3 weeks after the release of version 0.1, I have finally added all the finishing touches for version 0.2 of Designredux, and it is still free. The live demo has been updated with the latest version for your viewing pleasure. Visually there has only been minor changes to the overall design. They were just little tweaks here and there to improve the look. A few odd bugs were fixed as well.
Most of the changes though are in the back end. Most notably the addition of a custom admin panel, custom pages, and it is now widget-ready. The following are the list of changes made.
Custom Admin Panel
Most of the work was done here. And most of the work means a lot of work. In order to maximize the use of the WordPress theme in version 0.1, it required you to go into the code and make some changes. With the creation of the custom admin panel, that is no longer necessary.
Navigation
In version 0.1, the navigation on top of the theme displayed all the categories as links. This was obviously going to be a problem when there are too many categories or you don’t want to display every single category there. In order to fix that, I created an admin panel for the navigation so you can now pick which category you want displayed. You can pick as many or as little as you want.
Bottom right of the footer
This area required the edit of the about_text.txt file in order to make changes to its content in version 0.1. Now you can just change it from the admin panel and you can also change the title for that area.
Feedburner
Efforts have been made in this area to make it easier to add your feedburner account and activate subscribe by email without having to edit the code yourself. If you don’t have a feedburner account, it will just default to WordPress’s rss feed.
Google Adsense
Easy integration of Google adsense is now available for the sidebar and post’s footer. All you have to do is paste the code in the admin panel. I also designed it so the integration of google adsense will look nice. But it does require that you set your Google adsense to use #EEEEEE as the background and border color or else it will look sloppy You don’t have to, but your efforts will be rewarded. Check out the demo to see what I mean.
Google Analytics
Just paste google analytics code into the admin panel and you are done. No need to edit.
Documentation
Added a section to explain everything in the settings below the admin panel.
Custom Pages
Version 0.1 had no custom pages so these were added to cover the basic types of pages found on blogs.
Search.php
In the absence of a search.php file, WordPress uses the index.php to decide how to display the results. Not the best idea so I created the search.php so that the search results look nicer.
Page.php
Again WordPress used the index.php to decide how things looked when pages were displayed when page.php is missing. Now regular pages look much better.
404.php
The page you get when someone gets lost on your blog.
Archives.php
The archives page needs to be activated by creating a page in WordPress, you can call this page anything you want, a good name is Archives. Then go to the page templates section of the page and choose “Archives” in the drop down menu. That’s all you have to do.
Conclusion
A lot of work has already been done on this theme, but there are more coming. More tutorials will continue to roll out soon on how to take this theme to the next level. If you have any requests or ideas, please feel free to leave a comment, send an email, or tweet me on twitter about it.
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22 comments
The theme looks great! Thanks for releasing and updating it. I’ll probably use it in the future!
I’ve found a bug with this theme and wordpress 2.6.2. “Warning: implode() [function.implode]: Invalid arguments passed in /home/linux/public_html/wp-content/themes/designredux/header.php on line 52″
Also, this theme uses all my categories for parent links at the top of the blog…which isn’t a good thing at all. The logo is also messed up quite a bit in Firefox on WinXP.
I can provide screenshots if requested.
@devnet I cannot seem to reproduce your error. I did make changes to the implode() function that should catch what could be going wrong. But since I was unable to replicate the error I can not be sure. Download the new one, same link, I replaced the file with the new one. And tell me if you get the same error.
The theme defaults to using all the categories as links, but there is an option to change this in the custom admin panel so you can pick which category you want to use as links.
A screenshot for the logo in Firefox on WinXP would be nice. I tested it on my WinXp box with Firefox, but I don’t see anything wrong with it. I also tested it with browsershots.org on various Firefox versions with Windows, but yet again I did not see anything out of place.
Thanks for reporting these bugs in, I appreciate that you took the time out to tell me so I can make it better.
Hi Vinh Le. First thanks for a wicked theme and your tutorials based on designredux.
I am however having a little problem. I am not so new to XHTML/CSS or Wordpress but cannot pinpoint the problem. Seems to be something to do with whitespace or the file encoding?
As an example, when I add a category I get this:
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/content/x/x/x/XXXXXXXX/html/wp-content/themes/designredux/functions.php:359) in /home/content/x/x/x/XXXXXXX/html/wp-includes/classes.php on line 806
Fireworks 0 ]]> and the category has not been added, but if I click the back button and refresh the page, the category has been added.
This is what happens when I leave a comment in the front end:
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/content/x/x/x/xxxxxxx/html/wp-content/themes/designredux/functions.php:359) in /home/content/x/x/x/xxxxxxx/html/wp-includes/pluggable.php on line 770.
It also happens when I add widgets to the sidebar and save changes. Always I can click the back buuton, refresh and the changes are there?????
I have the same problem on localhost and live server.
Look forward to hearing from you and hope I can work this out. Great theme.
Shane
@Shane Interesting, for some reason my local test server does not spit out any error messages even though I have it turned on in php.ini. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. It is all fixed and yes it was because of white space before and after the < ?php ?> parts of the file.
