Built-in drop down menu support is something we’re working on right now for Thematic 0.9 (one of the many changes you’ll likely be hearing about pretty soon). In the meantime, the always resourceful Cozmoslabs has released a nifty little Child Theme for Thematic called PageDrop that adds drop down menus to the current Thematic style. I’m sure this will be very popular. Check it out.
Tag Archives: Thematic
How To Change The Postheader in Thematic
bendler.tv has written an easy to follow tutorial on how to change the Postheader in Thematic. The Postheader is the content, typically including the title and author info, above each post and page. This is can be one of the most powerful tools in your Thematic toolbox and the same technique can be used to modify the Postfooter. It let’s you take extreme control over what appears above and below all of the content on your Thematic site—without touching a single Template file.
Crystalline, A crystal sharp Child Theme for Thematic
If you haven’t started using Thematic yet for your blog it wouldn’t surprise me if you switched just to use the Crystalline theme by Cristi of Cozmoslabs. It’s beautiful. You can demo it and download it at Reflection Media.
Replacing the Thematic Menu with a DropDown List of Categories
Cozmos Labs has a great tutorial showing how to replace the default Thematic menu with a dropdown list of categories. Included with the tutorial is a free Child Theme, CatDrop, perfect for those of you interested in making Thematic more like a magazine-style theme or wanting to see how to make a dropdown menu work.
Byty: Another Impressive Thematic Child Theme
Cristian Antohe has released his amazing looking Thematic Child Theme, Byty. It’s free, it’s awesome, go download it now and let Cristian know what you think of it!
What’s new in Thematic 0.7
Thematic 0.7 has been officially released with two major upgrades that’ll help you get what you need done with your WordPress blog or site faster and easier.
Rapid Site Development With Modular CSS
I’m doing my best to make Thematic a tool for rapid site development whether you’re digging into it and using it as the basis for a custom site design or using it as a theme framework with a WordPress Child Theme. How? By making the CSS completely modular. Let’s take a look at two of the folders in the library directory of Thematic; layouts and styles.
/layouts 2c-l-fixed.css 3c-r-fixed.css 2c-r-fixed.css 3c-fixed.css /styles 18px.css typography.css 21px.css default.css images.css plugins.css reset.css
Each of these files can be imported into the stylesheet of either your Thematic-based theme or Child Theme with the @import rule—or copy-pasted if you want to make changes without having to override the CSS to make structural changes. Simply put, what that means is that you can bring each of these files into play in your stylesheet and rapidly build a WordPress theme by mixing and matching them. And I mean really rapidly. For example, here’s an example of a fully finished 3 column Thematic Child Theme, with a sidebar on either side of the content, that follows the default Thematic color styles—built by you, out of only a few lines of CSS. Continue reading
Use WordPress As A CMS With Thematic, Part 1
Cozmos Labs has published Use WordPress as a CMS with Thematic. Part 1 of a two part series of posts that details how they made the Kraft Auto site.
WordPress Theme Frameworks, Child Themes & Custom Theme Hooks & Filters
Dan Philbin of WPCandy gives the lowdown on WordPress Theme Frameworks, Child Themes and custom theme hooks and filters and how they relate to Thematic.
Cozmos Labs On How Easy It Is To Design With Thematic
Cozmos Labs has written an extremely flattering tutorial/mini-essay on their experience with Thematic and how easy it was to theme their site. Make sure you read 10 design tips for your custom wordpress theme built with thematic—and don’t forget to share it if you liked it.
Collapsing WordPress Widget-Ready Areas & Sidebars
Problem: Theme users need as many widget-ready areas as possible. They’re easy to use and they help keep theme template files clean. But! unused, empty, widget-ready areas, areas waiting for you to add a widget of your choice, hang around waiting to spoil your designs by limiting your styling options. Just as bad, empty widget areas can invalidate your markup. But don’t worry, we can do something about it. Only first, we need to take a closer look at the problem.
Here’s how a typical widget-ready sidebar looks. I’ve taken the code from Automattic’s guide to widgetizing WordPress themes.
We’ve got an unordered list and inside of it a statement that looks for the dynamic_sidebar() function. If we’ve registered one, it’ll spit out our awesome stuff: WordPress widgets marked up as list items.
All very good. But what if we start out with no awesome stuff in there? No default widgets? Well, that means our containing ul element will be hanging out there in our site with no li elements in it. A list without list items. Totally invalid and totally unsemantic. Worse yet: what if you were styling that ul with a margin, border, or just positioning it? That styling would stick—even if the widget area was empty. Totally unacceptable.
Thankfully, there’s a fix. Continue reading