Update: 26 Sept 2007
- Added support for WP2.3 tags.
Below is a link to my first theme for WordPress.
Some of the recent changes include:
- added a screenshot for use by Wordpress 2
- added date and day links to the top of each post
- adding some javascript to allow for expansion and contraction of sidebar components
- cleaning up some of the css
- fixing the theme so it passes XHTML and CSS validation
- making some minor modifications to the layout of posts and comments
- making plugin references that aren’t present, fail gracefully
- better photo support (cpl plugin only) when javascript is disabled
- Added addition defines tag for alternate “photo of the day” modes with CPL. Requires CPL 0.10 or higher to use the tag.
Plugins supported:
- Ultimate Tag Warrior
- Copperleaf Photolog for WordPress
- Customizable Post Listings
- Link Category Order
- Identify External Links
- Subscribe to Comments
Customization Method
In Wordpress 2.x you can configure some user defined values that can be used to enable/show additional info in the theme. This can be accessed from the “Copperleaf Plus Options” tab under the “Presentation” tab when Copperleaf Plus is the active theme.
“Hosted by” Name – Shows up in the metadata section of the sidebar as “Hosted by xxxx”
“Hosted by” URL – Is the URL for the host name in the metadata section of the sidebar.
Technorati ID – If you have a technorati account and have claimed your blog, you can put the claim id here.
Adsense ID – This is where you can set your Google Adsense ID if you have one.
Copyright Statement – You can put your copyright info here.
CPL Photo of the Day Mode – If you use CPL 0.10 or higher, you can set this define to be the “photo of the day” mode to use:
newest | random | roundrobin | newestrandom | newestroundrobin
Older Customization Method
NOTE: This method has been superceded by the theme options on the themes page in admin that is supported by Wordpress 2.x.
There is support for some user defined values that can be used to enable/show additional info in the theme. This approach will allow for you to personalize the theme a bit without having to reedit when I have minor fixes in the future. Additionally, this makes it easier for me to maintain since I no longer have to maintain two versions of the theme.
With the theme is a file called defines_sample.php. Rename/copy the file to defines.php and edit the values to your liking. Currently there are five constants that can be define, use the ones that you like, remove or comment out the ones that you don’t.
COPPERLEAF_PLUS_HOST_NAME – Shows up in the metadata section of the sidebar as “Hosted by xxxx”
COPPERLEAF_PLUS_HOST_URL – Is the URL for the host name in the metadata section of the sidebar.
COPPERLEAF_PLUS_ADSENSE_ID – This is where you can set your Google Adsense ID if you have one.
COPPERLEAF_PLUS_COPYRIGHT – You can put your copyright info here.
COPPERLEAF_PLUS_TECHNORATI_ID – If you have a technorati account and have claimed your blog, you can put the claim id here.
COPPERLEAF_PLUS_PHOTO_OF_THE_DAY_MODE – If you use CPL 0.10 or higher, you can set this define to be the “photo of the day” mode to use:
newest | random | roundrobin | newestrandom | newestroundrobin
It is a derived work from the Minima Plus theme from Theron Parlin.
Readme: readme.txt
Download: copperleafplus1.21.zip
November 2nd, 2005 at 5:31 pm
Hi. This is a nice theme and I am testing it out at my site. I was wondering (if it wasn’t too much trouble) if you can help me figure out..
(1) I’ve got a whole bunch of WP Pages created .. how can I get them listed with the expander function in my sidebar?
(2) How do you get the About.php to be included in the template and site?
(3) Is there a way to embed a 404 error page when searches come up with no possible choices?
Also, I was going to try the ultimate-tag plugin, but my winRAR wouldn’t unzip it claiming that it was an invalid archive. Oh well.
Take care… /HART
November 2nd, 2005 at 5:46 pm
Sorry .. it’s me again.. please disregard above! I just linked the WP Links to the top of the header, then removed the code in the LINKS sidebar category section and copied the default kubrick pages php command.. It seems to work. I believe I might just edit the template itself for the “About” text, if I can’t figure it out myself. Thanks. Cya
November 2nd, 2005 at 8:23 pm
I couldn’t come up with a systematic way of showing the pages in a way that I liked, so I created links to them and display them in the links section. It takes two steps, but doesn’t require code mods.
Maybe I’ll mod to include the about section at the top if an about page exists.
Adding a 404 page would be a nice addition. I’ll probably do that.
November 13th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
I’m trying to edit the single post template (usually the single.php file) but this isn’t included in your theme. Can you tell me where to edit the appropriate code?
Thanks for the great theme!
November 14th, 2005 at 8:11 am
The index.php file covers the single post case. That would be the file that you want to edit. It doesn’t differentiate between single and multiple posts. Look for the comment
<!-- Begin .post -->November 18th, 2005 at 10:22 am
Don’t know if my earlier comment went through, but the problem I am having with the sidebar links is related to browser. I can get it to work fine in IE, but Unix/Mac based browsers do not work.
