Friday, May 26th, 2006...9:21 am

Minor Update: Version 0.12

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I’m absolutely dedicated to the improvement of the PressRow theme for WordPress, and thanks to a very savvy user base, I’ve been able to make quite a few usability and style changes that have really taken the theme up a notch. Although the updates in version 0.12 are relatively minor, I still felt as though they were significant enough to warrant a new version release.

Just like last time, I’m going to give you a brief rundown of what was changed and why I felt those changes were necessary.

  1. List styles in comments: Prior to version 0.12, when users would include list styles in comments (<ul>, <ol>, <li>), the styling would essentially “break,” and the template would completely mess up in IE 6. A couple of waves of my magic wand over the stylesheet fixed this problem easily, though, so now list styles in comments should look like this.
  2. Number of posts on first page: After including support for the “Links” box in the sidebar in version 0.11, I felt as though showing only two posts on the front page didn’t properly balance the newer, longer sidebar. Therefore, I changed the default number of posts on the first page to 3 instead of 2, so now things look a bit more balanced. Of course, if you don’t use the <!--more--> tag to display teasers on your front page, then this likely will make little or no difference to you.
  3. Structure of the zipped file: Thanks to George, I’ve changed the zip file so that it unzips a folder instead of just a bunch of files. I would like to note that Mac users have never had this problem, as the zip file automatically unzips to a folder that corresponds with the name of the zip file. Be that as it may, I am a firm believer that Windows still drives the ship, so I’m in favor of doing anything that improves usability on that end of things. As a result, version 0.12 now features a new and improved zip file!

If you want to upgrade…

Only two core template files have been changed in version 0.12 - style.css and index.php. Therefore, if you would like to upgrade to version 0.12 without overwriting any changes you’ve made to other template files, then simply copy style.css and index.php to the PressRow theme directory.

82 Comments

  • Fantastic theme.
    May 28th, 2006 at 2:55 pm

    I like!!!

  • Could you make the sidebar to appear on the left side? But the content must be loaded first before the sidebar?

  • Korokmu, what you’re asking is actually quite simple to accomplish.

    All you have to do is edit these files:

    • index.php
    • single.php
    • archive.php
    • archives.php
    • page.php
    • search.php
    • 404.php

    The only edit you need to make to these files is to move the <?php get_sidebar(); ?> declaration above the <div id="content"> declaration. Once you’ve done this, the sidebar will appear on the left on all pages.

  • thanks. but can the content be loaded first instead of the sidebar?

  • Korokmu,

    I know what you’re saying, but my question is this - are the loading times that drastically different? I don’t know of a way to load the content before loading the sidebar, but I suppose you could tinker with the stylesheet to make it happen.

    What you’d have to do is leave the original theme files as they are before editing, and then you’d have to modify the stylesheet. Basically, you want to apply a float: right property to the <div id="content">…I think that may switch the positions of the two.

  • Thank you so much for your wonderful theme.

    A small question - I’m trying to do “previous/next entries” (not posts). I’ve tried the wordpress hack but it seems as though page-2 page-3 all look alike and it’s not working. Have I done something wrong?

  • Also, if it’s not too much trouble, would you please take a look at why my PressRow categories don’t show up correctly in either the Archive tab or the main page? very strange…

  • Fili,

    I just looked over your site, and besides enjoying what you had there, I came up with a couple of questions for you.

    1. What’s wrong with the category view? Looks to me like you have an unordered, nested list of categories showing up, and that all appears ok to me.
    2. When you click through to a single post entry page, you see previous and next links above the content of the entry itself (in the space beneath the header in the left hand column).

    So, I guess I’m left wondering - are your questions answered, or is there something wrong with what I was seeing?

  • Heh, thanks for taking a look…

    1. If you look at the posts themselves you can notice that there a lot more categories than what actually shows up. I don’t why that is. Very strange.

