The English Guy Web Design » theme

Updated Very English WordPress Theme

rich — Fri, 04 Jun 2010 22:45:45 +0000

This week I have had a chance to update the Very English WordPress Theme, dramatically updating it to include new bits and pieces that generally get included in lots of my other wordpress themes.

Whereas when it was originally created it didn’t have an admin backend now it does, with these options:

Header; set the image in the top left, blog title/tagline, size, font, alignment.
Content; set excerpt or full on index, image size in posts, blockquote colour, object float in posts.
Sidebars; sidebar title colour.
Comments; show comments on posts/pages, avatar size, background colour.
Font; font and font size.
Twitter; twitter username, if set allows a built-in widget.
Colours; link colours, text colours, and underlines.
Footer; image in the bottom right.

Right above the footer is a section showing three widget-ready blocks, this is a new addition to the theme (at least, editing them via the widget interface is).

If you’re interested, see the theme release page: Very English WordPress Theme. It has a link on there at the bottom where you can download it (it’s free!).

Update to New Multi-Column Theme

rich — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 21:54:50 +0000

Several people have mailed me asking about the new multi-column theme that I’m developing. This is an update to the theme. It will be called ‘RaisedPaper’, it will be a three-, four-, five- or six-column theme. I decided against the seventh column as it wouldn’t fit and look right.

So far so good, it’s nearly done. The final bits and pieces are now under way, the browser work to make sure it’s ok on all (most) browsers. I will -not- be developing for IE6, it’s a waste of time.

At this point that’s about it, I had hoped to get it done for this weekend, but it looks like this week.

Someone had asked about jquery – yes it’ll have jquery, and yes you’ll need it.

Reclamation WordPress Theme

rich — Mon, 05 May 2008 14:54:12 +0000

Just a little something I’ve thrown together. Ok, maybe not thrown together so much but the font and the image both came along at the same time and that little lightbulb in my head went off and that was that. It took a week or two to get the time (and Bank Holiday was a good one) to code it but I’ve finished it off today ready for release.

It’s a two column theme, sidebar on the right as you can see from the screenshot above – click the screenshot to go to one of my test blogs with the theme in action.

The theme has been tested with WordPress 2.5.1 and WordPress 2.3.3, and now with WordPress 2.8.2 – and is of course, widget ready and SEO ready.

This wordpress theme comes pre-packaged with one main background, a black and white version of the grunge image. There are however, three other images, colour versions of the same image – red, blue, and green. Simply change the class on the body to red, blue or green, and the background changes. Obviously, make your own colour or your own background if you wish, to substitute.

If you like this wordpress theme, or others, please consider making a donation.

Download the Reclamation Theme.

Update:There is also now an associated login file with the theme.

Custom WordPress Login Page

rich — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 19:10:10 +0000

Not that the default wordpress login page is bad, but a lot of clients want it altered to suit their needs. Maybe a nice logo, or a font or colour change, but whatever the reason – it can be done!

My first example is keeping most of the default login page intact. I only altered the login box itself – you can find it on my own personal blog. As you can see the box is altered and the image from the famous painting ‘The Son of Man‘ (which is part of my blog’s theme) is there; note that this isn’t there on IE versions of 6 and below. Example below (click to go to the actual login page):

This only required a little alteration – making the form fit inside a restraining div I had added to the default wp-login.php page.

The second example is a bit more complex, but shows how easily the wordpress login page can be configured.

The theme itself is a four column theme, and so to keep the general feeling the theme was extended to the login page over at Balanced News Blog (the link is to the login page). The standard login page (wp-login.php) was modified by adding the header, menu, and sidebars so it fits in with the theme. As you can see though, the message part that is common to all login pages, giving a link back to the main page, has been removed. Example below (click to go to the actual login page):

So as you can see, given the two examples, customising a login page for WordPress isn’t beyond a designer’s grasp. If you are interested in having your blog’s login page customised, drop me a line and let’s talk!