:#000;
background:#ccc;
}
#sidebar li.widget li, #midcontent li.widget li {
margin:0;
background:#eee;
padding:5px 10px;
border-bottom:1px solid #fff;
}
Comment by Mike on 9 May 2008:
For all those inquiring about how to change the number of “other recent articles”…
There is probably another way, however, if you publish your article as “featured” it will not show up under “other recent articles”…because they are “other” articles…they will post to whatever other page you list them on. But they will only show up on the Featured section on the homepage..hope that helps, took me a little while to figure out.
Comment by diablo943 on 12 May 2008:
I am still struggling to get Popularity Contest working. I have tried changing the path from ../../ to ../ and I have tried creating the necessary database tables via phpMySQL. I still get the fatal error upon activation. Until Alex King releases an updated plugin, has anyone else figured out another workaround?
The site is still in early development so this isn’t mission critical, but I have been banging my head against a wall long enough on this that it has become personal…
Thanks for any help you can provide!
Dave
Comment by Steve Nash on 13 May 2008:
Has anyone changed the large 300×250 banner space to the 4 x ads instead of one large one?
I’ve tried but I get 4 ads in a single column rather than a 2×2 matrix.
Any help much appreciated.
Comment by gunter on 13 May 2008:
Hello Fellows
I have it running and added php scripts inside as well as cgi and perl script. The theme is eating everythings and it’s a great theme. Thanks to Michael.
Some issues I have had : the auto galery feature. I had a very hard time yesterday to put a post online with 6 images. I’ve been working on it for hours and it was always 1 or 2 images that remained in the large format with the other thumbs. Finally I gave up, passed the pix into photoshop to make them 500 width then placed them online full size.
Today morning I posted anoter one with 13 images, cliqued add galery in the post and bang in 2 secondes I had a perfect galery with 13 thumbs … (computer sux sometimes)
Something I am missing like hell is (under the admin mode) une the post title tab $author $category etc …. the $edit this post.
Michael : (question) I am translating the thing in french but *.php after *.php. Is there not another way to do this ?
Gunter
http://www.olibri.us (Belgium)
Comment by diablo943 on 13 May 2008:
I finally got Popularity Contest working! After trying changing the path and manually creating the MySQL tables, I still couldn’t get it past the “Fatal Error”. A little more research and help from Michael lead me to WP-Guy’s blog with the solution. Check it out at: http://wpguy.com/tips/popularity-contest-plugin-compatibility-with-wordpress-25/.
The trick is to change a little code on line 1528 of the ‘popularity-contest.php’ file.
Per Wessley Roche’s instructions change this:
if (isset($_GET[’activate’]) && $_GET[’activate’] == ‘true’) {
to this:
if (isset($_GET[’action’]) && $_GET[’action’] == ‘activate’) {
I hope this helps the last of the stragglers.
Dave
Comment by wrench on 16 May 2008:
Michael,
Very nice template, well worth the money.
GOPMOM likes it as well…
I was wondering if there was an option to ‘upgrade’ a license.
From a single to a multi?
wrench
Comment by Chris Baskind on 22 May 2008:
@Christian I believe I read on Alex King’s blog that Related Posts is broken in WP 2.5. A fix has been found, but I don’t believe there’s a stable release yet.
Comment by Jeff Gritchen on 30 May 2008:
I continue to be impressed with your theme and great service. I do have another question though.
Is there a way to remove the name of the person who posted the item from the list of posts on the front page.
In this examlpe: May 28th, 2008 | Jeff Gritchen | 0 comments | Continued ;I’d like to remove ‘Jeff Gritchen’ AND change ‘Continued’ to ‘Read More’
thanks
Comment by Nigel Howarth on 31 May 2008:
There have been a few questions about changing colors and font sizes in Michael’s theme.
If you haven’t got it already, install ‘Firefox’. Then, get yourself the free Firefox addon - ‘Firebug’. Firebug lets you work your way through the html and displays the relevant entries for each item in Michael’s stylesheet.
You can easily edit the colours, spacing, padding - in fact just about anything you want in the stylesheet - and see the results displayed in the main browser window. (These changes are only temporary, so you make a mistake or don’t like what you’ve done - refresh the page).
If you’re happy with the changes you’ve you’ll need to edit the stylesheet on your PC, using your favourite html editor, and then upload it to the theme’s directory on your server.
(And if you want to find errors in your pages - get ‘HTML Validator’ - another free addon for Firefox)
Cheers, Nigel
Comment by JonasT on 31 May 2008:
Hello Michael,
I want to thank you for creating this theme, its just perfect for my site, I installed it and launched it today and it works like a charm
http://oddjournal.com/
Comment by diablo943 on 12 June 2008:
If you are having trouble getting LightBox 2 or SlimBox working as an image display tool, I would highly recommend trying the Shutter Reloaded plugin from Andrew Ozz at Laptoptips.ca. It doesn’t reference an external library so it avoids the conflicts that LightBox and SlimBox had (I think that was the issue). Nice to have the image display tool back in the quiver!
Dave
Comment by Dean on 13 June 2008:
For those of you who had problems with your lightbox plugin, the akWpLightBox plugin seems to work fine. I’ve been using it for a while without incident. Because I use Windows Live Writer for posting, I actually prefer it… no more manually adding a class or style code to my images. It seems a little slow loading an image, but it’s not a problem for me. It also looks a little clunky, but it has its own style sheet which leads me to believe that you can probably tweak it to your needs.
If you’d like to see how this plugin works with this theme, this post is a good example. Just scroll down a bit before clicking the image… I replaced the 300 x 250 banner ad with a Flash slide show which for some reason appears over top of the lightbox image, but I’m guessing that won’t be a problem for most people.
Comment by Laurie on 17 June 2008:
Michael,
Thank you so much for all your help. I know nothing about programming, but installing and getting this theme going hasn’t been as hard as I thought it would be — and it’s kinda been fun, actually!
It really is a great theme.
Cheers,
Laurie
Comment by Laurie on 6 July 2008:
Re the Related Posts not working: there’s an new version of the RP plug-in and if you choose the “automatically upgrade it” option, it does says “fails to activate.” And it de-activates the existing version.
Instead of the auto upgrade, I downloaded the newest version and it seems to be working fine.
Comment by Debbie Alicen on 10 July 2008:
Laurie, just which RP plugin are you using? Where did you find it?
TIA–
Debbie
Comment by Laurie on 14 July 2008:
On Quips & Tips for Healthy Women, I’m using the WP Related Posts plugin. It’s the .8 version (which I’ve just discovered is not the newest version - I thought it was, but now I see there’s a .9 version).
This is the link to my Related Posts plugin:
http://fairyfish.net/2007/09/12/wordpress-23-related-posts-plugin/
On Quips & Tips for Freelance Writers, I’m using Microkid’s Related Posts (which I think I like better, and I may use it on Healthy Women, too).
Here’s the link to Microkids plugin:
http://www.microkid.net/wordpress/related-posts/