Blog Theme with view to release

It will hopefully be released as just another free open source or creative commons theme for WordPress and other open source projects. All I’ve done is used the standard WordPress theme as a starting template and they never charged me for it.

As it stands right now, the theme is coming along, but if anyone spots anything untoward or sees room for improvement, then feel free to contribute to the thread.

I’m having a strange error in internet explorer on the one page. If anyone is using IE, can you check it out

The page to go to is html markups, its on the left hand sidebar at the top under pages.

https://www.kirkbytimes.co.uk/wordpress7

I’ve got two pages up to test things out, but if you click on ‘html markups’ and are using IE, just see if IE throws up an error message and closes the page.

I’ll leave that page untouched so people can work it out, if IE messes up. I suspect it will as I’ve had two machines running different IE6 versions both crash on that particular page. I’ve just updated one IE to the latest version, no joy and the same crash scenario, for me at my end at least.

What is strange is that the other page i’ve got up does not crash. I suspect something is happening because of the html markups I’ve used or that WordPress has put in there because I’ve not closed a tag.

I’ll put another page up and see what mark up is playing the fool.

Just to add that I’ve had a 400 error on the website for a few hours now so you might get nothing. Not sure what the issue is.

Until the sites back up (I have other websites also down) then no-one will be able to see the problem outlined in the post up above this one.

I see it fine with IE 6.0.2900

No errors either.

Thanks for the diagnosis Drmike. I’m using the same IE version as you which must be the latest.

The blog/website is ok again now – no 400 error and it works, though still the same issue for me regarding the one page.

I hope a few more people can view it in IE, because I’m stumbling on why I might have this error at my end on two machines.

I go to click on the html markups page (html markups 2 is ok) and as soon as I get there, Mr Gates delivers the message of impending doom, the error message comes up and the page has to be closed.

Tis a strange one.

Liverpool,

I get an error with IE. The cause is a Yahoo browser extension that I have enabled with IE. If you don’t have that extension enabled, you don’t get the error.

Let me know if you want more detailed information about the Yahoo extension that’s causing this.

I’m glad the theme will be free.

I don’t use Yahoo, so my own IE problems are not related to that.

The mystery deepens though, as I’ve got 3 pages up, but only one (now) will cause the page to crash in IE.

I’m testing simple stuff such as headers and lists, and am trying to narrow it down to what is making the error happen. The page that crashed has a h2 heading, some bold, some italics and a blockquote, an ol list and a ul, then all 6 headings.

It is doubtful anyone would actually use all those mark ups, but possible and therefore a scenario which needs sorting out.

I think I’ll add a link in the meta data to firefox when this is eventually ready.

If anyone else is looking, then go to the web address below and go to the (renamed) IE Crash Page, linked to in the top left corner under Pages. Let me know if it crashes in IE, just to confirm this glitch or bug.

https://www.kirkbytimes.co.uk/wordpress7/

Crashed my IE6. It stopped loading right after:
“By the way, I’m using a first letter css rule to get the oversized first letter, not a drop cap, just oversized at 200%.”

Cheers Samboll

As it happens I just downloaded the Internet Explorer 7 Beta 2, no problems with that at least, and you can download by typing in IE7 into google ect.

IE7 seems pretty good, surprising as it sounds but I’ll have to sort out the Ie6 problem and think I know what it is, but its late and I’m off for Zzzzs.

I decided to just post when I’ve updated the theme in any major way, hopefully it is at the stage were I’m ready to take the plunge and beta it for my own website – sink or swim.

If it works ok for a couple of weeks, I’ll see if everyone thinks its ok to be released to the general public.

Right now, I’ve tidied up things to just look fairly plain, but hopefully neat and obviously xhtml and css sound. People can mess it up themselves in that respect, add a few plugs in and hey presto you have errors. Either way, out of the box, I hope to be able to guarentee it is at least IE6 and IE7 and FF compatible. It also needs to be easy to read, easy to navigate and to be easy on the eyes. If I can do that, all the rest is just a matter of taste and aesthetics.

