WordPress Theme
Note: I’ve setup a new blog just for my theme, Basic Simplicity. I’ll also be blogging about blogging over there.
Michael Janzen
my two cents
My Active Projects
from Tiny House Design
- Ancient Inspirations
- Black Rock City Inspiration
- Dan’s Tiny House Project plans now available
- Twelve By Twelve – by William Powers
- Hut 2.0 – Tiny House Raising with Friends
- Solar Burrito’s Cabin – Update
- Minicabin JaraBacoa
- The Boxy Lady – Tiny Yellow House
- Rustic Elegance in the Catskills
- Hybrid Cob/Earthship Workshop in October
from Nine Tiny Feet
- Responding to a comment from a reader
- Updated Design – Mini Cabin
- A Flying Wedge – Extreme 9 Square Foot House
- Another Way To Do 9 Square Feet
- Ah-HA! Don’t Frame It – Build Panels
- Nine TIny Feet Plans
- Google SketchUp 3D Drawings
- Nine Tiny Feet Section Drawings
- Nine Tiny Feet Plan Revision
- Found Two Free Trailers
Looks like just what I want when I get the time to set up a blog…thanks! I’ll also be reading a lot of your archived blog posts. Now, got to get back outside & plant more veg!
Very nice theme, Michael! I hope you submitted it to WP. I especially love the admin panel options.
Thanks Jane! I haven’t submitted it to them yet but plan to do that soon.
Love the style! Thanks for all of your hard work!
love the template. How do I change the banner image?
I answered my own question. All set. Thanks again for the template.
Hello
How can I control which static pages are shown in the main menu? and is it somehow possible to have different static pages be shown in different sections of the sidebars ?
I do want to use wordpress more like a cms rather than a blog and therfore need mor flexible static pages
Hi Chris,
If you look at the header.php file (edit themes > editor) you’ll find these lines of code:
<li><a href="<?php echo get_settings(‘home’); ? rel="nofollow">"><?php _e("Home"); ?></a></li>
<?php wp_list_pages(‘title_li=&depth=1&sort_column=menu_order’); ?>
The first line is a link to the homepage. You could manually add pages here. But that might get a bit cumbersome.
You could also leverage the wp_list_pages function. You can add arguments to the string by simply adding &argument=value. To learn how to do that visit the wordpress documentation. http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Tags/wp_list_pages
As far as the sidebar navigation you might want to search for a navigation plug-in or edit the sidebar.php file with code similar to the code in the header. But I bet you’ll find you answer by reading the wp_list_pages page carefully.
Good Luck!
Michael
Hi Michael,
I really like your theme.
Is is easy to switch the sidebar to the left hand side?
Thanks,
Jay
Hi Jayne… I have not built swapping the sidebar left and right into the theme yet, but plan to add that feature in the next version.
I’m not using this on my own site…yet! But have been playing with it for a friend’s site, and you have made most of my headaches go away with this theme. It’s exactly what I would have written if I had the patience and know how to do it.
Headaches, like recoding a million places just to change the dang text color! UGH! Do we really need 17 different shades of blue in one theme? Really? And does every theme have to have a bg image? *sigh*
Anyhow…this is awesome…I love you and if I weren’t old, fat and married I would kiss you on the mouth and offer to have your children. Kidding, but seriously…thank you, Michael, for this theme. You rock!
Thanks C~
I really appreciate the nice comments… and I’m sure my wife understands too
LOL
-Michael
LOL My apologies to her…but I bet, if she has had to wrangle code as a non-coding entity, she does understand!
Here‘s where I was working…and the only change I made were to the header padding in the style.css, to make a skosh bit more room for my header.
Now I’m off to figure out how to make a favicon…I will be using this theme more than any other, I would bet. Thanks again!
Hi C~, No worries
To make the favicon try making a PNG and then rename .ico
Love your template. Thanks for putting it together, the features are all great! Went through over 10 pages of WP templates to find the template I like which was yours. However, I have a problem with the “comment” section. Here is the error code I keep getting, even when I selected the the area whre users do not need passwords to comment.:
Here is the message error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function post_password_required() in /home/threeper/public_html/blog/wp-content/themes/basic-simplicity/comments.php on line 11
I know it is probably something very simple in the HTML, but I’ve been working on this blog for 2 days and I’m a bit fuzzy. Thanks, Debbie
I found the comments.php page in the editor:
What do I change below to allow comments:
This post is password protected. Enter the password to view comments.
