Yaletown
Download:
Download the latest current version. Yaletown version 1.6
If you like this theme please donate to the author.
This theme is called Yaletown after the neighborhood depicted in the banner. Some of the features of this theme include:
- One column (left side) design
- “Flexible” width. The pages automatically adjust between a 750px width and 1000px version depending on browser width.
- The home page features a taller banner than subsequent pages.
- Support for Sidebar Widgets Plugin
- Support for two different Bread Crumb Plugins
- Options page to control Navigation and Title Display options
This theme was created for the Wordpress Theme Contest held by Arena WP in May of 2006.
Current Version: 1.6
Revision History:
| version 1.0 | Original Release |
| version 1.1 | Added table related tags to stylesheet. Fixed mising ‘;’ on search results page. Added identifier functions simular to those universal for all my plugins. Fixed missing Category name display on Category Archive. |
| version 1.2 | I.E. Hack fix for BLOCKQUOTE. Note you are unable to have a left border and bottom padding in IE as it causes a strange creeping effect to occur. |
| version 1.3 | Removed adsense.php and will now rely on content filter plugin Adsense-Deluxe Add ons |
| version 1.4 | Fixed missing __CLASS__ constant for versions of PHP older than 4.3.0 |
| version 1.5 | Added options to control page height and width. Fixed issue with PHP5 installs. Fixed issue with lists wrapping around date block. |
| version 1.6 | Added optional compatible badges to footer. Ensured the theme is XHTML 1.0 Strict Compliant. Improved title tag content. Added optional default font size. Added option to display execution statisics. Fixed issue with favicon. |
Installation:
- Copy the directory yaletown and all it’s contents to the WordPress themes directory on your server, (%WORDPRESS PATH%/wp-contents/themes/).
- You will then need to activate the theme from the WordPress administration presentaion page.
- Once you have activated the theme you can then adjust the options as necessary. The options are available under the presentations page in the WordPress administration.
Version 2.0 beta:
Download:
Download Yaletown 2.0 Release Candidate
For those anxious to try out the new version I have made the latest beta available for download.
Remember this is a beta and will contain some issues but it is close and is what I am running on this site right now. I will be writing up some documentation on how you can customize the theme but for now you can look at some of the sample styles I have included, and feel free to contact me with any questions, defects or suggestions.
List of the changes in Version 2
Major overhaul with many new features:
- Style Support
- Plugin Architecture to allow filtered content
- Full localization Support
- Upgrade notification
- Make Date Display Adjustable
- Increased flexibility
- Plugin/Filter Enabled Content
This new version includes some default styles to demonstrate the capabilities of the theme’s architecture. Some highlights of included styles:
- Default:
This style implements the Yaletown version 1.x theme.- Liquid:
This style demonstrates a liquid design.- Vancouver Nights:
This style implements the Vancouver Nights theme.- Colorize:
This style is the most powerful of the included styles. It allows the user to adjust the content aspects, colors and banner used. This style allows you to have many themes in one.Also included is a Sidebar Widget and Static Sidebar item for allowing the end user control over which style is displayed. (Thanks to Ryan Boren who’s Theme Switcher plugin inspired the idea and who’s plugin supplied some of the code.
Added some items to the default (non-Widget) sidebar.
Contains several fixes:
- Fixed issue with comments template and sites that require logged in users for comments.
- Fixed issue with background image of url(’none’) rather than “none”
- Fixed issue with link in description pointing to wrong location.
- Fixed issue with comment post date.
- Fixed sizing issue with date box.
To Do List:
- multiple/random headers - simular to Vancouver Nights. This would have an option fo allow for the choice of a specific header from a list or random headers from the entire list. Done in version 2
- An option for the sites width to be: fixed (to either 750px or 1000px); or liquid; or the current “flexible” design. Done in version 2
Rodney
[…] Well for those of you who come by often you will notice that I have a new look for the website. This theme is called Yaletown after our neighborhood. […]
Hey,
Love the theme, but I can’t get it to install. I get this error with the current version:
Fatal error: Cannot re-assign $this in /home/.capricorn/charon/mapleinkcomics.com/wp-content/themes/yaletown/yaletown.php on line 9
can ya help?
Kevin,
The problem is that PHP5 does not support re-assigning $this where PHP 4 did. I’m running 4.4.2 so I didn’t notice the problem. I have made a change in version 1.5 which solves your problem but works for older PHP version as well.
