TheAkiba » Wordpress

ThemeFortress: New WordPress Blog Launch

YoU — Sun, 06 Nov 2011 16:15:33 +0000

Have been planned for a while and finally it is here. I just launched my latest website two days ago, ThemeFortress, a WordPress related blog that focuses on bringing you tips about theme design and develop. On ThemeFortress, you will learn about basic settings and developing of your own WordPress blog. From installing a simple copy, setting up your local testing environment, to design and code your own theme, super charge and fortify your theme with powerful framework and proper plugins. At least that is what I am planning to do.

The reason for start a blog about WordPress, basically is to return the service to the WordPress community. Have learned a lot in my three years of running a WordPress blog and designing themes, and think it’s time for me to say something and share my experiences with the rest of the community. There is actually one advantage that I have to differentiate from the main stream WordPress blogs: I am not a WordPress professional. Most WordPress related blogs like Smashing Magazine, WPCandy and others are run by professionals, or at least have profound knowledge of coding and developing. I am not that professionals, and to turn this disadvantage to the better side, I can understand what average people’s need and how to satisfy them.

As you know, TheAkiba is also running on WordPress. And the reason I talked about this, is because ThemeFortress is running on a WordPress framework that TheAkiba is going to be built on. What’s the name of the so call framework, I will leave it as a secret, a secret that will be unveiled in the following few days. Another reason I mentioned above is, some of my readers ask me about how to make a WordPress theme, even though I am not a professional theme designer, I do think I can point out something that could be helpful for starters. So, if you are interested in running your own WordPress or to improve your knowledge about it, you may want to keep an eye on ThemeFortress.

This post ThemeFortress: New WordPress Blog Launch was written originally at TheAkiba.

Danny Choo WordPress Theme Updated

YoU — Fri, 14 Oct 2011 18:04:53 +0000

I’ve mentioned it a while ago, so, here it is. This is an update version of the previous Danny Choo WordPress theme (learn more about this theme here, or on Danny’s blog). Nothing changed in the look of the theme except I upgrade it to add several features and make it compatible to the latest version of WordPress 3.2.1. In order to use this theme, you should have a 3.0+ version installed in order to use the theme.

What’s New?

The most interesting thing of theme is, as I said above, the upgrade to the latest version of WordPress. You have to use a 3.0+ version in order to use the theme and I will explain the reasons and new features below.

The first new feature is Post Thumbnail. If you tried out the previous version of my theme, you will know at that time (3 years ago), in order to show the thumbnail of the post, you have to either use the Custom Field, or TimThumb and I choose the former. And with the update of WordPress 2.9, a new feature Post Thumbnail is added and users can now easily define their own thumbnails. Also with this new feature, theme designer can customize the size of the image and show them accordingly.
The second new feature is Custom Menu, which was introduced back in 3.0. Previously, users have to hack their theme (or the theme designer provides the option panel for the users) to change the menu, with the update of WordPress 3.0, this feature was shipped. After activating the theme, go to Appearance and choose Menus, you will be able to edit the menu yourself. Please note, I did not include sub menu for this version.
Last but also the most exciting one is, we have an Option Panel, which means you can do everything within the back end of WordPress without going to the code. I use the Setting API method to create a simple theme option page where you can enter all the necessary information, including the featured category, custom CSS, your ads and so forth. The rest is automatically done for you. This is really an interesting feature, think I will integrate it with my current theme.

Download

Get it now. WordPress 3.0 required.

Questions?

I have set up a forum for discussion of the theme. If you have any questions about coding, customization, or found a bug, please go to the forum instead of leaving comments here. I will not answer questions regarding code and customization here, so go and use the forum instead (also good for archive purpose). And remember to wrap your code/snippets (if there were any) to a your code tag when posting so your code is preserved.

What’s Next?

I’ve also mentioned about another Danny Choo theme, well, still under developing. And somehow busy recently and failed to contact Danny. So, stay tuned for it Also, if you have any requirements and features you want to add to both themes, leave a comment in the forum.

This post Danny Choo WordPress Theme Updated was written originally at TheAkiba.

TheAkiba V5 Blog Revamp

YoU — Tue, 05 Jul 2011 18:18:38 +0000

You might have already noticed several changes were made to the current theme of TheAkiba. With all the changes, it is still a V5 version, not something especially new for the main design. Also, the latest major update of WordPress was released yesterday on the Independence Day, thus I have time to do the final test on the stable version instead of the beta package running on my own MAMP. It’s a big change in UI for WordPress and it’s quite my style even though some folks don’t really appreciate it. The new features are also adorable, especially the distraction free writing panel which gives the chance to abandon my desktop writing client.

So let’s back to our topic and see what’s new in this revamp.

What’s new?

The first thing is about the new header which is inspired directly from KickStarter. The height of the header was decrease to 101 px which in return give more space for the content to show “above the fold”.
Second is about resolution. I have already introduced this feature in V4 and have brought it back to this revamp. The width of the site will be auto adjust to fit your browser resolution in 960 px or 1170 px which will be best for normal and wide screen respectively.
Third, have brought the latest Tweet from the footer section to the top. The most recent Tweet will be shown so you can have a look at what the site is up to. Also I occasionally retweet some good posts and you may want to check them out.