    2. Aside from being able to browse between posts in a single post view, I want the reader to be able to browse posts (previous, next) even when watching a few posts together…. I saw lots of Wordpress themes allow that, but it doesn’t seem to work for the Pressrow one. How come? When I “install” the Wordpress hack in the support it doesn’t really work.

  • Fili,

    Are you talking about previous/next links on the main page of the site? Or previous/next links within the category or monthly archive views?

  • Fili,

    The previous and next links will only show up if they are necessary within the context of a particular category or group of posts.

    For instance, the previous/next links appear within the Uncategorized category on your site, but they don’t appear on the Chinese Studies category because there are five or less posts tagged as such.

    As far as the categories appearing on the “Archives” page, I think there may actually be a more serious underlying issue here. I would love to investigate further to find out exactly what’s going on. If you could email me your login details so I could peek through your category structure, that would help a bit.

    It’s up to you, but my email is deuceREMOVEtwoATgmailREMOVEdotcom.

  • Hi, (thanks for the reply)

    I’m not referring to what comes installed in the theme, but rather the code that I added to make it work with previous and next for the whole first page.
    Wouldn’t you want to be able to browse back from your main page without needing a navigation plugin? (why not a small “Previous Posts” at the bottom like most themes?)

    So, I tried doing my own tweaking but this theme kind’o behaved badly, so I thought it’s something for the expert to tackle.

    As for the categories - I have a problem giving you my login details, but I’d be happy to send you the files that you need to check this problem further, let me know (filination|-at-|gmail.com).

    And since we’re talking - maybe I’m misunderstanding Wordpress in general, but … trackbacks look exactly like the comments. Is there no way to show them up differently?

  • As the designer, you can choose to style trackbacks however you like. In many cases, you’ll see trackbacks listed in list fashion, but I actually prefer to make them look like comments. The reason for this is that they generate more clickthroughs and are not such a segregated part of the conversation.

    Be that as it may, you can actually change the styling of the trackbacks per your liking. The only issue is that there’s some PHP involved, and it may be quite tricky on your first go-round. I removed the PHP that separates comment styles from trackback styles because this allowed for the theme to have as little code as possible. If you’d like an example of how to separate comments from trackbacks, I would refer you to the comments.php page from the k2 theme. Although it’s got heavier code than you’ll need, you can probably glean the general idea from that.

    You can slap the categories wherever you’d like on your theme as long as you know the context within which the appropriate code should be placed. Here’s the code you need to generate a list of categories wherever you want:

    <ul>
       <?php wp_list_cats(); ?>
    </ul>

    If you want to add a list of the categories to the PressRow sidebar, then you’ll want to add the above code within a sidebar “element,” like so:

    <li>
       <h2>Categories</h2>
       <div class="sidebar_section">
          <ul>
             <?php wp_list_cats(); ?>
          </ul>
       </div>
    </li>
  • Fili,

    With regard to the navigation links on the main page of your site, give this solution a try.

    First, check out your index.php file within your theme editor. On lines 27-29, you’ll notice the following pieces of code:

       <?php endwhile; ?>
    <?php else : ?>

    Between those two lines of code, insert the following chunk:

    <div class="navigation">
       <div class="previous">
          <?php previous_post_link('%link') ?>
       </div>
       <div class="next">
          <?php next_post_link('%link') ?>
       </div>
    </div>

    If this doesn’t work, I’ll know why - just keep me posted!

  • As for your navigation code, I put it where you told me, but nothing shows up. I left it there (as I don’t think anybody would notice the empty gray box) so you can take a look at it if you want.

    This is what shows up in the HTML source code:

    Did I do something wrong with the post_link PHP commands?

  • As for the categories - well, what you wrote is exactly what I did on my sidebar (which also appears in the Archive tab). In both, there’s a problem which doesn’t display all the categories.

    For example - you will notice that on the main blog page there is are categories like : “Asian Studies” and “Conferences” which don’t show up on the Categories list.

    like - http://www.filination.com/blog/category/studies/asian-studies/

    Weird.

