I’ve gotten some fabulous feedback since the initial release and since then I have made some minor, but important, updates to the theme. I’ve updated the zip file and the change log. Here are the updates in this release (and the most recent previous release, in case you didn’t catch those):
- Added the Comments RSS and Trackback link to the single post page
- Fixed the display of number of posts in a category in the side bar category listings
- Made a minor fix in the search feature
- Adjusted CSS to handle large images, wider than the post body
- Added plugin support for Related Entries plugin
- Added the ‘edit this’ link to posts, comments and pages
That should do it for now. Thanks, everyone, for all the great feedback!
Looking for a demo of the theme? You’re looking at it. Currently the xMark Blog Theme Site is using the current version of xMark. If you see something here on this main site that you’re not seeing in the theme files - it is probably because I am working on a new release, and I use this site as my sandbox. All theme features are tested here first before they are added to the official theme files.
8:25 am on March 5th, 2007 1
I updated to 1.0.2 and it was relatively smooth even with my style updates. Thanks for the theme.
3:07 pm on March 5th, 2007 2
That’s good news justelise - thanks for letting me know
9:47 pm on March 5th, 2007 3
Hi Lisa - thanks for the update. Can I make one suggestion? That you add the following to style.css to make the header for the flickr rss plugin align left like all of the other headers?
li.widget_flickrrss h2 {text-align:left; }
Results can be seen here. Thanks for your hard work on this.
2:26 am on March 7th, 2007 4
First of all, thanks for the great theme, very nice
For some reason I am not getting the number of posts beside each Category heading in the sidebar… Am I missing something? Is there an option to turn it on or off, or should this appear automagically?
4:06 am on March 7th, 2007 5
Jason - good suggestion, i’ll keep it in mind for a future release!
Influx - category number display is an option you need to set in the Category widget box (click the icon in the upper right corner of that widget box to find the options.)
8:17 am on March 7th, 2007 6
Strange turn - I updated my WP to avoid the bug and now the RSS feed doesn’t function with xMark. Something I’m missing? Any clue?
2:35 pm on March 7th, 2007 7
Hi John - that is curious. I attempted to duplicate the issue this site. First I upgraded that site to WP2.1.2 and then did a clean install of xMark and the feed is working without any problems at all: http://polcentre.com/feed
The only real call to anything feed related in the template is in the header.php file:
And then the generic link in the footer.
If your feed issue is a function of the theme, I’ll surely look into it - -however, I’m not able to duplicate it.
Quick question - if you activated the WP default theme, does your feed work then? If so - then its surely an xMark issue that I’ll dig into.
Thanks!
9:13 pm on March 7th, 2007 8
Good way to test. I’ll try and get back.
9:09 am on March 9th, 2007 9
Thanks for the great theme! I’d really like to use it in a deployment of WPMU I’m preparing…
Has it been tested with MU? I’m relatively new to WP, and I haven’t had any luck with xMark in WPMU. When I try to activate the theme, I get a fatal php error:
“Cannot redeclare xmark_showauthor() (previously declared in /xMark/functions.php:89) in /xMark/functions.php on line 93, referer: …./wpmu/wp-admin/themes.php”
php version: 5.1.2
I’m having no problem activating xMark in Wordpress v2.1 on the same server, which leads me to believe this is an issue with MU.
I’d appreciate any help you can offer. Thanks!
2:36 pm on March 9th, 2007 10
Hi Ryan - I have not tested this on MU yet. I do have plans to do that within the next week because I have some writing to do on MU over the next few weeks, so I’ll be doing a clean install of it and I’ll be able to test and troubleshoot xMark for MU at that point.
Thanks!
6:49 pm on March 9th, 2007 11
i tried to download this, but it said the “stylesheet” was missing. what am i doing wrong? can you email me?
10:05 pm on March 9th, 2007 12
dan.. if your WordPress is telling you the stylesheet is missing - you’ve install the them incorrectly.
Download the zip file. upload the entire ‘xmark’ folder to your /wp-content/themes/ directory.
12:25 am on March 10th, 2007 13
Any idea on how to make the container (white bg) 100% height for Firefox ?
I got it to work for IE…but been beating my head against the wall for FF.
Essentially, if content is smaller / less than browser window, i see too much of the gray and want the container to extend till the bottom.
any help will be appreciated.
10:04 am on March 19th, 2007 14
great theme! i have problem with Rss Feed style
what can i do?
where can i change the rss title color? or UNlink the rss title?
help
9:30 am on March 23rd, 2007 15
Hi lisa is me again
Lisa i dont know if this is due to your theme but when i try the search function it doesn’t display all the results.
9:39 am on March 23rd, 2007 16
Hi Invi - the number of search results that show on one page is directly related to the number of posts per page that you have set in your ‘Options’/ ‘Reading’
If you notice.. 10 search results show on your site. You also have your blog set to display 10 posts per page.