Guess that’s all about the new updates about the current theme. Another thing to mention is about the old Danny Choo Theme that I created two years ago. Will find some time to update it to compatible with the latest version of WordPress (3.2). Apart from the old theme, I will release another Danny Choo theme which was created right after the Danny Choo theme and has the same layout as the DC theme running on Danny’s blog at that time. But still, I will need to ask for Danny’s permission for the release. Will get back to you soon.

One more thing, I was always struggling from WordPress built-in comment system and Disqus. They all have their their own advantages and it’s quite a difficult decision for me to make. So I am asking my readers for the advice. Which comment system do you prefer? The default WordPress one or the Disqus comment system (the one we are currently using)?

This post TheAkiba V5 Blog Revamp was written originally at TheAkiba.

TheAkiba v2 Starts

YoU — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:34:38 +0000

After a couple of weeks on the theme, the second version of TheAkiba is launched. The blog of TheAkiba was set up September 2008 and among these several months I have switched several different themes which now I consider as inadequate for the coming design work. Inspired by Dannychoo’s theme (old version, new layout), I created a WordPress theme and used it for a few months. Everything seems fine but friends keep on talking about the lack of an identity of a website and to me, a lack of a sense of recognition. For sure, building things basing on other people’s work rarely seems fine to me, and that’s why I hurried for the second theme which aim to discover my own sense of design and aesthetics.

Of course, at first, the new design still inspired by lots of websites which I considered to be a mixture of bubbles and textures. After some time spending on the polishing work, things turned out to be fine and I think I’ve found something that is useful for my own taste of design.

Some highlights of the new design. One thing you may noticed before is the navigation menu. In the website performance survey, many friend complain about the poor navigation system and they rarely find things they need and confused by the structure of the site. And that’s how the directory of sitemap was introduced. Scrolling down to the bottom of the page or simply clicking on the “Categories” in the menu and it will take you to the directory/sitemap of the website. In the directory, you can have a clear view of where you’re standing at and what’s next for you. Basically every contents and links are included in the directory. You may also notice a “Project” column on the right side. This is some experiment projects/scripts TheAkiba is using and these projects don’t have direct relation with the blog, maybe cancel some day, maybe not, just for more entertainment. The project will continued to grow and you can always find something new here^^

You may notice the new selection “Random Post” in the navigation menu. Click it and it will redirect you to a random post of the site. If you can’t find what you need or simply poking around finding nothing to do here, have it a shot!

The most remarkable change of the new design, to me, is the structure of the page view. In the previous theme (which is the Dannychoo one), I can post a max 750px image in the post. This is really cool, but leaving only a small portion of space for relevant contents on the sidebar (used to be ads and blogroll only). With the redesign of the theme, we can now only post a max 640px image in the post (larger size will be auto-scaled using JQuery that coded by Mike Wittmann) but leave a larger space for more sidebar contents. The space can be very useful and I’m considering put lots of information on.

The next change is the top carousel I used for recommendation of products. But the layout is not ideal for me thus there might be some change later. The site uses many JQuery and I think it may delay the speed, tell me if this bothers you.

I’m still polishing the theme and many works still left undone. Any comment is welcomed.

Note: There is a poll embedded within this post, please visit the site to participate in this post's poll.

This post TheAkiba v2 Starts was written originally at TheAkiba.

Idea of a New Theme

YoU — Wed, 04 Feb 2009 05:59:28 +0000

Friends may notice that the site keeps on changing from time to time. This is because I’m doing some experiments. Remember several friends mentioned in the comment about the identity and style of one’s own, and I’d like to think it over and over. And it’s about time to jump out of the box labeled “Dannychoo” ^^.

I’d like to create a new theme for TheAkiba and at the same time make the website focus more on Anime, even considering remove the unrelated categories. As for the theme, I haven’t started to design the layout but I’m keeping searching on the net and browsing different kinds of sites and tried to get inspired. Will add some new elements to the new theme and remove the unrelated contents.

After the new theme is done, I’d like to release the theme I’m currently using, of course, under the permission of Danny in the first place. The project will start at the end of April since I have two important exams in the coming two months. I’m currently preparing for GMAT and will take the test at the end of this month. Probably I’ll post something when I get to US, or probably I failed and never show up again ^^. Well, that’s a joke, but I’m doing my best, not only to keep TheAkiba alive at least for the rest of my life, but bring fresh blood and new ideas to everything I’m passionate in.

Just post to remind myself of the word I’ve said, because I’m just lazy ^^

This post Idea of a New Theme was written originally at TheAkiba.

