September 4, 2006

dark.cash v0.80

A WordPress Theme

Table of Contents

1. Before You Install

I am new to WordPress and new to WordPress theme design; therefore, I expect there to be some various bugs that I was unable to find during testing (that is why it is v0.80). If you find any bugs, quirks or other oddities, please let me know by posting on the dark.cash page within my website. Also, feel free to let me know what you think of the theme and if you have any suggestions on how I can improve it; I obviously cannot test every configuration, so if you encounter any problems, please do not hesitate to let me know.

I welcome and encourage constructive feedback on design, code, accessibility, etc.

2. Installing The Theme

There are no special requirements to installing this theme; it will work "right out of the box".

Simply install the entire contents into your themes directory and select it in the presentation menu within the WordPress control panel. For more help, refer to the Using Themes section on the WordPress web site.

3. Customization

Even though the theme does not require customization to work, many people will want to make it their own by changing various parts of the theme. Here are some basic directions on the most common customizations that I expect:

3a. Logo

There are a few options on how you would like the logo to function

  1. You can leave the logo as it is...or
  2. You can overwrite the logo.png file within the /assets/images directory. Results will be best if the logo is about 50px tall; if your needs differ than this, you will likely have to adjust the style settings on line 39 of header.php or play with style.css...bad things may happen otherwise.
  3. If you would rather not have an image as your logo, you can uncomment the code within the header.php file to display the blog title and description:
    1. Open header.php with a text editor
    2. Find the code between BEGIN logo & END logo (lines 38-42)
    3. Comment out or delete the first line of code that holds the image of the logo (line 39)
    4. Uncomment the code on the 2 lines below to display the blog title and description (lines 40 & 41). You could also only display the blog title by leaving the blog description line of code commented

3b. Logo Reflection

I am currently using JavaScript to automatically add a reflection of the logo. If you do not like this, or if it is causing problems, simply delete or comment out the line of code for it on line 12 within the header.php file.

You will also see some settings within the image tag on line 12 that affect how the reflection will react:

If you need further help, please refer to the Reflection.js web page.

Please note: The reflection will not work on the blog title or description; it will only work on an image.

3c. E-mail Link

By default there is a line of code commented out that would display an icon for your e-mail address in the top-left corner. If you wish to use this, simply uncomment the code on line 36 of the header.php file and insert your e-mail address into the two spots that say EMAIL. If you do not want to use the e-mail link, you can leave it as is or just delete the whole line of code.

3d. Colours (Colors) for Headers & Links

Changing the default colours of the headers and links is very simple; however, unless you adjust the logo as outlined in 3a, the theme probably won't look very good as the colours may clash.

To change the colours:

  1. Perform a find & replace all for #2c97a2 with the hex colour of your choice within the following files:
  2. Save and upload these 3 files onto your server within the themes directory

While you are obviously able to choose any colour you want, here are a few suggestions that I feel might work well with dark.cash:

3e. Categories vs. Tags

The theme was designed using the word "Tags" instead of the default "Categories"; if you prefer "categories" over "tags", follow these directions:

  1. Open sidebar.php and replace the word "Tags" with "Categories" on line 8
  2. Open index.php and replace the words "Tagged as " with "Filed as" (or whatever you prefer) on line 17
  3. Replace the class "famtab" with "famtag" on line 17 in index.php
  4. Repeat steps 2 & 3 in archive.php on line 46
  5. Repeat steps 2 & 3 in search.php on line 22
  6. Upload those 4 files to the theme's directory

4. Plugins

4a. flickrRSS

I really like the flickrRSS plugin made by Eightface as it is very easy to install, configure, and it's not flashy and in-your-face. For this reason I have added built in support within the dark.cash theme.

To use the plugin:

  1. Download, install and activate the plugin according to the directions
  2. Enter your credentials and setting into the flickrRSS options page within the WordPress control panel (an even number of photos will look best)
  3. Ensure that square is selected as the display option within the flickrRSS options page
  4. There is no need to edit any other code; the theme will detect flickrRSS and act accordingly

5. Contact Info

If you have any questions, problems or comments please feel free to contact me:

6. Credits

7. License

The CSS, XHTML and design is released under GPL: http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-license.php

8. Version History

v0.80
(September 4/2006 )
» Fixed link on printer icon to not take you directly to the homepage when clicked (thanks TwoMotifs)
» Added instructions and assets to change "Tags" to "Categories"
» Slightly altered directory structure
» Enhanced readme.htm to include more explanation and detail

v0.70
(August 22/2006 )
» Initial release