Hi Debbie,
I’ll check to see if that is a bug in the theme or a setting in wordpress.
I only suspect it’s not the comments.php file because that file is almost exactly like the one in Kubrick, the default wordpress theme.
Take a look at your discussion settings (settings > discussion). You may have moderation settings turned on that are creating that error.
-Michael
P.S. UNM? I went to UNM
very small world indeed, when did you graduate? I have several degrees from there and worked as a research scientist at the Cancer Center, SOM. I am retired from UNM SOM as a result of a car accident with a DWI…the one big negative about living in NM. I could figure this thing out myself, but I get fatigued mentally and physically from working too long on the computer. I now do photography and art…as posted on my blog…thanks to your design. Will follow up on your notes later, Thanks..will keep you inform as to the outcome.
Hi Debbie,
I was at UNM from about 1990 to 1993, BFA in Ceramics.
Yes NM is wonderful for it’s relative lawlessness but it most certainly has it’s drawbacks.
Sorry to hear about the accident.
I did a little digging and found that the error you are experiencing might have something to do with the version of wordpress you are using.
The function the comments script is chocking on was introduced in version 2.7. Are you using 2.7 or newer? If so I’ll keep digging. If not backup your blog and update to the newest version. The newest version also has auto-updating built-in so it will be super easy in the future to keep up to date after you upgrade.
Download the newest version at http://www.wordpress.org
I just found your wonderful theme but I can´t figure out how to add my own header image?
Just make an image, about 1000px X 140px and upload it to the images folder inside the basic simplicity theme folder. Then go to Appearance > Edit Basic Simplicity and change the header image name ion the form to the name of your image. That’s it!
Big fan of this theme. There’s just one thing that I can’t figure out right now. How do you change the active link color? I’ve changed the colors a bit, and the blue doesn’t look so hot with the scheme I’ve got going on.
Hi Brian. You should be able to change the global link color by editing the “General Link Color”.
That changes the link color, but not the color of the link when you are hovering above it.
Ahhh… hover. In the custom CSS field try adding this:
a:hover {color:#000000;}
Replace the zeros with your preferred hover color. If you want a specific area styled instead of all links just put the ID of the DIV before the style like this:
#content a:hover {color:#000000;}
Awesome… thanks!
Hi there. Love the theme. I honestly can’t find a better one out there. One question. I’m trying to use my own image for the header and want it to be taller than 140px. How can I accomplish this? Appreciate your help!
I would like to activate your theme but can’t figure out how to upload my own header photo. Can anyone help?
Hi Meg… use your FTP software and upload your header image to wp-content/themes/basic-simplicity/images/
Then in the WordPress admin screens go to Appearance>Edit Basic Simplicity and type(paste) your file name (like myheader.jpg) into the header image field.
Hi jason… see this post: http://www.michaeljanzen.com/2009/06/19/basic-simplicity-theme-header-height-tip/
Still trying to figure out how to use my FTP software
May need to give bluehost a call! Thanks for your help!
WoW! Michael,
I downloaded the theme about 30 minutes ago and decided to visit your site to learn more about it before I started working with it.
Wow! you have done a wonderful job with your narrative about the features and options to work with the theme. That’s impressive enough! I could have stopped there and started to incorporate the theme in my new site. But when I read the Comments, all 31 of them at this point, I was totally blown away.
I was blown away not only by the high degree of satisfaction the theme users have in your product, but also by your patient, kind, targeted and oh so helpful response to their inquiries.
Keep up the good work. You have another fan here…and I haven’t even started fiddling around with the theme yet.
Thanks and God Bless.
Norm
Thanks Norm. It’s nice to hear that my aim was good
I built it after spending too much time fooling with other people’s themes and have been using it on my blogs for some time now. I’ve noticed a few things to fix but nothing major. Look for an update soon… and no worries… the upgrade will be easy (and free of course).
Hi Michael,
Thanks for the great theme. I hope you can help me with a problem. I have a static front page and would like to delete the date I created the page. I don’t care about blog posts, they can still have the date. I just want the pages I create not to have the dates.
Any help you can offer would be awesome.
Thanks,
Brian H.
Hi Brian. It’s a little tricky but not that difficult. Look for the following code in the index.php file by going to Appearance > Editor.