  • Last… :P … I took a look at the K2’s comment.php and I understand in general what they did over there with the “if (k2_comment_type_detection() != “Comment”) ” command, but it’s a bit of a mess to deal with.

    I do think it’s smarter to separate the real comments from the ping-track-backs, and style them a bit differently maybe giving them a much smaller space on the screen.

    Maybe, when I get more PHP wordpress experience, I’ll dare tackle this one.

  • Oh! Categories didn’t show up because your categories function hides empty categories, even if their parent categories that have child categories with posts.
    That would explain it. I just used the usual wordpress categories without the hide option and it works. :P

  • Hey, there is an issue with tags in the sidebar… The square bullets aren’t showing in the sidebar in the li elements like the links or recent entries in IE6, it works like a charm in Firefox… Im trying to fix the css but nothing seems to work. Thanks in advances!

  • chris,

    first off…great theme. i’ve been using it for a few months now and i love it. i just wanted to alert you to a few things you may or may not know already:

    -as busin3ss said above, there is an issue in IE with the bullets not showing up

    -however, in IE, if you have several categories, they properly wrap themselves instead of going under the number of comments as they seem to do in FF

    -finally, and most importantly, i installed the latest version of WP and it completely butchered PressRow. sidebar elements disappeared and my header images went back to default and my CSS/fonts seem to break. since then, i rolled back ot the previous version of WP and everything works fine. as much as i want to be fresh w/ WP, my blog looking good matters much more.

    is there an easy fix to get PressRow to work properly with the latest version of WP, or no?

    thanks again for all your help.

  • John,

    Thanks for the kind words about the theme - I’ll delve a little further into some of the issues you brought up in my free time (although the term is beginning to sound like an oxymoron). I do know that the bullets are an easy fix, and I’ve just been remiss in not putting that update together sooner.

    Anyway, as far as the latest version of WP goes, you shouldn’t have any problems at all. You simply need to make sure that you back up all of your theme files (specifically, the PressRow ones), and if you’re using plugins to control any of the content in the sidebar, you’ll need to back those up, too. Whenever you upgrade, the files within the wp-content folder get overwritten, so I’m pretty sure you’ll have to go back through the WP Admin options panel and reset your plugins just like you did when you first installed them.

    Try that on for size, and let me know if it works. If it doesn’t, I’d be happy to take a look at it personally.

    Thanks again!

  • chris,

    thanks for getting back to me. when i have some free time as well (oxymoron is right!) i’ll see if i can upgrade WP and get PressRow to work again per your instructions. if things go haywire again, i’ll be sure to be in touch via e-mail.

    thanks again,

    john

  • I’m using version 0.1 at the moment. Can I upgrade by overwriting the style.css and index.php files, or do you have to be upgrading from 0.11 for that to work?

    Thanks.

  • Zoe,

    In order to go from Version 0.1 to Version 0.12 in one fell swoop, you’ll need to overwrite three files:

    • index.php
    • sidebar.php
    • style.css
  • Thanks for replying so fast. This is my first wordpress blog, so forgive me a stupid question- I haven’t modified the index & style files, so no worries there. I have modified the sidebar, so do I backup, overwrite and add in the modifications again?

    Thank you for your generous help.

  • Zoe,

    Yeah, it will probably be easiest just to backup your original file and then compare the changes between the two. Although I’m not certain, I think the only changes are the addition of an RSS feed block as well as a link list block (the links that can be controlled through the WP-Admin panel).

  • I’ll find out and let you know if it all goes pear shaped ;)

  • All done, easy as could be. Site now looks as pretty in IE as it does in Firefox. Thanks again.

  • It’s my pleasure. Seriously.

  • First off I really enjoy your theme. It is so clean and simple that I chose it for my sites layout. I have one question though when I want the users to be able to go back a few pages from the main page instead of going to archives with the ..
    previous_posts_link(’Previous Entries’) command and find that when used on the main page it does not work. While it does work in the archives section is there something I am over looking? I hope I made since and thanks in advance.

