Finding a non-responsive theme

I wouldn’t recommend a non-responsive theme since most readers will likely find it tough to read/navigate, but it’s your website. So it’s up to you. (For what it’s worth, I find your current theme really hard to read on mobile.)

Probably the best way to find a non-responsive theme is to look at older ones in the official directory by browsing backwards starting from the last page: https://www.ads-software.com/themes/browse/new/page/1041/

There’s a good chance that some of those are not responsive. But it’s more of a “use at your own risk” type of situation because some of these haven’t been updated in years.

Thanks, Justin.

I thought about trying to find an older theme, but as you note, there’s the updating issue. I’ve not updated WP and php on the site because I didn’t want the old theme to break things.

I was assuming I wanted responsive until I saw what it does. I end up with a silly one-letter-per-line down the left side of the word-wrapped image. And the responsive theme buries the sidebar stuff at the bottom of the phone, meaning the viewer may never see it.

I agree the existing site is hard to read on the phone, but one can zoom in. At least with the existing site the sidebar stuff is there to see so the reader knows it’s there.

I tried commenting out the viewport line in header.php of The Simplest theme. That seems to resolve the crazy text-wrap problem. But the text still can’t be read without zooming in. And it still buries the sidebar stuff. Maybe I just have to rethink the sidebar and put more in the menu.

Thanks for your input.

I was assuming I wanted responsive until I saw what it does.

I just want to note that “responsive” is not a one-size-fits-all thing where every theme gets it right. There are many themes that claim to be responsive or use (more modern) intrinsic design principles but are broken in some ways. Such as:

I end up with a silly one-letter-per-line down the left side of the word-wrapped image.

That’s a bug with the theme(s) you tested it sounds like. A theme without that bug would’ve moved the text below the image in that scenario or would have made the image smaller, depending on the screen/container width.

And the responsive theme buries the sidebar stuff at the bottom of the phone, meaning the viewer may never see it.

Generally speaking, a sidebar is meant to be an aside to your content, not the primary thing. If the viewer never sees it, that should be OK. Also consider that screen readers and others using devices where they cannot physically see your page are not going to see the sidebar if it’s loaded after the content anyway (regardless of where it’s placed visually). They’ll read it in the order that it’s presented in the base HTML or jump around based on headings.

If it’s truly important content/data, it should be added before your post content and shown on top. If it’s not, there’s no reason it must be presented at the same level as your post content and would naturally shift below the post content on smaller screens.

Maybe I just have to rethink the sidebar and put more in the menu.

Absolutely. If it’s super important, adding it to the menu would be a better place than the sidebar for both visual readers and those using screen readers.

Thanks. That’s good to know about the “bug” possibility. And your comments about the role of sidebars reinforce where I was starting to go.