Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
IV
•
Index Page/Archives Show
—We discussed putting excerpts on your home page in Chapter 4.
Although “Full Posts” is the default setting, Arclite makes it easy to switch to excerpts.
•
User CSS code
—This is a free-form CSS edit box, where you can add or change any CSS setting
directly. Using the Arclite editor here ensures that your changes will survive the next theme
update, as the existing CSS is backed up and restored as part of the update process. This is a
very nice favor Popovici does for his users. He includes buttons for some popular tweaks as well.
•
Use jQuery
—This is a JavaScript library used for a variety of effects. It's included in some
themes, but can be added manually as well. At the time of this writing, Popovici was testing this
functionality and asking users not to turn this off.
•
Use Theme Lightbox
—A lightbox highlights images on your blog in a popup when a visitor
mouses over the image. Many plugins exist to create this effect in WordPress, but Arclite has its
own implementation of a lightbox included by default. Uncheck this box if you prefer another
plugin.
•
Remove Arclite settings from the database after theme switch
—It's so easy to switch themes,
you might want to change things up a bit periodically. If you decide to use another theme tem-
porarily, by default you keep Arclite's settings around for easy switching. If you want to dispose
of Arclite permanently, however, check this box before switching; Arclite will then remove itself
completely from the WordPress database.
When you've made your changes, click the Save button at the bottom and then click Visit Site to
examine the results of your handiwork. You can edit further if you choose.
Tweaking an Existing WordPress.org Theme
Not every theme developer offers users a settings page. Even if there is a settings page, you might
need to tweak an item other than those the page offers. In this section, we cover some of the stan-
dard CSS tweaks to fix common complaints. Going through these will help you understand how
to make your own themes better as well. You might be surprised at how easy some of these
changes are.
The Theme Editor
By this point, you're probably not surprised that WordPress has its own Theme editor, available to
those who run the WordPress.org software. Look around enough, and WordPress might have every-
thing you might ever need for your blog. You saw the WordPress.com theme editor previously in the
section, “What Is a Style Sheet?” In WordPress.org you can use the editor without buying an
enhancement. From the Dashboard, open the Appearance tab and click Editor. No surprises in that
this editor looks very much like the Post editor. Figure 14.6 shows a CSS file from the Arclite theme
in the Theme editor.
The primary difference between the Theme editor and Post editor is that the right sidebar contains
a list of all files that constitute your theme. PHP templates provide the bulk of the list, with a few
CSS style files bringing up the rear. Click each link to display the file in the editor.
