Warning: About to Change Themes Again
Posted on November 2, 2010 Posted by John Scalzi 35 Comments
The theme I’m currently using (called “zBench”) is nice but there are some UI issues that make me a little cranky, and I’ve had to confront the fact that I’m not competent enough to solve them myself (I had a helpful dude from WordPress bail me out on a bunch of things, but there’s only so much I can beg them to keep me from shooting myself in my own foot). So I’m going to switch to another theme that a) has more of the features I prefer, particularly regarding placement of commenting and navigation stuff, b) will be relatively easy to make cosmetic changes to.
Basically, don’t panic when it looks different and typefaces and other bits suddenly change, as they will off and on all night long. I’m futzing about, I am. With luck I’ll have most of the futzing done by tomorrow. Hey, it’ll keep me occupied and not constantly refreshing election results.
Good luck. From someone who has holes in both feet. Self-inflicted, usually just after I think, “I wonder what this will look like…”
I imagine something like theme theme theme, hmm I wonder about the election…. 2 hours pass… hmm I was working on something wasn’t I….
Thank you.
As an admin on a few other sites I feel your pain. KISS should be adopted more often in theme design.
thanks for changing the theme! it really was irritating to start reading the comments with the reply box…
I use emptiness (with minor tweaks) and I love it so much I’ll never ever ever change it ever.
Just saying.
However, I like my occasional changes.
Playing musical themes, are we?
Change must come from within.
*coughs and a quarter pops out of his mouth*
See?
This theme is pretty nice. I agree with Goetz that starting with the comments reply box was bit annoying. I also like seeing the comments prompt at the end of the entry instead of the beginning, so that I don’t have to scroll all the way back up to make a comment. It’s a small thing, but small things make a difference sometimes.
And KISS should be the guiding principle for everything. Wish more people followed that.
Wow!
I was reading the comments on the election post, and when I clicked back to the main page, the world was transformed!
That’s some fast theme changing.
Yikes! It did it again!
I’ll stop now.
Don’t panic, I’m slowly figuring this out.
Yay! Comment numbering is back, and the comments link goes to the first comment. The only thing left (as far as I’m concerned) is the Comment Preview button. :-D
And I just noticed, comments by you are flagged by a white-on-black header bar. Good work! :-)
I find a lot of themes (and designs in general) are influenced more by “hey, this looks cool” than “hey, this is really easy to read/use.” This one seems like both, though. Good choice.
And for those people wishing for a preview button: where’s your spirit of adventure? Haven’t you ever used a YAFIYGI (You Asked for It, You Got It) editor before?
It is one of the best features of WordPress. Theming. Make your edits as preferred. You can always keep the old theme as a back-up when you reach that point of frustration or failure with any new theme.
I’m panicking! It’s very exciting.
Oooh, it’s purty. I like.
I, like John, gets bored eventually with my WP theme. Of course that is the nice thing about WordPress: many themes in many different directions.
I prefer the plain WHATEVER banner, but with the older typewriter font. I don’t care much about the little banner pictures. It’s too commonplace, cliche, unScalzi-esque-ish.
But I love the little artsy thumbnails next to our posts . . . cool.
Definitely better. I still hate sanserif fonts, but that’s me. But I like this a LOT better than the one you had the other day.
I like that the comments link goes to the top of the comments on this theme. It is, of course, your site, but that was the one thing I disliked about the previous new theme. It wasn’t going to impact my visiting and reading of the site, though. :p
Where the hell is my cheese?
Oh, good. Your comments pop out again.
Like this look better and I find navigating more like what I’m used to with the old look.
Also have experience with the “easy to use” WordPress that will solve all the problems of the world. Why can’t we have something that just solves one particular problem? Anyway, have, uh, fun. It’s the content I come here for, anyway, and that’s still excellent.
One word (although I’m not certain how to pronounce it): Atahualpa.
http://wordpress.bytesforall.com/?page_id=40
It has something over 200 settable options.
Is anyone else having problems with the RSS feed now? The last thing that shows up for me is the election story.
I’ll second @27, Atahualpa is great if you don’t know enough to edit source code yourself (I, for example, only know enough to destroys my website) but you might find it cumbersome for everything in your sidebar.
I like this one much better, except for one minor thing. There is no margin on the left. The text starts right at the left margin of the document.
Also, how do we get our own graphic for the messages? Sorry for my ignorance, but I am curious.
JJS:
I have a left margin on my browser, so I’m not entirely sure if the problem is on this end.
I’ll post on how to get that image soon.
I like this theme… what is it called. I’m setting up my blog and would like to use it…
as for elections, does it really matter who gets elected?? I mean, really, they are ALL owned by the special interests\ lobbyists\corporations and don’t represent US in any way…. we’re just living in the illusion of a democracy…. just sayin’
oooppppsss…. the last part of my comment is in the wrong thread.. will repost it there…. ;-(
I enjoy it when you change themes. It reminds me of my childhood when I’d come home from school and find that all the furniture had been moved around.
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