How do you get to your meta with this theme?
Jim,
If you are trying to add Meta to your Sidebar, this theme supports the Sidebar Widgets plugin and with using this plugin you can easily add a Meta section to the sidebar.
Simply download and install the Sidebar Widgets plugin. Once the plugin is activated you will easily be able to add the Meta section from the Sidebar Configuration in the Presentation section in the Wordpress Administration.
Thanks.
Is there a way to increase the size of the text in the body? It’s pretty small but when I make adjustments in my browser it hoses a few other sections of this theme — specifically it changes the spacing of the date of the post (the one in the box).
Jim,
Unfortunately this is not as simple as a setting in the options screen. However it shouldn’t be to hard to adjust it by modifying the setting in the style-sheet.
Edit the style.css file and modify the font-size property of the body selector. In version 1.5 of the theme this is line 44.
I’ll add to the to-do list to see fix the sizing problems that occur with adjusting the font size of the browser.
Rodney,
That worked brilliantly for the fonts. Thank you.
Now if I wanted to change the image on the top from the harbor image to one that more accurately represents my blogsite, I’m a bit confused on how I would do that. In the yaletown/images/home directory for instance there are four images that I think I would need to replace correct? Any special tips on how I could go about sectioning these together like you did?
One other thing I’ve noticed is that this theme doesn’t support the different LINK CATEGORIES I’ve created. Items are still separated by an empty space, but the name of the link category does not show up.
Jim,
For the images if you plan to use the flexible sizing for both banner height and width you will actually need to replace the four images in each of the “home”, “homewide”, “site”, and “sitewide” directories. If you stick with only “tall” heights then the two “home” and “homewide” directories are the only ones requiring modification.
To create the images I used Macromedia’s Fireworks as it has a great cutting tool to slice the image into the four sections used. You can download my working files which are multilayer PNG files along with the equivalent in PSD format for those that use Photoshop.
As for adding new link categories, your best option would be to do it through Sidebar Widgets, however if that is not possible and you edit the template, make sure your section headings are <h4> tags. I noticed on your site that they are <h2> which has a foreground color that matches the background in that context.
Rodney,
Wow. Thanks. I appreciate all of your help. With customization of yaletown I’ve got to say I’m about as thrilled as can be with the versatility and the support you offer for this theme.
My blog has gone from looking ordinary and home-made to professional and polished in a few short days so thank you.
I’m still unclear though on the <h4> tags. Where would I make those changes so the color is different? What theme files I mean should I make changes to and where?
Also, do you know why the favicon doesn’t seem to work when I add it to the header? I see you have it working on your site. How can I get that to work on mine? I went ahead and added it to my header. I then added the full address: http://www.watchdogmilwaukee.com/favico.ico and now it flashes but then goes away. Ideas?
Here’s the top few lines of my header.css
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml">
<head profile="http://gmpg.org/xfn/11">
<link rel="shortcut icon" href="http://www.watchdogmilwaukee.com/favicon.ico" >
<title>
<?php if (is_404())
_e('Error 404 - Not Found » ');
elseif (is_search())
Jim McGuigan
Jim,
I’m glad the you are so happy with the theme.
On the missing Sidebar titles; how is the Sidebar content being added? It should be as simple as editing that to adjust the method that is adding the content. That being said I also have been working on an update (version 1.6) which will include a fix that will allow this to work for you.
On the favicon not working this is a bug in my theme where it is looking for the favicon in the root directory of the blog rather than the sites root. This is also fixed in version 1.6.
Version 1.6 contains options to handle the font size so overwriting the style.css should be fine as long as you remember to set the option. When updating remember not to overwrite your updated images.
Terrific theme…one of the coolest I have seen.
I hope it is ok that I changed the head to accomodate our site. If not, let me know. I do have a problem though. In internet explorer, when you click on a permalink or a page, the sidebar “shoots” to an inset position under the post body. Any suggestions?
In Abbotsford, BC…Cam
This is a bug in the comments template file comments.php.
I’m working on version 2.0 which will make it easy to do customizations similar to what you are doing but allow for easy upgrades. Should be ready in a few weeks. I’ll put this fix into that version.
In the mean time you can edit the comments.php file and change the following code around Line 55
</form>
</div><!-- postcomment -->
<?php } // If registration required and not logged in ?>
to
</form><?php } // If registration required and not logged in ?>
</div><!-- postcomment -->
Notice that the closing <div> for the postcomment block is moved out side the if block.