November 18th, 2005 at 6:04 pm
I love your theme. Keep up the good work!
November 20th, 2005 at 11:02 am
I can’t view my pages – not even in the Links section.
November 22nd, 2005 at 3:14 pm
Great theme! It works great on my site!
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:31 pm
I’d like to implement popup comments. I’ve read over the tags for this at Wordpress Codex, and saw the line in the index.php of Copperleaf theme for
function my_comments_popup_link()
but I don’t see what to do there. It’s not exactly the same as the references at Wordpress. I’m still a huge noobie with PHP. Can you help?
November 23rd, 2005 at 4:32 pm
I would add… I don’t see how to enable the comments_popup feature… thanks again.
November 28th, 2005 at 9:44 am
TJR,
Unfortunately, I’ve not messed with the comments_popup stuff. What you found in the theme is a probably leftover from Minima Plus (which is what I started with). I’ll try and take a look and see what it’s all about.
December 5th, 2005 at 6:20 pm
[...] Copperleaf Plus NEW [...]
December 6th, 2005 at 2:31 pm
I love this theme. Everything is straightforward, coded well, and easy to use. One thing I would like to have a hide option for is the comments section on the “pages” but I’m sure I’ll find it in the index code someplace. Thanks for all your hard work!
December 9th, 2005 at 5:33 pm
I literally went through every single WordPress theme before deciding on the Copperlife theme. Thank you for your contributions.
This is the first time I’ve ever used WordPress. I’ve been using Drupal as a CMS, but found WordPress perfect for a new site my wife and I are working on. This theme had everything I needed.
December 9th, 2005 at 5:35 pm
Woops…someone needs to correct that for me. I know it’s Copperleaf and not Copperlife. Sorry about that.
January 3rd, 2006 at 4:37 am
Hi Bill,
thx for the great theme. I absolutely adore it. Keep up the good work
Best Wishes
Marcel
January 4th, 2006 at 5:35 pm
Hi,
and thanks for the beautiful theme…
January 10th, 2006 at 4:46 pm
Super nice theme, but it doesn’t work on my page. The right menu is placed under all the blog inputs :(
Have any idea why?
January 10th, 2006 at 7:00 pm
Nevermind on that last post. It’s working now, and I love it! Thanks.
January 19th, 2006 at 9:18 am
Is anyone seeing problems with the Date as the title after pinging Technorati? For example, at http://www.technorati.com/tag/icefishing you’ll see two headlines for my post: Ice Fishing on the Internet and 01.19.06 ? This started when I upgraded to Wordpress 2.0 and the latest version of this theme.
Thanks, Bryan
January 19th, 2006 at 5:53 pm
Thanks for a great theme that passes XHTML and CSS validation – I wish all theme designers took as much care as you did. :)
I am trying to turn off the borders around the images – I have looked at the CSS files and can usually figure out what to change but this has me stumped.
Great piece of work. Any help would be greatly appreciated.
January 19th, 2006 at 6:07 pm
Thanks for a theme that actually works and is not borked.
I am trying to figure out how to turn off thre borders around the images. I have looked at the CSS but am stumped and would appreciate being pointed in the right direction.
January 19th, 2006 at 6:13 pm
Also, I renamed and modified the defines.php page but am wondering why it does not appear in the sidebar – is there something else to do to turn on that function?
January 19th, 2006 at 10:56 pm
OK, I figured those last two out. Never mind my previous post. lol
January 20th, 2006 at 8:11 am
Greg, glad you were able to work it out.
January 23rd, 2006 at 12:23 am
[...] Copperleaf Plus NEW [...]
January 28th, 2006 at 2:51 pm
[...] Yes, another … I’m trying Bill Smith’s Copperleaf Plus 1.3 with an image header change. The previous theme, though I liked it, was just little too minimal. [...]
February 1st, 2006 at 9:11 pm
[...] I’ve posted new releases to both the Copperleaf Plus theme and the Copperleaf Photolog Plugin. [...]
February 9th, 2006 at 1:30 am
Thank you so much for sharing this theme. I barely know what I’m doing, and my blog is no longer validated perfectly, but it’s perfect enough for me.
After reading comments here, I’ve decided to go no furthur through the list of three-column themes, as I believe this one can’t be topped.
I’m not using the photo option, as I’ve tinked with my blog directories enough.
Take care, and I think as long as I have a link here, it’s okay to use the aforementioned theme.
February 28th, 2006 at 9:09 pm
Hey, nice job, it looks really good and thanks for the design credit, appreciate it.
March 8th, 2006 at 2:29 am
Thanks for making this great theme available, it made a great starting point for my blog!
March 22nd, 2006 at 3:29 am
Thanks for the theme. I’ve made some variations to the look (which you might be alarmed by, but my version reflects the kind of look I like for me).
I wish I knew more about what I was doing. There are a few other changes I’d like to make (adding pages and some tab navigation), but I’ll figure that out one day. I’m a writer, not a designer or programmer, so it takes a lot of trial and error.
