Site development Archives - malcolmtattersall.com.au

Messing about with WP themes

A few of the last sandbox themes and how they were created and customised, from the /bis sandbox installation…

(1) Twenty fifteen, just for variety; no tweaks to css but “header” image (actually that wide sidebar) and “logo” (Anneke’s mosaic) added. Clearwater site uses this theme, mostly to distinguish it from the real NQCC site, but (IIRC) has been tweaked.

(2) Previously: 2012 with one change to css (parent! naughty!) – font greys were all 757575 and the (3 or 4) major ones are now 555 which is much better and certainly not too dark. Make child and change them properly: most to (say) 444 and the rest to (say) 666.

Ditto spacing. Hasn’t been changed yet but 48/24 could go to 32/16 px for compactness.

(3) Previously: Silver theme 080314 uploaded from my computer. Technique: child theme opened in Silver site WP >editor; copied to TextEdit; saved as .txt; renamed “style.css” in finder; compressed via right-click to become style.css.zip; uploaded via Themes > add new in Sandbox WP.

Same technique should work with a whole theme e.g. twenty-ten.

Images to come

Several collections of European photos were posted to Green Path some years ago but they really belong here. I will move them as and when time permits but this index page will take you to them wherever they are.

About the ‘words & images’ blog

This blog was created in October 2020 as a home for all of my writing and photography which doesn’t naturally belong on Green Path, my long-running environment and wildlife blog. Most of the older posts here were carried across from my previous (iinet) website under their original dates.

Posts predating this blog

This blog was set up in October 2020. Most of its initial content was transferred from my older (iinet) website and consists of book reviews (primarily fiction and mainly 2005 – 2010), reposted here under their original dates.

It’s worth noting, however, that there are also book reviews (nonfiction and environmentally-themed fiction) on Green Path. All of my reviews are indexed here, whichever blog they are on.

Header image sizes in twenty sixteen

It makes surprisingly little difference if the header images are too small, e.g. 940 x ca 200 px rather than 1200 × 280 which is what twenty sixteen recommends. At window widths less than the image width it makes no difference because the theme re-sizes the image anyway; at larger window widths the image left-aligns but doesn’t right-align. And image height makes no difference at all to the functioning of the theme, unless images of varying heights are used in a slider.

Some of my sample images are tagged with their sizes. Height varies, and (to me) 205 looks a bit miserly, 280 dominates the page too much. ‘Townsville from Mt Stuart’ is 235px high, while my paperbark blossom is 205px high (mainly because that was easiest, working from the versions I had). Both have 12pt Futura titles.