Let it be known that is is one of my older themes that I once had for sale in Themeforest. It did quite well in the beginning. Although I noticed the decline in sales as time passed, therefore I decided to give it away for free.

So what’s so special about it?

Monte Cristo is clean, sharp and minimal. Yet the subtle graphic effects give it a bit of modernity and heightened class. I especially like this theme because it kind of reminds me of the older style of web pages – with the borders, and the “page-peel” effect (which was quite big a couple of years ago). It comes with an options page where you can tweak the slideshow settings, switch stylesheets etc. It also comes with an alternate homepage template, as well as a “portfolio” page. Read my old sales pitch page for more details.

Creative Commons Who?

I’ve changed all my giveaways to have the Attribution Type of Creative Commons licensing model. What this means is that you can use the theme however you want – as long as you leave my credits in the footer. *But if you REALLY must take off the credits in the footer (i.e. you’re installing it for a client website): contact me – we may be able to work something out (hint: a small donation of some sort).

Conclusion

So go ahead, install Monte Cristo and have a blast. I’ve tested the theme to run on WP 3.0 and all major browsers. Also, make sure you read the “ReadMe.doc” file in the theme folder for additional instructions. Lastly, keep an eye out for more of my freebies. I shall be releasing more real soon!

Note: Since I created the theme almost a year ago, it doesn’t utilize the newer features of WordPress 3.0 such as post feature images, custom post types and custom menus.

Features

The slider in the home page templates are dynamic. Meaning – they are actual posts in your blog that you set in a specified category (i.e. feature) – so they show up in the slider. You can set it to run automatically and are allowed up to eight slides. The slider uses CSSGlobe’s “easy slider“. All images that link to other images automatically loads “FancyZoom” – which which is the amazing javascript zooming effect you see in many modern websites. Monte Cristo also comes with four different “characters” or color schemes: Jacopo is the gray and burgundy guy, Danglars swaggers in brown and taupe, Mondego likes it purple and green while Dantes is different shades of blue.

Why Friendly?

Monte Cristo has a built in options panel where you can set your preferences. Friendly because this way – you don’t have to know HTML, or Javascript to tweak the code. You can set which character you want from the options panel, set the slider categories, automatic or not, plugin your logo files – just about all that you need to customize Monte Cristo to fit your website.

Why Buy?

Monte Cristo is up on sale at ThemeForest.net for a measly $25.00. You can check out the live demo from this link. Why buy if I have been giving away stuff for free? Oh I don’t know – maybe because since I spent a whole lot of time making this theme that I figured I might as well try to make money off of it. Maybe since I give away free support once you purchase is another reason. Or maybe if I make enough money from this that I can now spend more time with my son – teach him not to say bad words like “what the heck“. Of course, its completely up to you.

Updated to Version 1.3 – Drop Down List Support for the Page Navigation!

For those of you who have asked for a drop down list for sub pages – the update is here. I will be glad to send you the update files if you contact me. If you already have Monte Cristo running and have made some edits to the css files – contact me, and I will send you the code to paste in the css files.

Get the Updated Files Here!