After many attempts at trying to get a fully functional magazine theme, I give you: Aparatus – my most complicated theme yet. Aparatus is as a premium WordPress theme that comes with a Mootools slideshow in the home page. You may also notice that I misspelled Aparatus (which I can lie and say was purely intentional) but honestly – did not know until the little red line in this HTML editor showed up underneath and I said to myself “WTF! If I change the spelling – think of all the places in the code I have to change!”.
So much for a name change. Nonetheless, Aparatus is packed with features and design delight that aims to tickle your innermost web mag fancy. I have included extensive theme options that will leave you not needing to touch a single line of HTML. I have cufonized fonts for the headings and the site logos – that you need not create your own. I have modified the WordPress loop so much that it covered almost all possible looping scenario. Last of all, Aparatus comes with four different stylesheets targeted to suit your color schema.
Updated Twitter Badges!
I received enough comments on the Twitter badge to say “Follow ON Twitter” as supposed to “Follow IN Twitter“. So here they are:
Simply replace the existing badge image in the Theme’s images folder.
The Slide Show
As for many magazine styled websites – a slideshow is a must have. Thanks to JonDesign’s Smooth Gallery – which made this possible. The slideshow by default pulls your five latest posts. The loop then continues to present the remaining of your posts directly below. The theme options allow total exclusion of the slideshow, as well as automatic slide. You can also specify a specific category to be pulled into the slideshow – without ever duplicating the posts in the bottom. All while the default loop logic is still acknowledged and functional. What this means is that – the loop still recognizes the options you enter in WordPress admin – not just in the theme (i.e. number of posts to show, etc); in addition, the paging system (next page etc) still works and automatically hides the slideshow in the inner pages. Oh, I also re-styled the WP-Navi Plugin (the right way), by de registering it’s default stylesheet.
WP 2.9 Thumbnail Ready!
The images in the slideshow as well as the thumbnails per post can be set by using the new “set as thumbnail” feature in WP 2.9!. This supersedes the old school way of inserting “custom-fields” – but will still work with either! You can use the thumbnail feature or custom fields set to “image”.
Ads, Twitter, Widgets and Everything else
The sidebar comes with advertising blocks which you can set up in the theme options panel. When you enter your Twitter account in the options, this will dictate the @replies in the Tweet Me buttons, the big “Follow my Updates” in the header, as well as the last tweet in the sidebar. The popular posts and recent comments tabbed area are all non-plugin driven – which means the code is all inclusive with the theme, without needing to install a plugin. Lastly, the sidebar supports widgets, the comments are threaded, gravatar – ready, as well as suckerfished drop down menus for the categories in the header.
That’s Enough! Download Already!
To view a live preview of Aparatus – click here. You can purchase the theme for $10 through Paypal.
Don’t forget to check on PsPrint Online Printing for high quality printing services.
Is there a way to ad my own logo? I love the current text and size of the title of my blog, however, I would like to add some color to the word “SOUL”. If there is a way to accomplish this by simply adding a color code I would rather do that. Thank you!
Maybe you can make this word static instead of calling it through php. I would open header.php and look for this code: <a id="logo" href="<?php bloginfo(‘url’);?>"><?php bloginfo(‘name’);?></a> – take out the text in bold and replace with your site name – in your case “resurrectionsoul”. if you want to make the “soul” part a different color – wrap it around a “span” tag and apply a different color.
As always Michael…THANK YOU! But I have to laugh because I don’t have the slightest clue about what you’re talking about.
Could your provide me the code for the “span” tag and the color RED (same color red as the ‘Submit Comment’ button at the bottom of this form).
Thank you!!!
Regarding the ‘Popular’ / ‘Recent Comments’ / ‘Tags’ box on the right of the theme…..
I have been killing myself trying to figure out how to work this box until someone left a comment on one of my blog…PRESTO!
What about the ‘Tags’ tab, though? How does that get filled in. Do I enter tags? Where?
Thank you!
That is automatically filled with the “tags” from your posts.
I love this theme but I dont want to use it with wordpress….is there an HTML version available??
Michael…HELP! I took your advice for changing the color of just some of the text in the title by wrapping part of the word around span tags. IT WORKED! Thank you! But now when I click on the name of the blog it takes me to a page that reads: “Sorry – The Page You’re Looking For Doesn’t Exist Try Going Back Home”
This is the code I used: <a id="logo" href="”>RESURRECTION[SOUL]
How can I fix this so that when I click on the title it goes to the home page?
Here is the code I used
<a id="logo" href="”>RESURRECTION[SOUL]
Hi Michael, I need to translate the theme into spanish, I have problems with this text: Leave a Reply, in what archive is?
Thank you
Thanks for such a great template – it’s so good to see everything’s done the right way – elegant, minimalist code, great functionality for the administrator and awesome usability for the user!
I’ve used it for a collaborative blog based in Perth, Western Australia – thedrunkencorrespondent.com. It’s not much to talk about yet, but it’s growing!
How do I add a graphic logo of my blog name to replace the text only title of the blog?
@Brad – go into header.php – look for the anchor tag (<a href="" id="logo"></a>) and replace with <a href="" id="logo"><img src="yourlogourl.com" /> </a> – the yourlogourl.com is the url of your logo image.
This may be a ridiculous question…but how do I fill in the box under the ‘Tags’ tab in the right sidebar? How/where do I enter tags?
Tags are similar to Categories. You have to enter tags into each of your post. The sidebar will populate automatically. For more info on tags: http://en.support.wordpress.com/posts/categories-vs-tags/
it appears that our footer.php file is messed up. the page cuts off.
help?
