I am looking for a more exact way to filter themes, lists of theme traits
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WordPress.com has a theme filter where you can specify how many columns you want your theme to be (which implies width as well sometimes), whether you want your theme to allow you to upload a custom header, whether you want your theme to be able to have a custom background. There is even a link that lists all the default widths of the themes.
Now the whole purpose of filter systems, and why they can be great, is that they help you rule out the things with the traits you don’t want, and rule in the things with the traits you do, so as to help you hone in on the best theme for your blog. The problem I’ve found with this filter system is for many of the important traits or theme attributes, it doesn’t do this.
For instance, if I want a theme that allows for a custom header, I would click the custom header filter button, and the filter removes all the themes that don’t allow for a built-in custom header. Except there’s a big problem, a lot of the themes I just ruled out, some of which might otherwise be the best themes for my blog, actually do allow for custom headers reportedly very easily through CSS. So now I’ve eliminated themes I didn’t want to through the filter system. Someone not thinking things through might play devils advocate and say “then just don’t use the filter system fool!” But if you don’t use it for custom header, now you’re left with the opposite problem. You haven’t ruled out and hidden any themes you didn’t want to, but you haven’t ruled out any of the ones you do want ruled out either, the ones that don’t allow for a custom header at all.
The same exact concept applies to the list of theme content widths (the space where the writing of your posts shows). A couple days ago I thought I’d hit the jackpot when someone linked me to that list trying to help. I want a content width of over 640px for my blog, and of the 100 or so themes, only a handful were that wide at their default widths. So I thought great, I’ve narrowed it down from 100 to just a handful all thanks to this wonderful list. Now I just have to go through these five or so themes and pick the one I like best. But then a few hours later I found out that many of the themes with much lower listed content widths can actually be widened very easily in CSS. So once again I’d narrowed down falsely, I’d filtered out themes I didn’t want to.
So what I am looking for is a filter method that takes into account CSS. Just because you can’t add a custom header by just uploading the photo into a template doesn’t mean the theme doesn’t allow custom headers. Just because a theme has a content width of 490px to start out doesn’t mean it can’t be easily widened to 650px wide through CSS. But by the same token, some of the 490px content width themes, or other ones, can’t be easily widened at all without creating new background images manually yourself and uploading them. That’s why you need a filter, so you can know which ones can be changed in the ways you want, and which ones can’t.
So here’s what I’m looking for specifically.
• Not just a list of the starting content widths for themes, or just the default for when it has one sidebar, and two, and none, but a list of the ending widths for themes for each layout option. In other words, a list of which themes can have their content width edited and widened through CSS “easily,” or “with just code” as opposed to having to add new background images, and how far widened they can be. This information should be helpful to everyone so let’s not tailor it to me, but what I’m looking for for example is something that can be widened to 640+px wide in the content-sidebar standard layout.
• Not just a list of the themes that have built-in custom header options without using CSS, but a list of the ones where you can add a custom header through CSS.
• Not just a list of the themes that have built-in background color editing without CSS, which most don’t, but a list of the ones which allow you to change the background color in CSS with code, as most, but not all, do, at least that is my understanding. I’m not absolutely sure there.
• Miscellaneous: This is very important. More than once been forced to try starting my blog with new themes without having a list of this information to go on, because I couldn’t find it, and each time, hours into developing my blog, I’ve learned the specific theme I was using had this major unfixable obstacle in it. My first theme was elegant grunge. Being new to wordpress I didn’t know very much about any of this, but it was 3-columns and offered a content-sidebar-sidebar layout and a content-sidebar layout. So, because the 2 sidebar layout was such a wide page overall, I assumed that, when you changed to just one sidebar, the content area would grow wider to compensate and take up the space the 2nd sidebar had left open. But instead they inexplicably just made the one sidebar super wide, leaving the content space very narrow. So after spending hours on it, I realized it wouldn’t work, and had to start over. Then I tried structure, which was my favorite theme except for the big picture on the front, and the alignment. But that was just the home page. The actual supplemental pages had the normal content-sidebar layout, and they were perfect for my blog. So I figured, since the background and the width and everything is clearly already programmed into this theme, given that it all shows up on the supplemental pages, all i have to do in CSS is move the “page” info and layout into the “home” area, replacing the home layout with the page layout. About 4 hours into that, I’d managed to do what I set out to, I fixed all those problems, except for the most basic one, my full posts, now perfectly aligned how I wanted them, and as wide as I wanted them, were only showing in excerpts. I figured, every single blogger wants control over whether a full post or excerpt is shown on their blog, it’s such an elementary concept, I’m sure every theme allows you to switch that, there’s even a built-in settings editor in wordpress where all you have to do is check the box for “full post” and it will change it . . . except this structure theme wouldn’t even let me change this basic thing. I’d spent hours editing everything else only to find out “structure is special and has its own rules.” Well, I’ve been hearing that for a few themes now, so this is the miscellaneous area. For every ‘special’ or unique theme that has some weird thing about it that works for some people, but not for others, let’s list that here so people can actually find out about it before they put hours into it, and not after. That’s the purpose here.
There you have it. Themes that can, whether easily through CSS or normally, have their content-width changed (and by how much), have a custom header and background added through CSS or normally, and whatever else we should know about every theme.