<div>Posted <?php the_time(‘F jS, Y’) ?> by <?php the_author() ?> <?php if(is_page()) { ?><!–nothing–><?php }else{ ?>and filed in <?php the_category(‘, ‘) ?><?php } ?> <?php edit_post_link(‘Edit’, ‘ | ‘, ”); ?></div>
Notice this php code: <?php if(is_page()) { ?>
Copy it and put it in front of the date, add an else and be sure to put a closing bracket after the date code. That’s the tricky part but the new complete code should look exactly like this:
<div>Posted <?php if(is_page()) {}else{ ?><?php the_time(‘F jS, Y’) ?><?php } ?> by <?php the_author() ?> <?php if(is_page()) { ?><!–nothing–><?php }else{ ?>and filed in <?php the_category(‘, ‘) ?><?php } ?> <?php edit_post_link(‘Edit’, ‘ | ‘, ”); ?></div>
Hi Michael,
I thought i did it right but now I have an error message:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_STRING in /home/gophumek/public_html/pd/wp-content/themes/basic-simplicity/index.php on line 21
By the way, I’m working with version 1.2 I wasn’t able to get the new version unzipped.
Was the fix you provided for the latest version?
I hope I can fix this now without reloading it
: (
Brian
It should work in either version since it’s all normal wordpress code.
I can’t get it to work any longer. I’ll delete the theme, add it back and try it once more.
Thanks for the code. It’ll probably work next time.
OK Brian… feel free to email me directly. I’m sure we can make it work for you.
Hi Michael,
I fixed it. I just deleted the code which included the date. No more date.
Thanks for the offer to email you. I’m sure I’ll have more questions later.
Thanks for your time and thanks again for the theme.
Hi Michael,
I really like the simplicity of your design – thanks for the work you’ve put into it.
I have a question about the reply display within the comment field. It looks like there is now an bullet point outside of the reply box. I’ve tried to find a way to eliminate it, but am unsuccessful so far. Any ideas?
Regards
Michelle
Hi Michelle,
There is some weirdness in the lists and how they display that I’m going to add to the next release. Should be an easy/free upgrade.
Hi,
For those interested… I found that by turning off the threaded messages (WP Administration > Settings > Discussion) and installing the WordPress Thread Comment plugin; a nice simple look for the threaded comments was created. Within Basic Simplicity, the colours weren’t the garish ones given in the screen shots for the plugin, but were the more attractive shades of grey (in keeping with the overall look).
Thanks again for the great theme Michael.
Kind regards
Michelle
I love the theme, it’s the best! I know this question has been asked before, but somehow I can’t seem to figure out how to change the header image. I have uploaded the header image I’d like to use to the media section on my dashboard, but it doesn’t work. From your replies to other users I understand I have to upload the image to the images folder inside the basic simplicity theme folder… but I can’t even seem to find the basic simplicity theme folder! It’s so silly, I know this should be simple and yet I can’t seem to figure it out. Any help for this clueless noob would be so appreciated – thanks so much, also for creating this theme!
Themes are usually located inside the ‘web root’ folder inside: wp-content/themes/
Then open the theme and the images folder inside. The full path would be: wp-content/themes/basic-simplicity/images/
But you have to find the ‘web root’ folder first and it’s different for each host. This folder contains things like wp-FILENAMEHERE.php. To find the web root folder look for folder names like public_html and www.
I hope that helps.
Michael,
I appreciate your theme. It’s worked well for my personal site; however, a client I’m working for wishes their page to be no more than 800px or so. I’ve found when I list all of the articles from the archive, the text overflows past the footer. Do you know of a remedy? Can I add:
I’m pretty new to WordPress, but I’m learning fast.
Oops, can I add the “previous_posts_link” and “next_posts_link” php?
Thomas… changing the width isn’t really easy because it requires CSS edits for #wrap, #content and possibly #sidebar but I’ve not tried it. The trick is to know if it gets messed up in various browsers. I’ve found http://litmusapp.com/ useful for cross browser testing.
In any event if you make edits I suggest making them in the Custom CSS field so that when I release an update to Basic Simplicity you don’t have to go back and edit the style.css file again. That field on the Appearance > Edit Basic Simplicity page is there to store custom CSS in the database to all the core theme code to remain untouched while facilitating style edits.