  • Larfus,

    Try out this solution here. If that doesn’t work for you, then you’ll have to wait until the next release, which is due out within a month.

    I’d address this sooner, but I’m in the middle of launching a new startup, which is another way of saying that I’m up to my neck in work. Oh, but if you’re interested, the startup is called Tubetorial.

  • First off you responded way quicker than I thought and second sorry for bothering you with an already answered question my bad.

  • Hey, no worries at all. I’m just glad I’m here to help!

  • Hi Chris,
    A question, when you have time: where would I insert Google Adsense code if I’d like the ad to appear at the bottom of each page? I’ve tried inserting at various places in the Footer page, but nothing seems to work. Advice appreciated!

  • Oops, nevermind. The ads do show up in Safari, but not in Firefox. Must be a browser quirk.

  • Love the theme! Simple but nice.

  • Is it possible to add a different page template. I would like to add more pages, but would like different pictures to be displayed beyone the About picture.

  • I was trying out different WP templates after having input 20 categories. When I switched templates the categories went away in the live page, but remained in the admin area. Why?

    More to my point, why can’t I get a list of categories to show in your template?

    Thanks,

    V

  • Hi Chris,

    Loved your Pressrow blog. I downloaded it, but I get the following error:

    Fatal error: Call to undefined function: k2info() in /home/aventura/public_html/header.php on line 17

    Anyway to fix that? Thanks in advance.

  • Sidebar bullets still don’t work in IE6. How do I fix it?? I have the latest version of the theme.

    Please help, thanks!

  • Peter,

    You could simply eliminate the k2info() reference in the header.php file…According to the error, it’s located in line 17.

    Casey,

    You’ve got mail.

  • Chris,

    Thanks for the info. I’ll try it and tell you about my adventures….nuff said.

  • Thank you so much for your wonderful theme!!!!

  • Hi!
    1.- When I fill the post into many categories, it goes to a second line making the “no comments” look ugly (take a look at this: http://cholito.org/2006/11/05/coppermine-vs-gallery/)
    how to solve this?
    2.- When I create a new page, how can I do so it would be shown in the upper part of the page? (like the “about” link)
    3.- Somehow I can’t use/configure widgets with this theme, it’s possible to use them?

    Sorry if they are to many questions =)
    Saludos!
    Alejandro

  • The only edit you need to make to these files is to move the declaration above the declaration. Once you’ve done this, the sidebar will appear on the left on all pages.

    Hi, I tried this and it kills the theme somehow. All the posts will be shown in the same page as one post only. No matter what post you click on, all the posts will appear as one and no matter which file you edit, it happens all the time :( (well, with 404.php works ok). I suppose I have to edit something in the style.css, but I’m not shure about what. Any idea?
    thanks in advance!

    Alejandro

  • (blockquote ate the <code> part, sorry)

  • Alejandro,

    I just looked at my initial solution, and frankly, it stinks.

    What you really ought to do here is float the #content div to the right, and also be sure to flip-flop its padding. Right now, you have 40px of padding on the right — after making the switch, you’ll want 40px of padding on the left.

    Manipulating the content position with the CSS while maintaining its place in the markup is the preferred solution in this case.

    Anyway, try that solution and let me know if you have any luck!

  • Holy cow! it works!

    Done! I’ve made some modifications to your theme (althou all the credits are yours) to my likes. All I needed to change was in the css file so it was very simple. Take a look at it and let me know what you think about it.
    Thanks for you help!

    Alejandro

  • Sweet! Your site is looking great — it’s always nice to see people make effective tweaks to the theme, and I really enjoy the way you actively use images on your site.

    Great stuff!

  • I’m glad you like it! to bad I don’t so much traffic as you do :P

    Saludos!!

