Habari Theme: Swanky 0.5beta Released

swanky screenshotIn preparation of the impending release of Habari 0.6, as well as getting some to-do items off my list before adding more (I’ve got two theme projects I’m either resurrecting or starting), I’ve decided to update the ported themes that I’ve released.

First up, Swanky. Not that I’ve seen anyone use this theme, but I did use it as a base for my cooking blog, so it behooves me to have some updated code to make sure I’m using the latest and greatest Habari. I’m not quite sure no one has (to my knowledge) used or modified the theme, perhaps the pink and black and sexy silhouette isn’t a big draw. But as I’ve pointed out, it can be a great starting point for modification. Maybe I’m just not aware, and there are scores of sites using it…then again, since I haven’t released a new version in quite some time, that could be a factor as well. Today, that is fixed.

As I mentioned, this update is in anticipation of the impending 0.6 release, so unless you are running from svn, or a nightly snapshot, this version probably won’t work. For an overview of the theme, see the original post.

New in this release:

  • Removed calls to jquery and and a deprecated Stack::out call
  • Properly calling $theme->tag rather than using the potentially exploitable Controller::get_var function
  • updated the calls to check for logged in and added a tab to the top navigation for logged in users to admin
  • fixing a CSS bug on long post titles so they don’t cover the timestamp

This is considered a beta release, any bugs or changes will be addressed before the final release of Habari 0.6.

Download Swanky 0.5 beta now.

Quick Update on Themes

I recently updated my themes, and since that time a change has been made in trunk in how pagination is handled. All 3 three themes have been updated for this change. I will be leaving download links for the previous versions up as well, as I believe those versions should work with 0.4.1. If you experience any problems with either version, please set me know.

Downloads and more info on each theme available on their original post.

Also, I have a demo site up and running to check them out. I still need to tweak the themeswitcher plugin so you can only select certain themes from your theme directories, so note that only my 3 themes have the switcher code.

Updated Themes

I’ve been quite lazy (or busy, you decide) lately, and have been meaning to update the 3 themes I’ve released to work with the latest trunk. Previously, I kept decent todos and a svn repo for mzingi, but this time I simply bore down in some late night frenzy and got everything up-to-date. I’ve got a new svn repo to work with, and will check them in at some point in the next few days, and hopefully will be able to better outline any changes.

Basically the changes to mzingi were minor, just a few code changes for things like atom links, and updating the YUI fonts and style sheet. I also added some styling for draft posts.

As far as swanky and Harvest Field, they have more extensive changes, most evident in the sidebar content. Harvest Field now only uses built in code for the footer content – the about, recent comments and more posts links. The sidebar in Harvest Field is entirely plugin reliant now, sans the search and subscribe link. It supports by default the Twitter, linkoid (for aside like posts – which is also excluded from the more posts offset) and the very nifty blogroll plugin. All three have their own templates in the theme. I also added support for the credits due plugin, with a built in page template, and conditional code in the footer. Also, I borrowed the watermark for draft posts from michaeltwofish’s connections theme, and a little more emphasis on comments in moderation styling.

Swanky was also updated to use the current Twitter plugin/template, as well as added support for the blogroll plugin. If these plugins are not active, nothing will show, nothing will break. Recommended plugins are listed on the themes page. As with Harvest Field, the draft watermark and comments in moderation were addressed.

As usual, if you find a bug, or would like to see something added/need help, please leave a comment either on this post or the original post for the theme in question.

So without further ado :

Also, I’m putting the finishing touches on a demo site, which I’ll be adding links to the aforementioned theme posts. Just need to decide how I want to add the theme switcher code (I’m trying to decide between adding a new fixed element at the top of each theme, or simply adding the dropdown to each sidebar).

As always, much thanks go to the community for the help and assistance in putting these together.

Edit Twitter, linkoid, blogroll, and credit due plugins can be downloaded from Habari extras

Second Edit To clarify the “Credits” feature is accomplished by 1)activating the creditsdue plugin from extras 2)create a page with the slug “credits”, you can add additional content to the page if you want 3) there is no three (I’ve always wanted to say that!).

Swanky Theme

Updated! See the latest post on details

screenshotThis week an open source design came across my feed reader, and something about it caught my eye. Immediately however, I didn’t think the header matched the design name, so I set about creating something a bit more “swanky”. From there, I began porting it to Habari. The goal was a ready to go theme, with support for several of the popular available plugins. To that end, Swanky supports half a dozen plugins, a couple of which are recommended.

For recommended plugins, Raman Ng’s Related Posts plugin and his Tag Cloud plugin will provide full intent and functionality of the theme.

The theme also supports the Credit Due plugin that is available from the Habari Extras repository. Activation of the plugin and the addition of a Credits page will automatically move the credits from the footer, and create a link to a page on your site at example.com /credits, which will contain the original design credits which are asked to be kept in place, as well as credits for all plugins and the Habari theme itself. (It will also exclude the page /credits from the top navigation) You do not need to add any content to the page, simply creating the page will suffice. If you have any other “shout outs” you’d like to add in addition to the plugins output, that will appear above the default output. Without the plugin and page, the link for the original design and theme design will be shown in the footer.

Suggested plugins include the aforementioned Credit Due, as well as the pingback plugin bundled with Habari, Gravatars (also in Habari Extras), and the Recent Comments plugin in Extras. If the Recent Comments plugin is not installed, it will default to included code in the theme. Using the Recent Comments plugin allows for user definition of some output, including adding a date, and how many recent comments to show. The default code simply displays 5 most recent, comment author and post. The theme is coded to use the unordered list if you use the plugin, changing that would require editing the sidebar.php template.

The theme also supports the Twitter plugin (also in the Extras Repo), and will show on pages that recent posts show. (see below regarding dynamic display).

One small feature of the theme is that the middle sidebar is dynamic based on certain templates being viewed. Single post views will not show the recent posts, rather the posts meta, as well as related posts (if that plugin is active). If the Twitter plugin is active and configured, pages that show recent posts will also show above them your most recent tweet, twitter icon, and a link to your twitter page.

This is considered a .1alpha release, future versions, aside from bug fixing, will support more dynamic options for plugins to output content in the 2nd sidebar, among any other suggestions.

Please direct any comments, bugs, suggestions to the comments on this post.

Download Swanky 0.2.

Users of trunk >r1574

Download Swanky 0.3.1

Current Demo

Edit I failed to mention, if you use the gravatar plugin, there is a default gravatar in the theme’s images directory that you can point to that matches the header (in the plugin options you can point to the image).