Tag Archives: Pressrow

So, I Changed my Theme Again…

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If the series of theme changes makes it look that I am totally fickle, then I have to plead not guilty. I was quite happy with my old Vigilance and Pressrow themes for the longest time.

All this confusion started early this year when I got tempted by the series of themes being issued by the WordPress theme team. Each theme sounded more intriguing than the last and I got sucked into the vortex of the almost monthly theme change.

I did try out Coraline earlier this year and I really liked my blog look a lot. However, then the negative feedback rolled in…it’s too bright and brash, the 3-columns make everything look very cramped, and so on. I immediately made a jump to Paperpunch, but never really felt comfortable with it. It seemed rather dull after Coraline, and no amount of wallpapering could make me like the fonts.

So, yes, I have decided to switch back to Coraline, and to commit to it. Sure, it’s a bit brash/bright, and so on, but it’s more me somehow than the rest of the themes I tried out this year.

So, here in public, I state my intention of sticking to this theme (and its variations). I love the fonts, the customizability, the header appearance, everything in short…so I have decided to publicly state my preference (in the hope that it will stop me tampering with my blog appearance yet again). I have a feeling the constantly changing appearance is impacting my blog viewership, and that is something I definitely don’t want. Also, this theme makes me want to update my blog more. Isn’t that silly? but it’s true! I have been in a sort of blogging funk since the time I changed to Paperpunch (not that it’s a bad theme, but it just does not suit me).

So, Coraline it is for now…or at least until Vigilance,Pressrow, /Journalist/, or Twenty ten themes get some interesting upgrades :)

What do you think? Would you like me to stick to this look (or some other look that you liked?), or do you like the idea of a blog appearance that keeps changing?

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Exciting WordPress News

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So, last week WordPress announced the creation of a new theme team. You guys by now must know how much I love playing around with the appearance of my blog…so news that there is a dedicated team for theme-creation (how come it took so long) could only have me jumping up and down in joy.

This news was immediately followed by the introduction of the new Inuit Types theme. I immediately played around a bit with it before realizing it was not for me.

I then thought a little bit about the various themes I have used and what I loved about them, and then tried to put it all together in the following wishlist…

  • Love the dreaminess and the fonts of Misty Look
  • Love the crispness and the look of the header text of the Pressrow theme
  • Absolutely love the flexibility of the Vigilance theme – the ability to change colors, the ability to add 2 sidebars as well…this is my favorite WordPress theme by far
  • Love the colors of Motion and the ability to add categories to your header. Love the rich color and texture of the theme.

So, why did I try these themes and eventually discard them if I love them so much?

Well, I left Misty Look because with Pressrow, my photos displayed to better advantage. I left Pressrow because of Vigilance’s awesome customization options.

For a long time, I was very content with Vigilance, but when WordPress introduced Motion, I just had to try it out and I was hooked. I loved the bottom sidebar widget, as well as the option to have Categories displayed on the header. It also displays photos to great advantage.

The only problem was with the text. When I wrote a post with a lot of text and no photos, I found it a bit hard to read. So, I eventually moved to Titan, which is quite similar to Motion, only with a lighter background and more clear text.

I do find it a bit dull though, and so I am really looking forward to more theme options coming from WordPress.

And if you theme team guys are reading, here is a wishlist of features I would like to see in a WordPress theme:

  • A 2-column theme that allows me to display large photographs (similar to what is available with Vigilance/Pressrow/Motion)
  • An ability to use the theme with a white/black background (similar to what you have with Inuit Types)
  • Also provide excellent customization abilities like Vigilance
  • The ability to display Categories on your header as well as to have drop-down header menus (like Motion). I don’t want to give Titan as the example here, because 2 rows of Categories on a Titan header displays really awfully.
  • And whatever other awesomeness you would like to add :)

So are you WordPress users as excited by the possibility of new themes?

Over the weekend, I also noticed that there is a new Surprise Me option that I immediately signed up for. I then went to my blog wondering about the surprise, but so far nothing yet…did anybody else try this out? did something happen?