I think this information could help every person looking to start a blog on wordpress. I know I wish I’d had it weeks ago. This is such essential information to picking a theme, I’m surprised it’s not stickied at the top of the forum, or that each theme doesn’t list whether they use image backgrounds or CSS, whether their content width can be changed in CSS or not, whether a custom header can be added through CSS or not. I mean if they don’t list these things, how is a newcomer, or anyone for that matter who hasn’t used the theme already supposed to know???? (And who here has used all 100 themes, or even half of them?)
So please contribute to this topic if you can, add whatever information you can, and hopefully we can build up a little database of crucial theme information here that can help everyone here with this process, and push the process forward so that people can make much more informed decisions, instead of having to guess about a lot of things like I have so far (I hope this theme ends up having adjustable content width, I hope editing the background in CSS is easy in this theme, because I’ve heard things are different for every theme, I just haven’t actually gotten the helpful information which would tell me which themes it’s different and harder in and in which it isn’t).
Thanks everyone for the help! From myself and all the future wordpress newcomers looking for themes.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Thanks for writing this up, puckcircle. We could probably make this more clear in the theme selection process but all of our themes can be modified with Custom CSS. Headers can be added and removed, widths of sidebars and content areas can be changed, backgrounds, fonts, colors — if it’s a visual element you can probably change it with CSS and the Custom Design upgrade.
We have some great information on CSS and the Custom CSS upgrade in our support forums.
which themes it’s different and harder in and in which it isn’t
This is a good question. For almost all of our themes CSS editing is going to be mostly pretty simple when it comes to changing widths or adding new headers where none were before. For themes that have a more illustrative look with lots of images that are fixed to the default sizes and layout of the theme — like Koi, Notepad, or Greyzed — you might need some image editing software and more experience with CSS.
I hope that helps!
who here has used all 100 themes, or even half of them?
Besides the WordPress.com Theme Team I think it’s safe to say that Panos comes pretty close to that mark. :)
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Thanks for the quick response themeshaper.
For almost all of our themes CSS editing is going to be mostly pretty simple when it comes to changing widths or adding new headers where none were before. For themes that have a more illustrative look with lots of images that are fixed to the default sizes and layout of the theme — like Koi, Notepad, or Greyzed — you might need some image editing software and more experience with CSS.
Then maybe this is a simpler answer than someone going through all themes. Maybe someone could post a full list of the themes that use fixed images in their backgrounds? You said it’s mostly easy to edit widths in all the themes besides these ones, and that these are the exceptions, so it shouldn’t be a huge list or too much work to list, I hope. You listed three there, but the one I picked randomly at the start for my blog, elegant grunge, I guess happened to be one of these as well. So that’s four then.
Which other themes use fixed background images where it’s hard to alter the width of the content area?
also (still referring to you @themeshaper), please let me know if I am understanding you correctly here. Are you basically saying the following? Adding a custom header through CSS, editing background colors, altering width, all of that, can be done relatively easily through CSS on all these themes, with the one main exception of width when dealing with fixed background image themes? Is that correct?
Because that’s what I’m basing the new simplified list idea of just themes with fixed background images on. The idea is that as long as I dodge that bullet, picking a theme with a fixed background image, then I’ll be able to do everything else I want, and it will be much easier for me and the people so kindly trying to help me here on the forums.
Or, is it a case where, just like the fixed background width issue with some themes, there are also some themes that have something in them that prevent you from adding a custom header, and some themes where you can’t edit the background color, and some themes with something different.
So please let me know which it is. And if it’s the second, that would just mean a couple more lists, but still it would be much simpler than listing all the specific attributes of each theme. From what you said I gather it’s a minority of the themes that can’t do one of these given themes. So instead of a list of 100 themes and all their attributes, it would just be a list of the 8 themes with fixed background images (and no one would need to write a lot of specifics about them, all they’d have to do is list their names under “themes with fixed background images that can’t be widened easily in CSS,” and then another list of the 3 themes that can’t have custom headers added, just their names again, and so on). So I think something like that, just giving me the names to rule out and not use because they can’t do one of these things, that would set me on my way a lot better. I just need to know the themes to look out for and not pick that have fixed background images and whatever else that would get in my way.
Of course @everyone, recommendations on specific themes that you think would best fit what I’m looking for are still encouraged and would be helpful, but as long as I know which themes not to pick because of the fixed background images and whatever else, I can then at least get passed that roadblock and get started again, have a direction again in this, and start going through all the themes not ruled out looking for the best one. And then maybe when I narrow it down to five or so then specific recommendations out of those 5 would really be super helpful.
But a list of themes with fixed background images and the other short lists to rule out themes is priority number one and the crucial info I need to go forward, so if anyone knows this please post if you have a moment.
Thank you again everyone! Thanks themeshaper. Wpgauvav, you said you have used all the themes. Do you have anything to add? Do you know which ones have fixed background images or can’t use custom headers or any of that info? Would be very helpful. Thanks again.
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Good Thoughts puckcircle! I’ve something to add.
When we filter themes, we can separate themes with post formats. It would be better to have a list of post formats, in theme filter, which one want to use. For example- one needs a theme with ‘Quote’ and ‘Image’ post formats then filtering only ‘post-formats’ doesn’t work well.
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