  • Alejandro,

    Keep writing, learn as much as you can, and offer as much value as you can to your readers.

    A few months down the road, you will have as much traffic as I do. And even though it’s not that much traffic, I’m happy to report that it still rocks :)

  • I have a last question:
    My GF’s mother uses a 800×600 resolution so the screen is really ugly for her.
    It is possible to have two css depending of the resolution? like:
    if you have a 800×600 then use 800.css else use style.css

    I hope it is…

  • Hi Chris,

    I’m currently putting together a blog using PressRow on Wordpress.com. Previously I maintained a hosted Wordpress blog, but opted this time for the ease of use on Wordpress.com. I love the PressRow theme, but have struggled with one feature. Whenever I write a new page, unless I give it another page as it’s “page parent,” it appears above the header photo as a navigation link. I’d eventually like to be able to list perhaps ten pages in the sidebar with only two or three (or maybe none) of them appearing as navigation links above the header. Is there any way to do that (other than the page parent approach, which works but limits flexibility a bit)? Would I be able to get at that by purchasing the ability to edit my CSS? Otherwise, might the ability to do that be a feature in an upcoming release? I could use a different theme without the navigation links at the header, but there’s no other theme I like nearly as much as PressRow! :-/

    Thanks,

    John

  • John,

    Sadly, I don’t have any control over the WordPress.com hosted version of the theme.

    The reason why your pages are all showing up in the navigation area is because the WordPress.com team has implemented a catch-all function that I chose not to use for the very reason you specified.

    Their function lists all your pages, and I felt like this robs you of a necessary element of control. You could manage this type of thing yourself on a version of WordPress that you host yourself, but I’m afraid that as long as you’re on WordPress.com, you’re at their mercy.

  • Chris,

    Thanks for the speedy reply. I’ll try contacting the support people at WP.com to see if this is something they might change in the future.

    Keep up the good work!

    John

  • Chris,

    Wanted to know if there is a way to change or delete the title above the header image (I’ll use a header image with title in it). And can color of post titles be changed? I’m about to move from Typepad to WP (hosted by WP) and Pressrow is my theme of choice.

    Thanks!

  • Hello Chris,

    thanks first of all for sharing such marvel with us.

    I was asking you whether there’s a way to display inline asides nicely in Pressrow. I tried Matt’s Asides but I think some css is playing it badly and everything get messed up : either the sidebar goes to the bottom or the asides shift to the middle part of the page. For the time being I removed them and was asking you whether you know what’s wrong.

    Thanks in advance and wish you great moments for the incoming festives. Have fun. Cheerssss….

  • I am not sure where to ask questions . . so I will try here.

    How come this theme is ignoring the hspace parameter in my img tags? I like to have plenty of space between the photo and the wrap around text.

  • Thank’s for the great theme!

  • I’m using the free Wordpress Blog with your theme. The Categories list (pages) show up with no images (I have to click into the post to see the images).

    http://coastalblog.wordpress.com/tag/friends-family/

    Is there any way I can have the images show up in this view .. by editing the CSS in Wordpress, since I don’t have access to the .php page?

    Best to you,
    Michele

  • I enjoy the look of the theme. Will it be “widgetized”?

  • Eventually, the entire theme will be redone. At that point, it will also be widgetized.

    Thanks!

  • Chris,

    How much work is involved in making the default Pressrow theme look like findcreditcards.org?

  • Bob,

    The root FindCreditCards site is not built on WordPress, and therefore, it wouldn’t make much sense to base it off of the PressRow design/code.

    Despite that, I actually designed the FCC home page, and it’s really just a simple layout that is light on both XHTML and CSS.

  • Hi Chris,

    I should have done a little homework before posting. I misread something somewhere that got me to that site where I clicked on the pressrow theme page.

    I am looking for a design that combines the static elements of FCC and your WP theme coding (cutline, pressrow).

    When you take on any new paying clients, or interested in a joint venture, let me know. You have my email. I have asked a few people who, other than you, that they recommend and all I get is either a laugh or a blank stare.

