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 Jason,
I’ve spent about an hour trying to get this going – and I partly succeeded! I’ve inserted an if/then query in header.php that tests if we’re in fact displaying a page or not. If we are, display the the div tag WITH repeater – if we’re not, display an alternate div tag that does not call the repeater.
Trouble is, the latter aligns the content to the left not centre like it’s supposed to. Here’s the code for the header.php file. Delete the <div class=”navigation”> statement:
<?php// checks if this is a page and displays the container
if (is_page()) {
echo "PAGE";
}
else {
echo "NO PAGE";
}
?>
And here’s what you need to add to your style.css file:
.container-no-repeater {width: 990px;
}
I’ll let you know if ever I figure out what the problem is – if not, please ask the friendly folk at GraphPaperPress.
Hi Jade,
those instructions are for Version 1.2 of the theme, you are likely running the latest version which is 1.3. The static slideshow doesn’t exist anymore – to all our disappointment.
I’m in the middle writing some instructions for Version 1.3 and coding a workaround plugin which will bring the static slideshow back to life. Watch this space 😉
Just to let you know I’ve written an updated version of this guide for Mudularity Lite 1.3 – check it out here.
Hey Jay,
I previously applied a fix that you detailed here that would show the full blog post (instead of just an excerpt without image) on the index – thanks for that.
I’ve just come back to it after not working on it for a while (so I’m not upgraded to the newest version yet) but something odd has happened. A thumbnail now appears at the top of the second post, despite not having inserted one into the post. Any advice for how to remove it?
Example: http://blog.charmainemok.com/