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 Alicia,
glad to hear you like the site, and good to hear those tips helped you! I’m totally stumped about issue no. 1 – I’ve tried to reproduce this on my test install, but the “older posts” section gets styled correctly. Try installing the theme in another directory and activate it there to see what happens. If all is well there, I’m afraid you’ll have to go through all your modifications again, or compare what’s different. If you haven’t modified the archive.php file then the culprit will most likely be in style.css somewhere.
Issue no. 2 is simple to solve: Have a look at your blog.php file and see if you can find this piece of code:
<?php
$tag_list = get_the_tag_list( '| Tags: ', ', ' );
printf( __( '%1$s | Categories: %2$s %3$s | ', 'modularity' ),
get_the_time( get_option( 'date_format' ) ),
get_the_category_list( ', ' ),
$tag_list
);
?>
and replace it with this to remove categories and tags:
<?php the_time('F j, Y'); ?>Good luck 😉
Thanks Dave, much appreciated!
You are referring to the start of the headline correct? It’s slightly lower on the front page compared to other posts and pages. I’ve had a look into the CSS but that’s rather difficult to style this seperately. The easier option is less accurate but done in a flash.
Have a look in your single.php and page.php (and page-wide.php if you’re using that template). Right after
<div class="content">insert one or two of these to make the content drop down a line:
<br />It’ll make the headline of the post/page and its content start one line later. Try two and you’re near enough there so your content doesn’t interfere with yout header image anymore.
Good luck 😉
that worked like a charm. thanks!
Hm where can I find the blog.php file?
It’s in the directory where all the other Theme Files are – like header.php, footer.php, etc.
By default, that directory is /wp-content/themes/modularity-lite/ – you’ll find blog.php right there.