Free WordPress Theme: wz-SimpleArt

[UPDATED on 28th October. Please see the sections in Red for updated features.]

I have been working on this for the last couple of days, and here’s the result. The first WebbyZone WordPress theme release – wz-SimpleArt! Before I go further, I must give credit to Templatemo.com for the original CSS design.

wz-SimpleArt Free WordPress Theme by WebbyZone Screenshot

Download | Live Demo

Features:

Widgetized Sidebar
125 x 125 Button Ad Displays
Buttonless Search Bar
Automatically Displays First Image from Posts in Excerpts
Displays Any Number of Recent Tweets in the Footer
No Sponsored Links
Ideal for Arts and Photography Related Blogs

Feature Additions:

Gravatar support added.
Sticky post to display web 2.0 style label.
Childpage with horizontal suckerfish style menu added. [Do not add pages in sidebar widget].
Read more link on pages that show excerpts.
Nested comments added.
Built-in wp-pagenavi functions.

Installation:

Download the theme for free.
Unzip and upload the directory to wp-content/themes
Activate the theme from your admin panel

Modifications:

1. Sidebar.php

Open sidebar.php in your favorite text editor. (notepad / dreamweaver would do fine)
Replace the URL and Image Path on lines 11, 14, 17 and 20 12, 15, 18 and 21 to display your own 125 x 125 button ads.
Replace the Twitter URL with your own Twitter URL on line 29 30

2. Footer.php

Open footer.php in text editor
Replace the URL and Anchor Text with your own URL and Company / Website Name on line 119
Now the site URL and Blog Name shows up automatically.
In order to display your recent tweets, replace with your own Twitter username on line 11
You can change the number of latest tweets to display on line 13

Warnings:

The encrypted code at the very end of footer.php is used to credit WebbyZone and Templatemo. Removing it might break the template. Please keep them intact and acknowledge the effort.
Images with width of 450px or less works best with the theme. Larger image might break the theme. Centered images in posts look better.

License:

To prepare for unknown add-ons and external features, wz-SimpleArt is released under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 license, not the GPL license.

Theme Edits on 26th October, 2009:

1. Missing DOCTYPE issue solved.
2. Unnecessary repetitions in the templates edited.
3. Base64 encryption removed. But please keep the links.

Posted by Ranadeep @ 24 October 2009 11 comments

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11 Comments
Add Comment

Comments

Oct 25, 2009
5:43 pm

#1 Connie :

It looks nice, thank you!

But is it possible to have the background-images loaded first? The template loades “naked” and adds the background-images too late at slow connection

Author

Oct 25, 2009
11:10 pm

#2 Ranadeep :

There are a few javascripts available for loading images first, but I’m not sure which one works. I’ll post if I find a working one.

In the meantime, there’s just a simple workaround to load the background images a little faster at least, and it is by reducing the size of the image files in Photoshop. Just open the image file from the theme’s images folder in Photoshop, click on File>Save As. When the JPEG options window pops up, just drag the slider left to reduce the quality from 12 to say 5 or 6 and click OK. This will reduce the file size, but also affect a bit on quality. So I’m not making the changes in the original theme files. You can modify it as per your need.

Hope that helps.

Oct 26, 2009
7:56 am

#3 The Master Cylinder :

I can’t believe they deleted your links on Weblog Tools Collection!! What is wrong with them?

Author

Oct 26, 2009
12:07 pm

#4 Ranadeep :

Not their fault, I used a little harmless encryption on the footer to display the credit links, not really acceptable by the moderators there. I’ve requested a re-submission with changes, hope they agree.

Thanks a ton for your comment. Hope you liked the theme.

Oct 26, 2009
3:57 pm

#5 sudhir :

The design looks quite slick..just a thought( though I am not a designer, since the spacing between Title/description & the header bar is quite big, so can any other typography font/ bigger can be used for Title/description?

Author

Oct 26, 2009
5:14 pm

#6 Ranadeep :

Thanks Sudhir.

It is possible to change the typography font for Title / Description and bigger fonts can be used too.

To change the font size of the Title, edit the style.css file near line 109 under #templatemo_banner #site_title and add font-size:*px;. Replace the * with your number. And to change the Font/Typography add font-family:*;

As for the Description, edit the same css file near line 123 under #templatemo_banner #site_title span. The default font-size is 14px, change it as per requirement. Also add the font-family to change the typography.

Just keep in mind, if you change the font type to some customized or uncommon fonts, they will only show up on machines that have the font installed. In order to use such fonts, you need to create a logo image and replace the text.

Oct 27, 2009
12:20 pm

#7 sudhir :

thanks for the info… keep new themes coming