Addendum: I finally saw the surprise when I published this post. Meh! my suggestion is don’t bother with it…

Blog Beautification Project Complete

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For the past couple of months, I have been waffling over a change in the look of my blog. While I loved my old theme (Pressrow by Chris Pearson), it was definitely time for an upgrade. It is difficult to explain, but I think when the content of my blog has evolved from a largely personal chronicle to something a little more different, it makes sense that the blog’s appearance also change.

With change in mind, I went over various themes in the WordPress catalog, and finally settled on Vigilance.

What I love about Vigilance:

  • The neat right-hand side sidebar text. While I generally liked Pressrow, I always hated the blue color text on the sidebar. I also disliked the appearance of the tag cloud. With Vigilance, everything is neatly aligned and looks just right :)
  • I love the option to have a two-columned sidebar that is offered by Vigilance. This let me arrange all my various buttons and badges neatly without occupying any more space than is required. To visualize what I am saying, see the Show the Love and Follow Me sections at the bottom of my sidebar. These sections are actually two columns.
  • I love the basic color scheme offered by Vigilance. In addition, Vigilance offers a lot of options to customize the colors. While I used the standard color scheme, the option to customize means that there are not too many blogs out there that look exactly like mine. For example, Doing Jalsa and Showing Jilpa also uses Vigilance, but the blog elements look quite different compared to mine (and mostly that has to do with the color scheme).

Apart from moving to a new theme, and rearranging my buttons and badges, I have also added a few more graphics…why? just to make things a little bit more fun and make the blog look a little less serious (I think Vigilance is a pretty mature/serious theme), and to suit my blog content, it definitely needed a little playfulness.

Enter Elegia’s Background Garden and Cute n Cool Blog Stuff. Both these sites have tons of ideas that you can use to design your blog. I loved them both. After a great deal of browsing, I ended up selecting my header image and the two Welcome to my Blog and I Love Comments graphics from Itkupilli’s Cute n Cool Blog Stuff (see the top right hand corner of my blog for these graphics).

Introducing these graphics into my WordPress blog is another long story. Blogger easily allows you to include graphics in your sidebar. WordPress however has a long-winded, unintuitive process. I tried a couple of methods, and then went on to Google to check how to do this, and Bingo! I was able to upload these images successfully.

I no longer can find the link that told me how to do this. But in case, you are interested, here is a short description of the procedure I followed:

  1. Create a new post (work in HTML mode not Visual mode).
  2. Click on the image icon to upload an image from your system into the new post.
  3. Copy the code that appears in your blog post.
  4. Go to the Widgets page and move a new Text widget to the sidebar.
  5. Paste the code into the Text widget and click Save.

Voila! the image is in the sidebar.

I also used this method to add all my reading challenges into the sidebar.

Now, I finally feel my blog redesign is complete (at least for the time being).

So, what do you think? Below is a snapshot of my old blog theme.

My Old WordPress Page

My Old WordPress Page

Do you think my blog’s new look is an improvement? Why/why not? Any suggestions, feedback? I would love to hear from you…

P.S. Please, please do not judge my technical writing skills based on the itty-bitty procedure I have written here (hands wringing :) )

Fooling Around with WordPress Themes

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Since I started blogging on WordPress, I have taken full advantage of the various themes they have on offer. I started off with Thirteen – a lovely green theme, before moving on to the very popular Misty Look and Pressrow themes.

Three themes in three years! But, change is good, right. And, I love how differently my blog can be perceived when the theme changes.

Of late, I have been covetously eyeballing two very different themes on various blogs – Spring Loaded and Vigilance.

Spring Loaded reminds me of my first Thirteen theme – only with a playful edge. Unfortunately, when I previewed the theme with my blog, I realized that all the widgets on the right column did not appear so good. The green frames that were supposed to encase the widgets correctly were either too big or too small. Even more surprisingly, the standard WordPress widgets for tags, archives, and so on did not display properly. After fiddling around with the settings (to no avail), I just gave up the effort and moved on to Vigilance.

I love the Vigilance theme. It looks beautiful in a very unfrivolous way. Unfortunately, one glitch spoiled it for me. The custom header options in Vigilance do not allow me to put my blog title over or below my header image. The title comes bang on the image, and completely spoils the look. Although, I can change the font colors, nothing I did seemed to lessen the effect. Vigilance does offer me an option to remove my blog title completely. This is a nice option because it means that I can create my own header image with my blog title, something I will definitely do some day.

