It’s time for a theme change, and a major shift in design philosophy. Thus, I present in all it’s glory (not to mention failing and weaknesses) elementum - latin for the term ‘element’, meaning “the basic parts that are the foundations of something”.
This theme represents around 4 days of coding, design, debugging and is close to my design and aesthetics goals. The layout is based around a single primary post, asides, recent entries and comments lists, and a simplified overall feeling.
The theme itself utilizes some Kubrick code, however a fair majority of the template code and CSS has been built from scratch. The design very definitely deviates away from the standard WordPress 10 post per page layout, has no active content in the sidebar (a pet dislike of mine right now) has a split div layout involving several layers of positioned elements and makes use of virtually all the code examples I have presented via this website, to show what can be achieved if one thinks laterally.
I have recently noticed a disturbing (to me, at least) trend as a great many WordPress plugins have made the rounds. It is all too easy to ‘over engineer’ a blog to the point of going well beyond even a CMS. When one visits such a layout, one is confronted with an over abundance of posts, asides, comments, flicker badges, fancy ‘plugin-of-the-day’ and pretty much anything else that can be bolted into or on to the layout. This leads to a confusion of where to read, what to navigate and how to interpret what is being presented. I am just guilty of this myself - indeed during the development of this theme, it was less a case of what to include, but rather resisting the urge to add more than required.
My aim is to present a simplified, basic yet aesthetically pleasing layout that is easy to navigate and flows logically.. There are still some rough edges to smooth and some code to debug, so if you notice something odd, please feel free to comment.
≡ This is a journal entry relating to the topics of code, function, noteworthy, wordpress.
Brendan Borlase is a Systems and Network Administrator living in Adelaide, Australia, having lived, worked and breathed Information Technology for over 12 years. Learn more.
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Jul 10th, 2005 at 12:12 pm
Very nice indeed!
A couple of niggles: the sidebar is painfully small on FF and there is a bit of borkage on IE.
Jul 10th, 2005 at 5:29 pm
Hrm - weird, will fix that up..
Jul 10th, 2005 at 5:37 pm
I’ve adjusted the font size - there are still a few font rendering issues in IE, that I am aware of, but thanks for letting me know.
Jul 10th, 2005 at 9:22 pm
“I?ve adjusted the font size”
I’m on a different PC now so it’s probably not a fair test but that looks a lot better… I can read it now:-)
I might also be tempted to do the same for #activity but apart from that, it all looks great!
Jul 10th, 2005 at 10:03 pm
I’ve been a little ’sneaky’ and made use of the javascript browser code to apply the IE centric sidebar and font settings for the offending div’s to render a little more reader friendly.
So far it’s working pretty well.. there a still a few things that need a tidy (like the #activity div) but it’s almost there. :)
Jul 11th, 2005 at 9:20 am
Ok, pretty sure I’ve bedded most things down - screen grabs of several browsers (including IE, firefox, linux browsers and apples’ safari) seem to indicate the theme renders pretty similarly across most platforms..
.. for the IE stalwarts (you know who you are) and those playing at home - there are now five divs (and counting) that I have had to add to a separate CSS file just to work around IE. :)
Jul 11th, 2005 at 6:17 pm
I love it. Minimalist, elegant, simplistic and clean. Excellent design. You should take a look at Matt Reads site,
http://mattread.com/
The two of you seem to have similiar design preferences. Right now, he is doing some experimenting with all the Ajax stuff, but a theme he released based on this is called Lucid.
Anyway, Kudos!
Ron
Jul 11th, 2005 at 8:17 pm
Ron,
Thanks. I’ve had a look at Matt’s site, pretty cool. AJAX seems to be taking the web by storm - it would be very handy for the WP backend, particularly the post/page interface.
Still not convinced that AJAX is the new messiah come to save the net, however.. not yet at any rate.
Jul 12th, 2005 at 8:28 am
Perhaps it’s just me, but I find the font-color of the shorts section to be exceptionally hard to read (Windows XP, FF browser, for what it’s worth). I can understand that you’re trying to draw attention to the primary post, but I’m not sure I’d bother to read the asides at all as they are currently.
Otherwise, the new design certainly took me by surprise. ;) It’s very neat and concise, two things I always have trouble with. Glad to see I’m not the only one who semi-frequently wants to start over from scratch.
Jul 12th, 2005 at 9:58 am
“Perhaps it?s just me, but I find the font-color of the shorts section to be exceptionally hard to read”
I’ve adjusted the font size to be reasonably under average circumstances. I don’t particularily want the font to be massive and in vibrant neon colours as that won’t ‘fit’ with the rest of the layout.