But this is a great theme. I’m glad I came across it.
March 22nd, 2006 at 7:07 am
Hi Bill, thx for the nice words. The nice thing about open source is that you *can* modify it fit to your needs.
April 8th, 2006 at 8:09 am
Hi Bill, just wondering if you planned to make your theme compatible with the new Widgets plugin released by WP….
April 10th, 2006 at 10:48 am
Hi Chris. I was thinking about it. Unfortunately I don’t know when I’ll get to it.
April 20th, 2006 at 12:26 pm
Hi :) i’m using your template, but a little change.
Thanks!!!!
June 8th, 2006 at 6:37 am
hi, i love the template. but one quick question. i have noticed on this template, that when you are at the homepage, all the sidebar text shows up in bold, but if you go to any other page in the blog, the sidebar shows up normal text. what can i change to make this normal text across the board?
June 8th, 2006 at 6:42 am
take that back, i just figured out what it was, lol
June 27th, 2006 at 12:19 pm
How do I get the recent post and recent comments to show up in my sidebar. i see the tags for it are in the sidebar.php but anytime i post they do not show up
June 27th, 2006 at 12:34 pm
To see the recent posts and recent comments you need to install the Customizable Post Listings Plugin.
June 27th, 2006 at 12:41 pm
Nevermind last post. I got it working. I see I had to download another plugin for it to work.
December 19th, 2006 at 2:04 pm
[...] I’ve made a small update to the Copperleaf Plus theme that will allow it to work with Wordpress 2.1. [...]
April 27th, 2007 at 12:16 pm
[...] I’ve made a number of small updates to the Copperleaf Plus theme. [...]
August 10th, 2007 at 1:02 am
Great template. I’ve have a question about conditional tags.
Many of the newer templates use this line:
before calling the links:
This publishes links only on the homepage (no site wide blogroll).
However, when I add the first line of code into this template I get a syntax error.
Any ideas?
Again…beautiful and very functional template that I hope to use for a long time.
Thanks.
August 13th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
Hey, you write “This can be accessed from the Copperleaf Plus Options tab under the tab when Copperleaf Plus is the active theme.” Now i cannot find such a tab nor can i arrange widgets and such. Is the version on the Wordpress Team Directory an older version, should i update for example?
August 14th, 2007 at 10:53 am
Hi Raymond,
Download the latest version from this site. (What is the URL for the Wordpress Team Directory?) The latest version has the options page but does not have widget support. If I get enough requests, I’ll add that.
Bill
September 5th, 2007 at 7:28 am
Hi Bill, like the elements of the new theme, in particular Ajax in the masthead, and the font size changing. Any indication of when these will be released and will they be able to be incorporated into the old style (sorry but I’m afraid I find the orange/green combo a bit over powering)?
September 7th, 2007 at 7:53 am
Hi Chris,
It will probably be a while before I can release the new theme. At the moment it has quite a bit of customization that is specific to me and there is some experimental code that I want to stress test a bit first (like the ajax stuff at the top). The good thing about it is that I started from scratch and developed the whole thing with the idea of supporting different color schemes, etc.
As far as updating the Copperleaf Plus theme, I do need to add support for widgets but haven’t had much time with building the garage, work, etc. BTW, congratulations on the new addition!
Bill
September 8th, 2007 at 1:00 pm
Hi Bill, thanks for the congrats (delivered by myself on bathroom floor as medics were too slow to arrive!). Will have to sit and wait for new theme then. Let me know if you want any testers when at that stage.
Chris
September 26th, 2007 at 9:39 am
[...] Copperleaf Plus Theme has been updated to support tags in Wordpress [...]
December 15th, 2007 at 2:10 pm
[...] Tag Warrior so that they are now managed by the native engine, and upgraded the theme from Copperleaf Plus 1.18 to Fluid Blue. I hope everybody like the new theme and layout. I have tried to keep the [...]
May 26th, 2008 at 11:37 pm
You designed one the best themes under wordpress! Thanks! If you could just add a left bar to make it three columns. It would really help with those with many pages and links.
Also I am having problems with adding the search widget. It would somehow mess up the page. Any help would be appreciated. Thanks a ton!
July 20th, 2008 at 11:34 am
newbie question: Can I replace the skyline photo with one of my own? Please tell me how.
July 20th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
Sharon,
The license is GPL so you can do what ever you want. The easiest way to change the image is to look in the theme directory for a file called masthead.jpg. Create your own image that you want and have the size be 680×132 and save it as masthead.jpg. Replace the current masthead.jpg with your new one. You can do different sizes, but then you have to change some of the layout a little.
Bill
July 22nd, 2008 at 8:56 pm
Hi Bill,
I have a newbie question, too. Is it possible to change the font and/or size of the title above the masthead?
Thanks for such a great theme, I really love it.
Megan
July 29th, 2008 at 12:59 pm
The easiest way is to change the themes style.css and change the blogtitle id parameters.