Since I uploaded all the files before writing this post, you should now be looking at a new theme on this site. I really liked the concept of the last theme, but I really missed some of the things that can go in the sidebar. Three columns were too much, though. So, as a compromise, I’ve selected an excellent victim to hack apart – Evanescence by Srini G. I also snagged the nav menu code from the Fluid Blue theme by the same author. Obviously, I’ve made changes to the color scheme and replaced the header images. There’s a tweak or two elsewhere, as well (like the comment #s) and there will be a few more as I get things organized. I sure hope that you like it. I do. And, if anyone out there has IE7 to test it on, could you let me know if anything breaks. So far, I’ve tested this theme in Firefox 2.0.0.4 for Linux and Windows, Opera 9.20 and 9.22 for Windows, and 9.22 for Linux, Konqueror, IE 6 on Windows, IE 5.0, 5.5, and 6.0 on Linux under Wine (few images work on those, as they’re all .pngs but who’d browse the net on IE under Linux???). A big plus to this theme is that it works with widgets, so if there’s a block that I like sometime down the road, I can install it and shove it in the sidebar. We’ll see how it goes (yes, it IS 3:19am and I should get to sleep…).
Turns out that Alexa finally got around to updating the thumbnail image on its profile page for my site to the previous theme. That was a long 48 hours!
Looks fine in Internet Explore Whore 7
I like the theme, but you usually pick a good one all the time anyway.
Thanks, bro. There’s something that I like about fall colors and earthy tones, as you may have noticed lately. I also like blue and sharp lines, but that wouldn’t reflect me. Perhaps another site should have those colors…
Very neat and clean theme. I like it a lot. Simplicity in web design appeals greatly to me.
Thanks, hari. That’s what I was going for. I think that this time, I got the colors bright enough to offset the starkness of a simple design. I was going to use the Classic theme as a mechanical base, but I knew that I’d have to change some of the qualities of the content container to ensure that it had a minimum width. Otherwise, it would truncate the Site Title (the fixed width sidebar floats over top of it). Then I found Evanescence (and Fluid Blue) and said to myself, “That’s the layout!” And, of course, GPL licensed code appeals to me too. That means, yes, this theme is GPL too, but I am not going to release my version to the public. Its just a hack that anyone can do with a few hours of studying the Codex.
I don’t think you’re legally obligated to release your theme… I think the point about “sharing” the source when you share the “binary” is moot because PHP is source code only and if you do release your theme, you automatically comply with the GPL. If you don’t release your modified theme, the GPL clause about releasing the “source” doesn’t apply to you.
Besides GPL is very hard to apply to website code. It seems more applicable to compiled applications.
That is so true. As usual, your words are wise. I thought the same thing about web code, but I think that such licensing still has validity because its difficult to justify a slight “re branding” and then releasing a theme with embedded code for sponsored sites of an icky flavor, like we’ve seen lately. I’m not saying that this would prevent that, but it might be that extra bit that keeps it from happening to a theme. Who knows. I’m glad that Srini G wrote this code so that I didn’t have to. I’m not a web programmer. I’m just a hack.