Using one of the sandbox contest entries … how to?
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I’d like to experiment with starting a new blog using one of the winners in the sandbox contest … but would need to some help getting from point A to point b. Would I need to “buy the rights” to the blog to import the CSS from the sandbox contest entry? And after that, is it a simple matter of C&P the style sheet from the downloaded file into my blog? I’m sure it’s not that simple (it never is), but appreciate the help from the WordPress hardcore, in advance!
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Well, first you’d need the CSS upgrade, assuming you’re hosted here at WordPress.com. If you’re not, you should be asking at WordPress.org, because the answers will be entirely different. Need your answer on that before we can give more details.
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I’m currently porting the MIX entry to work here on WP.com. What I did was set up a test blog, enter in every possible combination of things, such as categories in a hierarchy, many blogroll entries in different categories, some text widgets along with all the others, fake entries with different HTML tags, etc. I set the theme to No CSS Sandbox. Then, I saved the HTML page to my hard drive. I edited it and stripped out most Script references. I added a reference to the MIX CSS into the HTML file’s header.
After that, I could edit the CSS and reload the offline HTML file to preview the changes. It’s much faster working with it that way. Once I have it the way I want, I’ll apply it to my blog.
If you don’t have the upgrade, don’t buy it yet. Who knows how long it’ll take for you to port the theme. Since the upgrade expires after a year, you don’t want to buy it until you are absolutely ready for it so that you can maximize your usage of it.
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Oh.. and the reason you have to go this route is because WP.com uses an older version of the Sandbox theme, so classes, etc, don’t match up perfectly. You may also have to add in some things. For example, the MIX CSS doesn’t have definitions for the calendar.
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I hate to ask this, because I’m very appreciative of your response – but could you “dumb it down” to novice level for me?
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Easily. Until we are notified that the porting issue to a new version of Sandbox has been solved your best course of action is to wait for this to come to pass and for cut and paste css customized versions of some existing themes to be developed. Then you can seek out someone to “hold your hand” through the process.
This is because as there is no staff support for learning css or for correcting any errors you make and, as their is a no refunds policy, it’s important to note that the css customization upgrade is not recommended for those who lack experience with css editing. In the meanwhile you might be well served to look into the css resources which are in the FAQs and the css customization forum.
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FYI: there is precious little volunteer support for CSS as well. At the moment there are only three people who understand it well and contribute here.
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thistimethisspace is right. If you need my reply “dumbed down” to novice level, then you’d be better of picking from existing WP.com-compatible Sandbox themes.
CSS is quite a complex thing to work with and can be overwhelming, even for those with plenty of CSS experience. If you don’t have enough CSS knowledge, it’s quite possible that WP.com will be upgraded to the new Sandbox before you get a theme ported. At that time, all the Sandbox themes out there will work with a lot less tweaking, or maybe just straight copy-and-paste.
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We’ve been told that the Sandbox update will happen ‘very soon’, so I’m giving them until September before I start backporting stuff. Either way, I will definitely be providing copy-and-paste versions of my own skins for wordpress.com users, since in any case the .com version of the theme is unlikely to be identical to the download version.
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I am just adding a new tutorial for new starters. *How to copy and paste* Could be useful. :)
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I’m in the same situation after upgrading. Would need a “copy and paste” solution for the existing Sandbox Theme as I’m not familiar with CSS and it sounds more daunting than I first expected. Too bad that the themes from the Sandbox competition seem to be useful only for .org users – at least for the time being. The winning theme Sandpress look very nice.
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I really, really encourage people who are going to use CSS to learn it. It won’t take much to bork your blog with this if you don’t know how it works. Copy and paste is not always 100% what you want, and then you start tweaking and…
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