I’ve not tried “previous_posts_link” and “next_posts_link” but they should work fine. These are php edits to the index.php file though so if you upgrade the theme at a later date I’d suggest leaving yourself a few commented noted to help you remember the edits you’ve made so you can make them again to the updated code.
Good luck!
Great theme. Wonderfully simple and clean.
Question: my blog is aligned left I would like it to be centred like your own one here but its not working out for me. Any tips?
Many thanks and thanks for such a perfect theme.
Hi Ali… can you send me a link? It should be centered by default.
Michael,
This is a great theme, and I’ve already used it at: http://www.thistleholidays.com/
I’m about to use it for our own web services site. I really like the idea of the widgets at the bottom and side, and especially the idea of home page only widgets. I want to use a static page as the home page, but I found that the home page only widgets did not appear.
I looked at your code in index.php and I changed: is_home()
to
is_front_page
so that chunk now looks like:
does that make sense?
Cheers,
Noel
Of course the comment filter stopped the php, but I’m sure you know what I mean. Also,that should read:
is_front_page()
and it works fine!
Great thinking Noel. I’ll make that switch in the next version.
Hi Michael,
I switched to your theme yesterday and like it a lot (and also your views on the world).
I can’t get my text to wrap around the photos. I’ve tried changing the size of the “medium” and “large” photos in media. I tried changing the align=”alignright” and I tried removing the photo and adding it again but the photo automatically goes left above or below text.
[caption id="attachment_12" align="alignright" width="157" caption="Always seeing your needs"][/caption]
Any thoughts? Thanks!
Thanks Sherry.
When you insert the image using the wordpress interface are you choosing align: left?
Hi Michael,
No, I’m choosing align right. I just tried it again but it aligns left and the type won’t wrap.
I’ll try again when I return tonight.
Thanks again,
Sherry
I did some investigation and right-align seems to work too. I actually left the working example on my homepage (the elephant post) for you to see.
Be sure to put your cursor at the top of paragraph you want to insert a right (or left) aligned image. It may seem logical to put it elsewhere but the image needs to be above the content in the html for it to float to the right or left of that same content.
I hope that helps.
-Michael
Thanks for investigating, Michael. There must be something overriding it on my end. My source code from the WP interface looks slightly different from your source code. I’ll try resizing the photos and see if that helps.
Sherry
Hi Michael,
As I am currently working on an online project I looked through a ton of themes. And as you explained what the reason was to come up with a complete own one, I was already a bit frustrated before coming across yours! Thank you so much for sharing your work and making it available to the rest of us – I very much appreciate it!
If I had one wish for a new version it was to have dedicated settings to customize the header (upload of images or referring to own media, alignment of smaller images, alt-tags, background colour etc.).
Anyhow your theme is by far the most easy to customize that I came across – without having the need of deeper HTML/CSS/or else knowledge.
Keep up the great work!
Thanks Horst… I’ll ad those ideas to the master list for improvements. THanks!
Hi Michael,
Thanks for your easy to use theme. I have a question though… I would like to add a background image to the body and I just can’t make it happen. I’ve adjusted your css, uploaded the image as a gif and jpg (to try both) to the theme images file, put in the right code (I think?):
body {
font-family: Arial, Verdana, sens-serif;
font-size: 100%;
line-height: 1.125em;
background-image: url(‘images/damask.jpg’);
background-repeat: repeat;
}
Anyway, I thought I would check to find out if there is something overriding this somewhere else as no matter what I do the background remains white.
Thanks again, I love the simplicity of the site.
Hi Hillary,
Have you tried adding that CSS to the Custom CSS field? Feel free to send me a URL to your website and I’ll take a look but I suspect it’s the background settings on the “Edit Basic Simplicity” page overwriting your CSS (if it’s put in the style.css file directly. The Custom CSS field places CSS code below the system generated code from the admin form and is the last CSS code applied to the page.
If that doesn’t work definitely send me a link and I’ll take a peek.
Thanks!
Michael
We would like to either move the comments link to the end of the posts and/or make it bolder or possibly a different font.
Reason is we feel it is too obscure in the header area and may be not intuitive for users to look there for a comments link.
Otherwise enjoying using Basic Simplicity
Hi Mark,
Just move this line of code in the index.php file to the spot you want, add a class and then style it in the Custom CSS field.
line of code:
class added:
Custom CSS:
.commentslink {font-weight: bold; font-size: 120%;}