Oh I spend too much time in front of my pc – my wife always say. This time around – I sat, designed and coded a straight how many hours and am glad to produce: Rotary. Rotary is a two column theme with tons of features including a kicker home page. It is built to be used with WordPress 3.0, and is centered around the idea of running your blog as a CMS. Let me explain:
Below is a screenshot of Rotary’s glorious homepage. The roundabout carousel sits right on the fold – with images that are pulled straight from your post thumbnails. Click to view the Rotary Demo page:
Custom Post Type
You like that carousel / slider in the home page? Well that is due to the amazing code known as the roundabout by Fred LeBlanc. You can easily change the contents of this carousel in two ways:
1) Using a custom post type
In the left hand side of the admin area you will notice a section called “Roundabouts”. Simply add a new roundabout and give it a title, some content and attach a “feature image”.
The images are automatically resized to the right dimensions. Also – you’re only allowed up to 5 roundabouts.
2) Change the static code
If you decide you don’t want to use the custom post type feature – you can simply change the HTML. Inside home.php you will see an unordered list with each item as follows:
1 | <li><a href="#"><img src="<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/586x360.jpg" alt="Need Image Here" /></a><div class="hiddendesc">Need to Enter Image</div></li> |
Simply replace the values of your images, title and link and you’re set to go.
The Navigation Menu
This by far is my favorite 3.0 feature – custom menus. It’s simply amazing. I’ve added the code to Rotary that lets you design the main navigation of the theme.
Simply drag and drop items to the menu builder and save.
Feature Images
Just like the roundabout items – all posts in this theme can have its own feature image. Simply use the “Set feature Image” option for each post:
This image will show as thumbnails in the archive pages, and a medium photo inside the single page template:
Conclusion
Truly by using the features above – you can utilize the power of WordPress 3.0 as well as turn your blog into a cool CMS. Give Rotary a spin – it’s cool, it works and it’s only $10! Please leave your questions and comments below.
I got the slider to animate automatically while retaining the text. It’s a hybrid of the default and Andy’s post.
I haven’t tested it in all browsers and I’m not a programmer either. This is a total hack job but I hope that it works for you as well.
Andy, the part you mentioned about the layout breaking was likely due to the minScale being set to .3 … I changed that to 1.
<script type="text/javascript" src="/scripts/jquery.easing.1.3.js”>
var interval;
jQuery(‘#roundabout ul’).css(“visibility”,”visible”).roundabout({
minOpacity: 1,
minScale: 1,
//easing: ‘easeInBack’,
duration: 1500,
reflect: true,
startingChild: 0,
btnNext: ‘#nextRound’,
btnPrev: ‘#previousRound’
}).hover(function() {
clearInterval(interval);
},function() {
interval = startAutoPlay();
});
interval = startAutoPlay();
function startAutoPlay() {
return setInterval(function() {
jQuery(‘#roundabout ul’).roundabout_animateToNextChild();
}, 5000);
};
//
My prior post didn’t retain the formatting. This is a hybrid hack job of Andy’s code and the original code in the theme. It adds AutoPlay and retains the original formatting (*not tested in all browsers*)
Replace all of the javascript at the bottom of home.php with the code on this page: http://snipt.org/xoRm
thank you Brian for the code.
Does your theme work on WordPress 3.2 ? Are you thinking about an update? :)
I’ll admit to being a wordpress dummy! How do I actually get the ’roundabouts’ to do what I need them to? I just need to put up perhaps 6 or 7 pages. And I’d like each of the ‘slides’ to go to one of the specific pages.
Any help would be great. Thanks!
Great theme! thanks!
a) how do I disable the breadcrumbs on the pages?
b) how do I stop the photos in the roundabout from linking to a page?
c) if I wanted to remove the search bar how much of the code would I need to remove?
THANKS!
1) open index.php – find the call to the function “dimox breadcrums”
2) that would require some careful html editing. you need to open home.php – look at the section where the roundabout is and take out the anchor tags surrounding the image
3) the search bar – that should be in header.php. i usually wrap it inside a div called “searchform” or something.
How can I have the sidebar on the front page also?
Hi, Is this theme updated to work with the newest version of WordPress?
yes. latest is 3.2
Hello, Love the theme – but as I am a noob to wp i have a couple of questions.
1) I have added 2 roundabouts (Title, content, Image) but only one shows up on the homepage?
2) Where do i find the place to change the Testimonial Text, who are we? and the blog post?
Would be great if you could help :-)
Thanks
1) the roundabouts are in the page (its just one on top of the other). add a couple more and you’ll see
2) I believe the testimonial / who we are sections are in home.php – go to appearance > editor > select “home.php” in the right side
*need to know a bit of html.
3) the posts are automatically filled with your posts.
Thank you for a great theme. I am actually using it to create a website for my neighbors bakery that she is starting and it is going to be her Christmas present…
But my question is… How do I activate and use the links
“About, Contact Us, Bookmark this Site, Subscribe to RSS” which are located on the sidebar of all of my pages?
It should be in the sidebar.php. You have to edit the HTML.
When I upload the zipped file through the theme directory in WordPress 3.3, it doesn’t recognized the style.css file as that. Also, I’m using PeaZip to re-compress and it created the style file as style.css.css
new to wordpress, and just downloaded this theme. I cant seem to get the roundabout to work – all I get is ‘Oops. Sorry – That page isn’t available…’. I have
1) Created a new roundabout with a featured image and nothing seems to work – even when I view roundabout. Is there somewhere the roundabout is meant to go?
Try setting up 3-4 roundabouts.
I just purchased the Rotary WP Theme and so far, I am very impressed. However, being relatively new to WP, I did have one question.
How can I change the header background from the default to a solid color? Also, is there a way to add a logo image instead of the default text?
Thanks!
You would have to edit the html and css.
Hello,
I recently bought this theme and have applied it. It’s great, except for one thing, when clicking on the left & right Roundabout images, some will go to another image (clicking on the left image will go to the right image.) Some work fine, but some don’t. I’m not sure why. Here is the site: http://www.raincitycatering.com/
I did add Brian’s Autoplay Javascript, so there might be the issue, but I don’t know javascript enough to figure out what is causing this issue.
Thanks for any help.
try taking out the autoplay script. then add it again line by line. use tools like firebug and console.log to debug.