Category Layout Update

YoU — Tue, 20 Jan 2009 13:35:16 +0000

Oops, I guess some of you might have noticed the layout change of the category pages. The category page inherited the layout of the homepage and I think this is more user friendly, compared with the old one. While archive pages (archive index, search and tag pages) remain untouched, I’ve also modified some little parts of the theme and tried to make it compatible with IE6.0. The work seems not have paid out yet and I will keep on digging and find a reasonable solution. Meanwhile stilling looking for PNG alpha channel issue on IE6.0. Oops, I guess IE6.0 is just the source of evil but the 25% of the visitors of TheAkiba still using IE6, so I have no way but keep on working ^^

In order to extent the layout, I have to pull back some of the Google Adsenses.Â Apologize for the inconvenience and the ads might be gone shortly, or not. The layout still needs to be polished and there might be some slight change along days.

Some other stuffs, the browser Google Chrome is just fine and it seems to be a little faster than Firefox3. I’ve test and the theme seems ok with the new browser.

This post Category Layout Update was written originally at TheAkiba.

DreamHost Apps Free Hosting?

YoU — Thu, 15 Jan 2009 02:22:43 +0000

Friends may know that I have been looking for new hosting server. Right now I’m using DreamHost with other people and the service DH provides are good but not ideal and I use to suffer from downtime a lot (few times a month). In all, DH is just okay regardless of it’s high price. When I’m poking around some website I noticed DH has lanuched a new service theses day. Free hosting at DreamHost Apps.

If you are already using DreamHost, you know how DreamHost Apps works (just like the easy mode in the goodies). You cannot access to FTP or SSH (you’ll have to pay for it) but instead you get a free hosting service. It’s ok for normal users, but not ideal for people like us, say, you can’t even upload your wordpress theme since you cannot access to the FTP. But thanks to WordPress 2,7′s new features of installing plugins at the back-end, you can still setup up your plugins and post like before without some beautiful themes (sounds like another WordPress.com)

It’s free right now (beta version) and it will cost you $50/year once it out of beta. But, let me quote something from the official blog:

Well, it’s free for now anyway. We’re flirting with the idea of a $50 yearly fee once it’s out of beta…but if you sign up RIGHT NOW to help us test things out we’ll let you use DreamHost Apps for free for ever!

No sure but I’ve already registered. If you don’t like the service (actually there’s no services and supports for Apps memebers) you can upgrade to normal DreamHost hosting services by pay a price. It will transfer all your files to the new Dreamhost accout with no downtime. I think this is the best part for the “Free” hosting Apps ^^.

You may want to check it out if you like. In order to register you have to get an invitation code. Read more on the official blog.

No related posts.

This post DreamHost Apps Free Hosting? was written originally at TheAkiba.

New jQuery Comment Function!

YoU — Sat, 10 Jan 2009 12:53:54 +0000

Some of you may have noticed that when you highlight some text in the post a blue “Respond” bubble will fade in around your mouse. Move over your mouse to click the bubble and it will scroll you directly to the comment box where is populated with an HTML blockquote of the selected text. This is a new trick I got just now from Jim Jeffers who demonstrates the function in helping improving discussion on blog.

Jim uses the jQuery to implement the function and you can have a clear view about how it works on his blog. In Jim’s post, several functions are also mentioned but right now it is only able to highlight the article itself on TheAkiba. This is an open source project and you can check out Jim’s public repository and download the code.

This post New jQuery Comment Function! was written originally at TheAkiba.

New Layout Update!

YoU — Wed, 07 Jan 2009 01:52:14 +0000

Okay, what should I say? Nothing I guess but I have to. The layout you see right now is a complete (approximately) clone of Dannychoo.com‘s. May be you will say that I should make it 100% identical to Danny’s but my word is this is the end of the clone and I gonna built my site upon this theme. You might have noticed there’re some detail area (say, the related articles section) has been changed and this would be a sign of a tide of modification. Not sure Danny’s theme is under Common Creative Licese (while the Dannychoo.com Theme by TheAkiba.com is) but I’d like to built upon, basically because there aren’t many good themes (I shouldn’t say good themes but the themes that are suitable for my taste) outside you can rely on.

And about the new layout, what you see on the outside may be identical to the old one, but the code inside is tremendously different. I ran over the code of the mainly template files and clean lots of “dirty codes”, if you compare the CSS file with the old one you may think they’re totally different things ^^. I misused lots of em (font size) and margin tags and I’ve cleaned they up! This really makes me feel good (something like you have cleaned up your dirty room >_<).

And for the old theme (beta one) which you might have in your hands, I’d like to find some time to clean it’s code up and make it distributable later. Let me know if you like the new layout, or just some feedback and comments ^^.

This post New Layout Update! was written originally at TheAkiba.

Important: Theme Bug Fix

YoU — Fri, 02 Jan 2009 00:40:25 +0000

I found a bug in the theme yesterday. With this bug, you won’t be able to feed your posts! When you click on the Feed button, the browser will return a XML error and this is really hurt. The error was caused by the blank line or space before or after the loop and this is not a uncommon error. You can learn more about this error here.

How to fix it?

I’ve reuploaded the theme package and you will have to download it again.

Here

This post Important: Theme Bug Fix was written originally at TheAkiba.