  • Chris,
    I might be missing something, but I love using this AJAX plugin: http://www.mikesmullin.com/2006/06/05/ajax-comments-20/

    But I cannot get it to work with either Cutline or Pressrow (I am, pretty much, a novice).

    Got any ideas?

  • Hi Chris,

    When I use the PressRow theme, I realized that 2 of my pages are missing from the original theme. Do I need to recreate those 2 pages again? Or is there a way I can get them to appear on PressRow with some tweaking in the code?

  • Sorry, left the other one out.

    Is there a way to enable categories and recent comments on the front page?

  • Hi
    I’ve just moved from water3 theme over to this theme. I really like it but there are one or two issues i’ve encountered.
    1) Archives page isn’t working
    2) Links are no longer categorized
    3)Can’t seem to change the colour of the rollover (currently black) on the links at the very top.

    Loving it other than that. Excellent work.

  • Chris,

    Theme looks great and i’m really happy with the way my site looks so far after installing this theme. I do still have the same issue as mentioned earlier in the comments with the “Previous/Next Posts” at the bottom of the pages.

    The code you relayed only takes into account posts with in the same categories. On this site that works because all the posts are categorized the same, but with those that have several categories this will not create a fix. I’ve tried using the code from other themes and can get the links at the bottom, but they ado the same as what the previous commentor stated. They just show the same posts as the current page because they are different categories.

    What other file or code needs to be modified for it to just go to the previous posts by date? I’ve tried the code from several themes and the results are always the same. Previous entries are the same as the current entries. On your front page it is there and that is the look I want, but it only works on this site because all your posts are categorized the same. On mine it shows a plain gray box because it doesn’t ahve enough posts in the same category on the page.

  • chris

    can i ask you if you have any plans to actually make money off any of your themes? don’t get me wrong, i’m not saying make people pay to use Cutline and Pressrow, but maybe there is a market for something slightly more customized, somewhere between a blog and a more fleshed out site.

    the reason i ask is we’re building a web app that one can build blogs and sites with. we’re considering different options (free themes, custom themes) at different price points. we’re probably not aimed as much at the blogosphere as your products, somewhere where users value pages as much as bloggers value posts, would be an accurate description. and i’m keen to pick your brain a bit, if i may?

    regards,
    alan

  • I upgraded to version 2.1 of Wordpress, and now think I need the 2.1 version of PressNow, can’t figure out how to change the top of the screen where the dark bar is at….. struggling a bit.

  • I love Press row and am using it for my new blog. I don’t see my tagline showing up anywhere though. This theme doesn’t allow for one does it?

  • I really like your theme. But the last update (0.12) was in may 2006. Is there coming a new update (soon) ?

  • another cool wordpress theme for magazine colics

    thanks :)

  • I had been using this theme on Wordpress.com before I migrated to my own host. Any chance this theme working with Sidebar widgets plugin? It doesn’t seem to work on mine….

  • First off — great theme; it looks even better than Cutline, if that’s possible. Secondly, does PressRow have the same built-in options as Cutline? If not, I hope Cutline’s flexibility becomes part of PressRow.

    Thanks for the wonderful theme.

    Ed

  • Hi!
    I don’t want to sound rude, but it’s been almost a year since your last update. Is there a new version coming up?

    Thanks a lot!
    Alejandro

  • As others I really like Pressrow, but soon it will be time to update the blog theme. But I guess I’ll just have to wait what the next version will bring…

  • Chris,

    Truly an awesome design. I was wondering if there is anyway to allow comments on a Page (hey seem to only work on posts).

    Any ideas?

    Thanks, Brad

  • How do I get the blogroll to display in alphabetical order?

  • I’m having the same issue as Cathy - I have searched through various WP forums, tried various bits of code, and nothing I have done has gotten me to be able to set my blogroll in alpha order. Help? Please?

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