If you don’t know this theme yet, you should check it out at Graph Paper Press.
Modularity Lite is Thad Allender’s freebie version of a larger framework. I was customising this theme for Jerry Hyde’s site recently, and thought I’d take some notes to share with you.
UPDATE January 2011: This article gained a lot of attention since it came out in January 2010. Code changes dramatically with each release, which is why I’ve written an updated version for Modularity Lite 1.3. This article is about version 1.2. Tweaks may NOT work in later versions.
How to add your own Background Image
The background image gets loaded via the style.css file in the following line of code:
/************************* GLOBAL STYLES ***************************/
body {color:#eee;background: #111 url(images/bg.jpg) no-repeat center fixed;}
The full path to the default background image is wp-content/themes/modularity-lite/images/bg.jpg. Change it to your heart’s contempt!
How to add your own Logo or Header
have a look at the header.php file and find the following section:
<!-- Begin Masthead -->
<div id="masthead">
<h4><a href="<?php echo get_settings('home'); ? rel="nofollow">/" title="Home"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a> <span><?php bloginfo('description'); ?></span></h4>
</div>
Delete the <h4> and <span> tags and replace them with a link to your logo like this:
<div id="masthead">
<img src="http://yourdomain.com/yourlogo.jpg">
</div>
If you’d like that logo to link to your home page, wrap it in a link like this:
<div id="masthead">
<a href="<?php echo get_settings('home'); ? rel="nofollow">/" title="Home">
<img src="http://yourdomain.com/yourlogo.jpg">
</a>
</div>
Image Sizes
If you’re hosting images in places other than your website (say Flickr) you may find that those images are too big for your layout. Rather than fiddle with that, let’s have imgaes automatically resize when they’re wider than your theme.
Have a look at the style.css file and find the /* Floats & Images */ section, under which you’ll find these three declarations:
img.centered...
img.alignright...
img.alignleft...
The last value on each line ends with
max-width:950px
Change that to a smaller value and your images will be resized automatically. You may also want to add
heigh:auto
to each line so your images don’t get squashed. I don’t know which image alignment you’re using when you embed an image, so for safe measure, amend all three of them. As an example, here’s the first line of code in its entirety changed to 500px width:
img.centered{display: block;margin-left: auto;margin-right: auto;max-width:500px; height: auto;}
Slowing Down the Slideshow
The slideshow is generated in Java Script. Have a look in your functions.php file and look for a code block under the heading // Load Dom Ready Javascripts – it looks like this:
jQuery("#slideshow").cycle({
speed: '2500',
timeout: '500',
pause: 1
In it, you’ll find two parameters:
- SPEED which is in fact the cross fade duration,
- and TIMEOUT which is the duration of each slide.
1000 is about 1 second, 2000 is 2 seconds, and so forth. Play with those and see what happens. If you’d like cuts instead of corss fades, change the SPEED parameter to 1. The PAUSE parameter doesn’t seem to do anything so leave it alone.
Hi Jay
Is there any way to reduce the size of the slideshow (images). I want to reduce the size from 950X425 px to smaller one. If there is any way need your help.
Thank you
Good call Nitin,
that’s an excellent idea! I was often thinking that on netbooks all you see is the slideshow. I can see two applications here: one would be a header image like I have over at versluis.com. In which case all we need to do is to reduce the height of the images.
The other option would be to leave the aspect ratios of the images intact and make both height and width smaller.
In this example here, I’ve done the latter. Have a look at the very bottom of your style.css file and find the code that styles the slideshow. Replace the height and width values to make the slideshow smaller. I’ve opted for images 400×180 here.
/* Slideshow */#slideshow {padding:0;list-style:none;margin:0 0 3em 0;overflow:hidden;min-height:180px;}
#slideshow .slide {padding:0;width:400px;text-align: center;min-height:180px; background:none}
#slideshow .slide h4 {margin: 0 0 .5em 0;text-transform:uppercase;padding:0 16px;}
#slideshow .slide img {display:block;max-width:400px;text-align:center;margin:0 auto;}
Note that this leaves some unused space on the right of the slideshow (good for a static logo or some text). Also, you don’t need to change the size of your actual images on the server, however if you do your images may look a bit better and it takes the client’s browser less work do resize on-the-fly.
Thank you Jay. Your valuable reply is going to be a great help for me
Thanks alot.
Hi Jay
No question, just a compliment for your great work. Helped me a lot today, especially your info on the slideshows. Thanks a lot.
Franz
Hi Jay
Thanks, It worked for me too. But then the slideshow pushed my sidebar to the bottom. Took me some hours but I found out that if you put the code you suggested not directly on the second line, but right after the code that calls the sidebar, the slideshow 'accepts' the sidebar on the right.
Franz