by Yancey Grantham
This is where the fun begins. I’ve been looking forward to this.
I’ve downloaded the Thesis Theme for WordPress and I’ve uploaded it into the themes folder for my WordPress Recipe Blog.
It is located in the wp-content folder.
Once you have the Thesis Theme for WordPress uploaded to your themes folder you can go to your Dashboard.
Click on Appearance
Click on Thesis
WordPress shows you what the default setting of the theme will look like. In the right corner
Click on Activate “Thesis”
Notice that there is a new link on the Themes menu that says Thesis Options. Here is a screen shot.
Click on Thesis Options
Thesis Theme for WordPress allows you to control the look and feel of your blog.
Here is a screen shot of the Thesis Theme for WordPress Options Page in it’s default form.
Click the image to see the whole image.
If you want the Thesis theme for WordPress for your own blog, you can get it by clicking here now.
My Recipe Blog now looks like this:
If you want to see My Recipe Blog in real life, here is the link.
I’ll blog about the changes I make to the Thesis Theme for WordPress Options in upcoming issues.
by Yancey Grantham
Widgets
WordPress has the main post area that this text in is right now. The two columns, called “Sidebars,” are on the right are there because of the Thesis theme template. The information in the two columns is controlled by the use of Widgets.
Widgets can be a calendar, recent posts, categories, links, archives, plain text and several others. I used the plain “Text” Widget which is a container for text including html. In the middle column, I am using two Text Widgets and the Google Custom Search Widget.
Sidebar 1
- “Text” - Links to other blogs
- “Text” - Code for Google Adsense
- “Google Custom Search” - Google search
Sidebar 2
- “NextGEN Slideshow” - Transitions through pics in Gallery
- “Text” - Links to Gallery and About Artists
- “Search” - Searches the site
- “Recent Posts” - Shows the most recent posts
There will be others in the future, these are what are there now.
Advertisements
I’m initially going to use Google Adsense because I am comfortable with it. In the future, I will be doing some comparative testing with other networks. I have assigned a Google “Channel” to each area that I put an ad. The Top Blue Blog’s header ad has a Channel called “Header Blue.” If someone clicks on an ad in the header, because I have a Channel associated with it, I will know they ad click came from the header on the Top Blue Blog. The Channel tags the ad space with an unique identifier.
Google allows three ad units as well as three link units on a page. Right now I just have one link unit and an ad unit in the header and the body.
Colored Buttons
At the top of the middle column was a great place to but links between the different colored blogs. Instead of text links, buttons would fill the space nicely. These are the pastel colored thus candy looking buttons that I made. I used the background color from each of the blogs.
by Yancey Grantham
Yippie Yellow Yowlzer Yiolee
With the addition of Yellow, I now have all the Welcome pages done for the Top Color Blogs.
Yellow was fun and it went really quickly. Top Yellow Blog
Now I can start adding content as it flows in.
These Welcome pages are the start of my “pillar” pages.
I still have some changes I want to make but I know that I can get caught up in the changes and not stay on the content. For that reason, I’ll make changes along the way as we start bringing in content.
by Yancey Grantham
It was an Orange day. My wife and I want shopping for an orange plate to take pictures of orange colored fruit for the Top Orange Blog. We found a great plate for $1.50. On the way home we saw rows of orange traffic cones next to construction that had rebar with orange protected covers. I tried to get some pictures of them but none of the pics turned out good enough.
When we got home I started working on the blogs and checked the newest posts at the Thesis theme forum. There was a comment in reply to me about a fellow blogger’s photography. I revisited the site and saw the orange flamingo. I had run across it many days ago while surfing other blogs. I took the opportunity and contacted the photographer and asked permission to use the flamingo and he replied back quickly with permission.
Getting permission to use a picture from Ron’s photography inspired me to get the Top Orange Blog’s Welcome page ready. I added the orange color squares bar but it needed a bit more. I had fun running to the refrigerator and got out all the carrots. I made my choice then photographed it against a white background. In Photoshop, I removed the white background and replaced it with the orange colored background to match the site.
Then I modified the type to my liking then presto, bango, I hit the publish button and it became live!
Visit the Top Orange Blog!
by Yancey Grantham
Mom watched as first post appeared. Top Blue Blog’s first post is it’s Welcome page. I was talking on the phone with my Mom yesterday and we were discussing the blogs. I didn’t quite have the graphics ready but for fun, I posted the first Top Blue Blog while she watched from her computer in Oklahoma. I had the graphics done a little later and called back so she could see the changes. She liked the color squares and the blue fish.
Blue Fish, Blue Water
I found a great blue fish to use in the creature paragraph. I searched Google for “blue fish” and I kept jumping to the last of the group of search page results. About 600 pages deep I found the picture Blue Fish, Blue Water. I contacted the photographer, Tony Chammond, and he gave me permission to use his image. Yippie! Tony is 61 and lives in Bexhill-on-Sea, east Sussex, Engliand. To see more of his pictures, click the fish on the Top Blue Blog Welcome page.
I adjusted the image for my uses including flipping the image and fading it into the background color of the Top Blue Blog. [click to continue...]
by Yancey Grantham
I have installed the Thesis theme for WordPress on all the color blogs. I’ve gone in and changed the .custom css for each one and they are all sporting their namesake colors.
I was able to use blue for blue text on the blue blog. However, I could not make even the darkest yellow text work on the yellow blog so I decided to use black text there.
I’ve got the blogs to a place where they are all colored but not all the tags that could be changed have been changed. I will slowly change them over the next few months.
Right now I would like to see a post in each blog so I will be taking off the developer hat and putting on the writting hat. When my editor hat agrees that the writting is ready, I’ll have a post each for the blogs!
1000 Syndicated Feeds
As I was setting up the blogs, I made some changes inside of WordPress. First I changed the amount of syndicated feeds shown from 10 to 1000. I then changed the type to “Summary.” I had over 20 posts when I first enabled my feedburner feed and it grabbed only 10. If I would have known where to change this I would have. Here is the path: > Settings > Reading
Hues
I also went in and made the links between blogs just the color word like Red. It was TopRedBlog.com and I felt that just having it as “Red” was a lot cleaner and pleasing to the eye. Instead of “Blogroll” I named the category “Hues.” I changed it in this blog to “My Blogs” and I titled the blogs, “Red Blog.”
Permalink Stucture to Numeric
I also went into the Permalink page and changed the permalink structure to “Numeric.” I have not read any pros or cons on this but I think it might be better having a /123 url rather than the /?p=123 ending. If you have an opinion on this, please let me know.