Jul 12th, 2005 at 10:09 am
Whatever you changed looks much better. My eyes thank you. :)
Jul 12th, 2005 at 3:15 pm
I really like it. The only problem i have with it, is that someone who visits your say, o say weekly, probably wont remeber what post they last read. but i guess thats no big deal. other than that, its nice and it looks cool too. good job :)
Jul 12th, 2005 at 6:49 pm
Looking pretty good, like it better than the last go around.
Jul 13th, 2005 at 1:41 am
Dave, yes, I am far happier with the result as well. :)
Developing a theme from scratch does have the advantage that once can “design in” goals, rather than hack an existing theme to suit.
Jul 13th, 2005 at 2:22 am
Brendan, this is really lovely.
Your front page is just friggin awesome. Maybe this is just me but I love the slight bevel/shadow around the edge. Not talking about the drop shadow. I’m talking about that 1pixel edge to the whitespace. That’s attention to detail.
Also, I so love that you’ve got “subscribe to comments”. I wish everyone did that.
Jul 13th, 2005 at 3:27 am
“I?m talking about that 1pixel edge to the whitespace.”
Rocks, doesn’t it. :)
The comments section still needs a little finesse (amongst other things, I want to add the code to ‘remember’ if you’ve posted here before).. but the whole thing ‘just works’ as it stands right now, which is surprisingly, more than I had anticipated.
Jul 13th, 2005 at 7:36 am
Yep, I agree that going from scratch does simplify things in some ways. My main thing is that while some themes are extremely well commented, well, others aren’t, and that makes them very difficult to work with. I would rather spend time writing my own from scratch that I understand inside out than try to cross-reference every style or html block in an uncommented theme.
One thing about your new look: I love that background color. There’s just enough color in it that it’s not boring, but it’s unsaturated enough that it doesn’t kill the eyes. I guess it’s a little thing, but I like it. I’m curious though, what made you decide to design the actual page so much smaller than your previous one?
Jul 13th, 2005 at 8:30 am
I’ve seen so many ‘uber wide’ themes that are bulging at the seams with every single possible plugin available, that are impossible to navigate and that have no real sense of what one should read first.. that I thought, “fuck it” and went with a far simpler, narrow design. :)
Narrow columns also give the ‘illusion’ of a simpler layout. They also force one to be more creative with content, while reducing the temptation to add that one last “cool” yet totally pointless plugin..
IMHO, most wordpress plugins are extraneous and have no real place on a blog or CMS. Does that mean I think they all suck? Hell no, I still use a few that actually add functionality or make my (and the readers) lives easier. At the end of the day, your average reader won’t give a shit about the 100th latest and greatest plugin, what it does, or how fantastically mega cool groovy geek it is, if what they want to read is swallowed up in pointless crap.
This isn’t a dig at wordpress plugin developers. There are some brilliant examples of plugin code in use right here - the point is to use what enhances the blog, or it’s functionality and resist the urge to use anything that really has no benefit within the design.
Sorry for the length of the reply, but right now top heavy blogs bloated with masses of l33t plugins that bog the whole thing down really bug me..
Jul 13th, 2005 at 9:18 am
Chris caught a bug in the search results page - thanks mate!
Should be all fixed now. :)
Jul 13th, 2005 at 9:19 am
no problemo.
Jul 13th, 2005 at 9:38 am
No problem with length - it’s always interesting to hear what other people think when dealing with a creative medium like this. One of the reasons I continue to read your blog is because every time you do one of these redesigns/tweaks of yours, you make me really sit back and think about what I’ve done and what I want to do. You’re always good about explaining what you’ve done and why, which has helped me out a bunch. :)
Jul 13th, 2005 at 9:43 am
Brendan, you’re going to hate me.
Take a look at your 404.php
Jul 13th, 2005 at 6:05 pm
Chris,
The 404 isn’t styled at this point. :)
Thanks for the reminder to actually get off my ass and fix it.
Jul 13th, 2005 at 8:36 pm
I, err, fixed the 404. :)
Jul 13th, 2005 at 8:59 pm
LOL, that’s one of the funnier 404s I’ve encountered. :)
Jul 14th, 2005 at 7:55 am
“Sacrifice your Micrososft Windows software box to Cthulu and beg for forgiveness, for using such a crappy product”
That line made me laugh out loud at work.. got me some funny looks. grin
Jul 14th, 2005 at 8:47 am
hehe ;)
Jul 15th, 2005 at 4:36 am
MP Tom Watson used to have a funny 404.
Jul 15th, 2005 at 6:43 am
heh nice one ;-)