WordPress Theme 1.3 -> Bionic Jive

Theron,
Another great theme! Thanks for you contributions to WordPress–they are much appreciated!

I am not sure I understand everything…
Does this theme rely on tables for presentation?
Is it really totally non-standard (unquoted attributes with a XHTML 1 tansitional doctype) ?
I am quite new to WordPress and I find especially hard to craete a 1.3 template, so I may have done something wrong, but that’s the result I get with this theme.
I am looking for an official resource for building themes with 1.3 but I can’t seem to find a reliable source.

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Themes

Thanks (again) podz
I still find it insufficiently explicit, but I am starting to admit I’m a bit dense.
WordPress is great but I guess it takes more than the usual amount of time to master. Still it’s the only CMS I really want to use.
I’ll definitely post whatever I understood about themes and 1.3 on my site (that is, when I get it to work).
It will be in French though…

I wouldn’t go saying you are dense – I doubt any Theme author is having an easy time because this is still new ground.
You could email any Theme author ?
You could install all the currently available Themes (see the sticky post) into a test install and dismantle them to see how they work.
Be very prepared to break lots of code as you perfect yours.
And if you need a couple of testers – people who won’t just say”Yea, it’s broke”, but will help with some bug-hunting and feedback post here and see who responds ??
And good luck!!

Hi ghola,
Yes, it does use tables. Generally speaking, I’m a flash developer, but I’m learning more and more about CSS all the time. But until I’m at a point where I’m completely comfortable with creating something that is XHTML compliant, I hope people can enjoy what I have created.
-Theron

Trying to make WordPress my own really is a humbling experience ??
I’ve tried several themes so far and I’ll keep looking.
The thing is, I had managed to do what I want with 1.3 alpha 5 by just modifying the default template (or theme).
Then I wanted to do it proper and tried to replicate it as a separate theme “?? la 1.3”. That’s where I got lost.
What’s probably not common about what I want to do is basic content negociation (hey WP is XHTML 1.1 compliant “out of the box”: how cool is that!):
I’ll switch between application/xhtml+xml and text/html and accordingly send stylesheets with XML PI or link rel.
So that works with the default template (by including a ‘mime.inc’ of my own at the very top of index.php and some editing of now irrelevent content) but when I switch to the files in the ‘wp-content/themes/mytheme’ folder, I get nothing (and I mean nothing, as in the homepage is blank)
When I remove the mime.inc include, the page magically reappears.
Ok, that’s probably to much information for right now…
One last question though. Do you know of any rock-solid and basic theme to begin with?

Theron,
I think you should quote your attributes, because WP is often used by people who care about stanbards, semantics etc… and this will be invalid.
I don’t know if there are any other compatibility issues with your theme.
Other than that I like the template very much. It’s pretty cool.
The only reason I’m not sticking with is is I want to make XHTML 1.1 valid pages.
Thank you for taking the time to make it. I’m not there yet!

2:48 am here in Paris, switched from single malt to jasmin tea…
And I finally made it!
I have a seprarate WP 1.3 theme which allows me to serve apllication/xhtml+xml to the able browsers and text/html to grampa IE and others.
It’s so great to be able to switch between themes and to have everything concerning a single theme containd in its own folder!
I’m not comfortable enough yet with WP to go online and I still have a lot of work on the CSS, but if anyone cares about the content negociation bit, I’ll be happy to share.

Hi ghola,
I certainly respect your opinion and respect that there are others who care a lot about standards. Be that as it may, I have been lucky enough to be a very successful web designer for a few years now and my opinion on such things is this. Web design is not about web standards and compliance. It’s about invoking a feeling from your audience; creating something artistic that makes others feel good. It’s about the design, not the implementation.
Implementation is important, I recognize this and I am working to learn how to meet the standards. I’ve been a flash designer and have done most of my design work using Photoshop and then handing it off, so CSS (and certainly XHTML) are both pretty new to me.
I just think it’s important not to forget why we think something is beautiful, and a beautiful web site design is beautiful regardless of how the code underneath is implemented. I think it’s unfortunate if someone likes a design I’ve created but doesn’t want to use it because of how it’s implemented.
Just my humble opinion.
-Theron

Theron,
I knew I should have gone to bed earlier yesterday. I’m sorry you felt offended by what I said.
I do like your template a lot!
I can’t use your template because I am experimenting with standards compiance, XHTML 1.1 to boot, and I must pay attention to everything in this regard.
As to what others may think about become “invalid” because of a template : not only may some be shocked to find that their WP site is no longer compatible with XHTML, but others less technically aware may not understand at all what is happening.
I think standards compliance is an important part of WP. One of the things that caught my attention (One not The) is XHTML 1.1 compliance “out of the box”. That’s certainly something that took the authors extra time and debugging.
So even if validation is not the most important thing in Web Standards, it may matter for some.
Again, I like your design, and I only WISH I could use it (but that’s just me).

Web design is not about web standards and compliance.

It’s not the only consideration, but certainly it is a very important aspect of web design.

Hi ghola,
I hope I didn’t give the impression that I was offended, I certainly was not. It takes a lot more than opinions about web design to offend me!! ??
-Theron

Hi! Great looking theme. I’m having trouble installing this with my blog. I have WordPress installed to a directory and have the index.php at the root of my folder. When I select your theme i get errors –
Warning: main(./wp-blog-header.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /data/virtualdomains/110/hornbag.net/documents/blog/wp-content/themes/bionicjive/index.php on line 3
Fatal error: main(): Failed opening required ‘./wp-blog-header.php’ (include_path=’.:/usr/local/lib/php’) in /data/virtualdomains/110/hornbag.net/documents/blog/wp-content/themes/bionicjive/index.php on line 3
Anyone able to help me?
Many Thanks

Hi mrbrut,
first of all it’s a 1.3 theme, just to make it clear.
It works fine for me in a WordPress 1.3-alpha-5. And basically all I had to do is download, unzip and select.
Did you install (copy) the theme in the wp-content/themes folder?
You should have a new folder there named “bionicjive” (so that’s wp-content/themes/bionicjive), containing the files :

• comments.php
• footer.php
• header.php
• index.php
• search.php
• style.css

and a folder named “images” (containing 2 images).
If you have that, then all you should have to do is select the theme from the Presentation interface.
If it doesn’t work then it is my opinion that either you don’t have 1.3-alpha-5 (more likely an earlier release) or there is some serious voodoo at work and then I’m helpless.