If anything else comes up, feel free to notify me and I will fix it asap. The download link has been updated with the latest changes.
Hi Vinh Le. Excellent. Thats the issue fixed. In which file was the whitespace?
Thanks for a rapid response! Look forward to being a regular visitor to your blog.
@Shane Functions.php was the problem. Bugs are not good to be laying around too long, especially when they make the theme unusable. So I took a look right away. Glad to have you as a regular visitor. =)
Hi Vinh Le. Just out of curiosity. I may be starting up a business in the near future. I will be selling a tangible product and wondered if/what you would charge to be able to use this theme for a commercial venture?
Cheers
For those of us who have been following and using earlier version, it would be great if you could list what files need to be updated/replaced to bring earlier versions up-to-date with this release.
If it wasn’t for the fact that I’ve already spent much time customizing the earlier release for a site, I’d just replace the entire package.
Thanks!
Hi again Vinh Le! I was just checking out validation of CSS and I got an error with the class: .wp-pagenavi span.current, saying that there was something wrong with the padding. I had a look at that class in the pagenavi-css.css in the CSS folder and this is how it appeared:
.wp-pagenavi span.extend {
padding: 4px 6px 4
px 6px;
margin: 2px;
border: 1px solid #000000;
color: #FFF;
background-color: #464646;
}
Appears that a new line was started after the value for bottom padding. Dont know if anyone else has the problem but it’s a case obviously of closing up that gap.
By the way, can we use html tags in comments?
Figured out what files to update so all is good.
I do have one obstacle I just encountered.
I love the ability to select specific categories for display but it only works for top level categories. Meaning, if you have a top level category “Tools” with a sub-category of “wrenches”, then only “Tools” is displayed in the admin. I can’t figure out how to make all categories display and available for selection.
Is this possible or should I just resort to adding them manually to the template?
Thanks!
@Guy I apologize about that. I will keep it in mind to make note of the files I changed and what was changed in a more detailed readme.txt in the future.
Right now it is not possible to add sub-categories to the navigation bar, because WordPress is giving me a little trouble with it. Once I figure a work around, I will post it. So for now you have to add it manually.
@Shane Non-commercial I admit is very vague, but in general for me at least what I mean by non-commercial is not selling the theme in some modified version as your own or just claiming it as your own. You can sell anything you want on your blog while using the theme or advertise whatever you want as long as you make sure to credit it back to me with a link. That is it. I don’t ask for much really. =)
As for using html tags in comments, some are available, but they are mostly basic ones used for styling text or linking things. WordPress by default strips html in the comments. Thanks for pointing out the css error. I should hire you to do quality checks. =P
Vinh Le. Thanks, appreciate being able to use your theme. Without doubt I will keep the links back to you and will surely point people in your direction by other means aswell.
I have just noticed something else but dont know if it is unique to my site. In the page navi when I go away from the first page, the previous button display’s like this: « Previous;
Here is a screenshot on Flickr.
I have had a look and changed things around but cannot seem to rectify it.
I am happy to help you out in any way you need =)
Where are you from by the way? I am English but live in Spain.
@Shane Talk about being meticulous and combing through every single detail of the theme. Thanks a lot! I owe you.
It is suppose to be “« Previous” instead of “« Previous;”, which I fixed and uploaded. It is just the functions.php file again. I also had to make a little change in the code so it will update with the new options in the database.
I’m from Boston, MA btw.
@Everyone for the most part the functions.php file is what is getting updated this past week in case you just wanted the newest changes.
Hi. I have a problem with the comments form. Everytime I try to place a comment I get an error requesting me to imput the fields name and email.
From what I can see the field name is not working and the website field is working as name.
I tried in your demo page and the same thing happens.
@Icajao **Fixed. Just download again and replace the old comments.php with the new one in the download.
Great theme I really like the colorscheme. But how do I download and apply the theme??? I downloaded the zip but it contains only 1 169 kb file. What am I doing wrong?
Hello? Can you answer my question above?
hello! you can see how I try to fix up a new blog of mine, but I somehow keep blocking myself with activating the “subscribe by email”
I have checked the option, I have the “email subscription” activated on feedburner, but it doesn’t even show up! Thanks a lot! (great way to make people work with their theme, btw - with your “How to Disassemble” articles) .
Hi, nice theme! thanks. But I have a problem with Search.php, it ‘breaks’ the design (maybe this is my fault, an incorrect code in some of my posts or something).
I just change the $content and echo $content; with the function the_excerpt(); and this work fine.
Thanks again, and sorry for my bad english.
Hi! Mr. Vinh Le, his theme looks great, but i have the problem with the subscribe buttons too, the button for suscribe by rss don´t appears and the button for subscribe by mail too, my english is not very good because i am mexican, but i hope you can help me, i using his theme translated in a blog soon to begin, nice theme.
Greetings and merry christmas!!
Thanks for the inspiration and the theme!
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