@chad – it’s not the footer, something is conflicting with the images in the slider and in the thumbnails. make sure your running wp 2.9 and above, try disabling all plugins and test it out.
running 2.9.2
all plugins deactivated.
no change
Hi, I need to translate the theme into spanish, I have problems with this text: Leave a Reply, in what archive is?
Thank you
in comments.php look for comment_form_title and add some parameters. the default uses “Leave a reply”. read: http://codex.wordpress.org/Migrating_Plugins_and_Themes_to_2.7/Enhanced_Comment_Display
Thank you so much, It’s all right
Interesting and informative. :-)
Well done, Michael. I have figured out most of what I need and am just doing some fine-tuning. A few people have asked – and I will join them – for the layered Photoshop files for the Twitter badges.
A lot of people will want to change it up to Follow Our Updates On Twitter
“In” Twitter sounds slightly odd.
Making the change will be far easier with that layered PSD file
Thanks!
Let me look for the psd. I will post an update.
Hello, Is there an easy way to display full posts on the homepage, instead of the default partial posts? thanks, Jeff
Michael-
Just installed the theme. It’s great.
I want to replace the title in the upper left to a logo. I want to keep the dimensions the same. I have tried what you explained above with the header but it does not work.
here is what I want to do: replace the title name to a picture I have located on my FTP files.
How do I do this?
My site: http://www.criticalspeech.com
It is a mock up for our company website
You’re gonna have to change the logo to a bigger image (keep the same height but the width is up to 500px). Don’t increase the size in the stylesheet because it won’t look good.
Will do I’ll see if I can get a cleaner logo.
Michael,
When I try to change the size of the picture’s height it will push the header background and the body background apart leaving an open space.
Is there a way to reposition so that I can use a bigger logo without having the gap?
Michael-
Want to change the font on the category buttons to Arial. Looked through the style sheet and changed some fonts but cannot seem to find where it is for categories.
Also, when my page loads the slideloader seems to glitch and display the posts and then it snaps into the correct view. Anything I can do to minimize loading?
Thanks
for the category font – look for #nav2 a – remove the original font stack and add “arial”. the slider glitch is out of my control. A taller logo will require minor adjustments to the css.
Hi Michael, first of all, fantastic theme. The look is very professional, the code is very clean and organized, and the options for customization are endless.
Now, I’ve read through this whole list of comments and couldn’t find a solid answer to my question. The mootools slideshow (which I love) hangs awkardly for a few seconds on the page load, then assembles itself correctly. When the page first loads, all 5 of the images contained in the slideshow appear vertically down the page, then they seem to snap together. Do you know what might be causing this? If you need a look, the site is http://filmisyoung.com.
Thanks for sharing this amazing theme.
Hi Johnson – yes i notice the delay. this is a mootools slideshow thing which i don’t know how to debug. its the same way with the other themes that use this same plugin.
Ok. One more question. In my titles on single post pages, the ‘s’ is always capitalized after an apostrophe. Like “Sylvester Stallone’S.” Check here for an example: http://filmisyoung.com/2010/07/preview-of-george-clooneys-the-american/
Any ideas about that?
Thanks again.
Hi Johnson,
In the style.css (or whichever one you’re using) look for this code: .post-title-big, look for this line underneath and delete: text-transform:capitalize;
Comment back if this works so others can see.
This fix worked. Thanks for your quick response Michael.
Hey Michael,
I was wondering if it would be possible to get the psd files for the twitter badges. My site has quite a few writers so I’d like to change it to “Follow Our Updates” instead of “Follow My Updates.”
Great Theme, and thanks for any help you can give.
Love the theme. I added an extra thanks in the bottom link.
My question is how do I put adsense code into your theme? I was able to edit the sidebar to allow an adsense in the large adblock, but the 4 smaller ones, I can’t figure out for my life.
Thanks again!
Nel
you might have to that manually. open sidebar.php and add code where you want
Hi Michael, congratulations for one of the best themes available for WordPress!
I’m using your Theme on a News website and I am wondering if you plan to create a Magazine-Style new version, including a few featured categories.
I’m using this feature by installing a WordPress plugin, but it doesn’t look nice.
Thanks!
hi! i *love* this theme. as I’m customizing it for my own use, i’ve moved the front page thumbnails over to the left side of the excerpt post (float:left) but i’m having a ton of trouble making the thumbnails larger. i went into functions.php and changed the size but that didn’t do anything…and as it is, my pictures aren’t resized to 195×65, which is what functions.php has it set as–each image is resized to 86×65.
This is the last bit of customizing i need to do, and it’s driving me nuts that i can’t figure it out! thanks again for this theme, and any suggestion you have would be great!
after changing the size in the functions.php – try deleting the original images and re-upload. I believe the script has to run again so the new sizes will take effect. post the results here for others to see.
Michael – thank you for a fantastic theme, absolutely love it!
Q? The title tag on my home page (which is a static page not the default) leaves some extra characters at the beginning -> ‘>>’
I would like to reclaim this character space but can’t seem to track down where it’s generating from as it’s not on any other pages.
Any help is greatly appreciated, thanks!
@Dan – the title tag pulls your blog info (name). so check your blog general settings. I checked the theme header.php – and no unwanted characters are present inside the title tag. also, if you’re using a plugin such as all in one SEO – this has the option of changing your title tags – so check there as well.
Michael, great theme! I have a question though: if I don’t want the ad spaces to be there, is there an option to just get rid of or hide the ad module until I have something to put in there?
remove the code from sidebar.php. i comment the code to show where the ads are.
Any way to make the front page show the entire post, rather than the excerpt and thumbnail? I removed the call for the thumbnail and changed “excerpt” to “content”, but it doesn’t seem to be working.
Okay, well now I figured out how to change the excerpt to content, but when I do that the tabbede container in the sidebar doesn’t work.
HUH??