However, for now, it is back to the Pressrow by Chris Pearson theme. I think it will live on as my theme of choice for a lot longer than I planned to. At first, I thought Pressrow was pretty bland, but as days go by, I am just more and more impressed by it’s simplicity and ease. I have never had any problems with widgets, they all display pretty decently. I love its navigation. I love how all my pages are displayed so boldly right at the top of the main page. And yes, I also love that I have a separate blog title and custom header image.

After all this playing around, I did eventually retain one change I made. I have included a Rating button at the bottom of my blog posts (you can see it when you click on the blog title, or the Comments button). So, if you don’t want to comment, you can still rate the blog post.

Looking forward to seeing some ratings on my blogs, starting from this one :)

Blog Customization Options

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When I first decided to start a blog, I was torn between WordPress and Blogger. I just did not know which option to go for. So, I just flipped a coin and ended up with Blogger.

Turned out to be not a bad option. It was easy to use and setup, and I liked the overall experience. However, I was just not that happy with the quality of themes that they have on offer. They were always a little dull, and I felt that the WordPress blogs that I followed have a much crisper layout.

So, I moved my blog to WordPress and I have never looked back … i.e. until now.

While slowly getting accustomed to the blogosphere, I came across some unique and lovely blogs on Blogger. Only then did I realize the extent of the customization options provided by Blogger. You don’t even have to be a CSS guru to personalize your Blogger blog to reflect your taste and individuality. This is a good thing because the default themes are not the greatest anyway!

WordPress also allows users to customize their themes, but at a price and that really sucks. I hope a day comes when the WordPress folks allow users to customize their blogs without any charge. However, the basic themes are pretty good, which sorta makes up for this.

There are tons of lovely sites on the web that help you customize your blogs, and here are a couple that I love:

  • The Cutest Blog on the Block (henceforth called TCBOTB)- This site offers you some lovely backgrounds, blinkies, and headers that you can easily customize and incorporate into your blog. Even better is that they provide options that complement each other, so you don’t have to get a beautiful background and then struggle to create a header that suits it.

    One lovely blog that has used its elements so beautifully is My Fluttering Heart …I just love the beautiful romantic background she has used. I also love the beautiful Alice in Wonderland header (a photo taken from a fashion magazine). After seeing this blog, I was inspired to try something on my still-existing Nishita’s Nonsensical Ramblings blog. I chose a much plainer background, and a “Life is Beautiful” blinkie, and I think this blog looks a lot better than it used to. If I had known about TCBOTB earlier, I just might have reconsidered my decision to move to WordPress.

    Note: Currently TCBOTB only supports Blogger. Also, male bloggers may find the choices offered by TCBOTB a little too girlie for their tastes.

  • The Background Fairy – Unlike TCBOTB, The Background Fairy supports Typepad, WordPress, and Blogger. They have a large number of backgrounds that you can use (I did not find any blinkies or headers though). Not as beautifully romantic as TCBOTB, but a good start nevertheless. Also, a good option for people who like their blogs to not look too cutesie.

    A nice example of good customization is Passions & Soapboxes. You can hardly make out that the basic theme of the blog is the good ole Pressrow by Chris Pearson that I also use. She has done an impressive job.

Have you customized your blog themes in any way? Did you use any sites that helped you ? Do you know any beautifully designed blogs you would like to share? I would love to know…

Time to Change my Theme Again

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I have been generally very happy with my old Misty Look theme. But seeing my friends experiment with their themes, inspired me to try out something new too.

Nothing too drastic. Still the same white background, just went for something that looked a little more crisper (Pressrow theme by Chris Pearson). I also just went ahead and changed the heading of my blog. Change is good, right !

One thing, which I think is an improvement over the Misty Look theme, is the navigability. Once I open a particular blog post, I can just keep clicking the “Back” and “Forward” arrows to read other posts. Misty Look’s navigation was a lot clunkier.

So, I am pretty ok with the way it looks for now. I still need to change the header graphic, which I will do soon.

What do you think about the new theme ?