Hi,
I’ve just installed the new vers (1.6) and noticed a small bug. In the admin theme screen, the text description that says “Yaletown is a theme I created with my neighbourhood as the insperation. The theme supports Sidebar Widgets and two different Bread Crumb Plugins. Once installed and activated several customizations can be set from the Options page.” the options link is incorrect. It links to this:
http://rshupe.homeip.net/wordpress/wp-admin/themes.php?page=yaletown.php
However, the link in the sub-menu links to the correct area.
Cool theme, thanks for making it publicly available!
Oops that link points to my QA site. Thanks for the bug report, I’ll fix it in the next version (2.0)
Loved your theme!
Is there a way I could implement this plug-in in your theme:
http://pdavid.sytes.net/blog/archives/21/
Nothing new under thwe sky! It is just a random image plugin. I know it is a little out-of-fashion but it would fit my bill.
It is just that I cant figure out how to implement it in your theme. The plugin talk about:
#header { background: url(”some_image_url”); }
It it possible to do it?
Thanks
Roger Pilon
Costa Rica
Hi again!
Any chance in 2006 to see a 3 col. version of your wonderful theme??
Roger
Roger,
On the first question about the radom image plugin. The Answer is both yes and no. Unfortunatly the theme currently uses 4 images to make up the header so I’m doubtful that you could get the plugin to work un modified.
That said I am working on a new version of the Yaletown plugin which will make it easy to add random header images. Stay tuned as I plan to have a sample of how this can be done in this next release.
On the second question about the 3 col. design, I have built an option for 3 columns in version 2 as well.
Rodney,
Thank you for making the great Yaletown theme available! As a WordProcess novice, I really appreciate being able to slice up a segment from a public domain aerial and create a total new web appearance.
I am very interested in you version update list, particularly the fix issue with resizing fonts in the browser regarding header bar, sidebar and dates.
Will be watching your web site for the update. Is there any simple way to make the date box less conspicuous?
Thanks again for you WordPress contribution.
Bill Thornton
Hey dude thanks for sharing the theme it’s, pretty cool. You should try to make and incorporate your own styles into one big theme. Might be sweet.
Laura
Don Lapre Lover
www.lauraglydaband.com
laura@lauraglydaband.com
What are the release dates on the version histories above and what is the next release date, and is it 1.7 or 2.0 (ie dot release or full release)? Thx
Don Lapre Lover,
The next version of Yaletown (version 2.0) will incorporate styles into the theme. The theme will implement some API hooks and will enable users to be able to create styles that will allow them to upgrade the theme to add new functionality which maintaining their own customizations.
Silo,
To be honest the current version 1.6 was the last in a series of small updates done back in May.
The next version will be 2.0 and I plan to make it available as a beta in the next few days. I am currently running the beta version on this site.
Cool, I love it.
I just posted Beta 3 of Version 2 of the theme. It is what I am running right now on this site. The next beta will be a release candidate as all the major features are now complete and unit tested.
[…] Yaletown NEW REQUIRES WordPress 2.0+ includes wordpress widgets support […]
[…] Yaletown […]
[…] Yaletown […]
[…] Yaletown […]
Installed and used the beta for about 3 days before making the mistake of upgrading to WP 2.1. Seems now the blogroll is all messed up. Also the theme switcher has a few problems. Hope these will be worked out. I’ve been impressed with this theme!
[…] I always knew that Wordpress was extremely powerful, but in the last few days, I’m really beginning to appreciate how much you can really do with it. I love the widgets support, as well as all the freely avalaible themes there are out there. I went through about 15 themes before I settled on the Yaletown theme that I’m currently using. Ironically, the creator of this theme lives in my hometown and the shot he’s using for the banner is a picture of where my parent’s currently live. Talk about a perfect fit! […]
Great theme, I”m using it for my blog. In my website stats though, I have a ton of 404’s for a missing image file “image/li_topmenu.gif”. Not sure if this wasjust left out of your 2.0 RC zip by accident or not. I ended up getting the image from your site and manually uploading it to mine.
GREAT job on the coding! I’m using the beta and really liking the features and look. I used your artwork to copy and recreate a new header suited to the high desert where I live. I’ve gotten a lot of positive feedback. Thanks again, hopefully we can chat sometime.