I added a banner, discreet and low file size. It gives the user more chance to personalise the blog or website by adding a nice image.

I’ll include the smaller discreet eyecandy banner with no image as standard, but put this bigger one in the notes so that users can add a bigger banner. I’ll use the bigger banner for now and will set the theme switcher to show the standard banner. I’d like to offer the psd files, but I’m on a PS2 trial and therefore am not licensed to do so, or am I given that it not commercial? Either way, people who do want to make their own banner will have the exact size to work to.

There are too many talented people out there more savvy than I for me to release anything other than your basic plain 3 column, with an 800 resolution footprint. A bare bones theme really as it only 5 images with it.

You can check things out now I’ve added pages and posts and tried all the various html mark ups out. It looks more tidier, nothing fancy.

https://www.liverpooltimes.co.uk/wordpress7

I think this theme will be a while being released. Not least because I can, with ease, throw up an error page on Ie6, (IE7 and FF are ok) and my lack of knowledge of php is a stumbling block towards pinning the problem down.

I can only pin this fault down to something I’ve done in the early days of putting this theme together. The only issue I have is that if I post an article or a page up, whether I have the visual rich editor on or off, or am using a wysiwyg plug in, there are certain situations which guarentee a crash in IE.

I’m ok myself, as I can avoid the quirky little gremlins, but could not rewrite the rules of WordPress and have people twiddling about just to post up a page or post for this theme. Idiot proof it aint, and the basic WordPress themes are idiot proof and we see blogs going back years working perfectly fine.

For instance, if I put up a post with the visual rich editor off, and put the ‘more’ link pushed underneath the post, (using the enter key)the page will crash.

If I put the more link right after a paragraph, with no whitespace, the page works ok.

I can look at the pages code, and the wierd thing is that there is no difference from pages which do not crash.

My first job is to tidy up the php as I believe whitespace might affect it.

I’ve not read of anyone else with this issue and I know its my theme at fault as the Classic theme copes ok, but the same page on my own theme crashes viewing the same page that works under the classic theme.

The theme is ok with WordPress 1.5 though.

Like I say, I’m ok with it myself, I can use it to run a website I’ll be editing, with no danger of spam (on the blog/website) because everything will be moderated and approved. I like the look of the theme and hope I can iron out this nasty problem which I’ve got right now so that the theme is public.

With so many great themes and talented webmasters out there, it is not an issue.

I’m not giving up on it, worse comes to worse and I’ll rebuild another one.

I doubt anyone can pin what the issue is, I’m hoping it might be some server issue, and as I’m looking to use a non windows platform, it is possible that the issue might go away.

I’d be glad of any advice at this stage as to what people think might be the issue.

The light text for the headers in the sidebar is unreadable for me being very light blue on a white background.

Using IE6 just to let you know

Dr Mike, I think I had the WordPress default Classic scheme up by default, so that’s what you saw as my own theme has no such light blue text, anywhere!

My theme is plain old black and white, tis the Classic scheme which has the light headings.

https://www.kirkbytimes.co.uk/wordpress7

Beatles Lad,

It’s looking better all the time. Nice job with the theme. I like it.

Thanks DomFontana, I think the basic layout is as good as I can make it for a basic news reporting website, it is just the problem with the <!--more-->tag that is holding me from releasing it publically, but I’m happy to use it to run a website with in the meantime as I’ve been running static websites, and WordPress gives me an easier time.

In the meantime, I’ll do what I can to solve the more tag problem, which crashes the site in Ie6, but can easily be avoided by anyone who knows what the enter key is, and what whitespace means.

As it stands now, the site is just used for messing about as I prepare it. The theme switcher only swaps banners and those banners are tributes, not public themes. You can see the two versions of the public theme I’ve got lined up.

I’m also trying to make a three column from the latest WordPress classic as I try to determine what the niggling prob is with this 3 column.