At the bottom of the search results page are the “Previous/Next” links to allow your readers to navigate to the next listing of search results within their query.
There are plugins out there that will allow you to set a custom number of posts per page… i.e. number of posts on the home, search, category, etc.. pages. One is called Custom Query String and can be found here
Cheers!
9:44 am on March 23rd, 2007 17
Stefano - I’m unsure what you mean by RSS style? This theme does not attempt to style your RSS feed, at all.
If you’re talking about the RSS link that sites in the footer of the template? You can find that link in the footer.php file
9:44 am on March 23rd, 2007 18
Pranav - good question. Try a max-height: 100% for Firefox and see if that helps
12:05 pm on April 3rd, 2007 19
I really like this theme! I intend to incorporate it with several of my sites. I left you a meager donation via Paypal to (in some small way) show my appreciation!
5:36 pm on April 3rd, 2007 20
Awww, Chris - thank you so much! I’m very happy to hear that you like xMark
Cheers!
10:32 am on April 4th, 2007 21
Hi Lisa,
I noticed last night that when I added “links” to my site, everything looked fine until I clicked on a post or on the comments for a post, it would show me the full post, but the right sidebar would move down underneath the post? When I removed all the links, everything works fine again?
Sorry if I missed something obvious. I’ve managed to learn a fair amount about WordPress over the last few months, but far from being an expert!
Thank you!
Chris
12:29 pm on April 4th, 2007 22
Ok…it seems my previous post was incorrect, (imagine that?) It doesn’t have anything to do with the links it seems. Here is what I’m seeing…when I’m logged in as admin, then have another window open with my site up, the theme performs flawlessly in that window. When I log out, the right sidebar comes up at the bottom?
Also, after scanning the comments, I did see where I’m not the first to have problems with this…I’m just not sure I know the fix?
Thank you!
2:57 am on April 6th, 2007 23
just a quick hello and informing i am working on beautiful xmark with a magazine style. check: http://www.napolicity.info
3 sidebar, 4 asides with picture and excerpt (1 in opening homepage) 3 in sidebar. More feature like flash video and picture gallery to come. Comments and suggestion are welcome.
3:38 pm on April 6th, 2007 24
Hey Chris - you have found a true bug in the theme. Thank you for bringing it to my attention. Seems when a user has comments set for ‘registered members only’ - there some weird business with the right sidebar when you’re not logged in.
I have my final deadline for my book project within the next week - so I’m going nuts trying to get that done. I will do my best to address this issue and release a new version with a fix very soon. I just need to dig into it a bit.
Thanks!
3:40 pm on April 6th, 2007 25
Nice work, stefano! Looks wonderful
Thanks for sharing.
7:18 am on April 7th, 2007 26
Hi Lisa,
I totally understand that you’re covered up with the book! My site still has a long way to go and this little bug isn’t hurting anything right now. You worry about getting that book taken care of right now and we’ll deal with the bug later.
Thanks for your support and best of luck on finishing things up!
Chris
11:03 am on April 8th, 2007 27
Hi Lisa, thank you so much for the layout, it works great..I haven’t seen it yet on a IE..cause i work in a Mac, but so far really good…I imagine I can customize it more like Stefano’s which looks fantastic, I just switch last night, so I got more work to do…..thank you again.
3:18 pm on April 9th, 2007 28
Thanks for stopping by, Raniya - I’m glad you like it!
4:19 pm on April 26th, 2007 29
I have the same problem as Stefano with the linked title of the RSS widgets showing up with the reddish theme color. It is difficult to read. Was his a quick fix? If so how?
Thanks,
9:46 am on May 8th, 2007 30
46409b34e4
46409b34e4
11:54 am on June 1st, 2007 31
I seem to be having a problem with the size of the displayed comments when I use plugins like Brian’s Threaded Comments or Sexy Comments. The plugins work (comments appear threaded, etc.) but the comment font size becomes extremely small and hard to read. I’m not sure where or how to fix this — thoughts?
7:36 pm on June 20th, 2007 32
Hi Lisa,
I downloaded your theme a while back and it’s been performing very nicely. Well about a week ago, I decided I’d make life easy and start using widgets. I hadn’t used them before and found that they made life so much easier. I use Firefox and didn’t bother to look at my site in IE. I went to my site in IE today and the sidebars were mangled? I’ve played around with the widgets some, trying to pin down exactly what is happening, with no luck so far. I guess my question is whether you’ve heard of anyone else having problems that are similar? I know thats not a lot of info, but I’d like to start by making sure this isn’t a problem thats already been solved. If you’d like to see what I mean, I can set it up again and let you know. I made some changes to get it back to where it looks halfway normal for now. Thanks for your help!
Chris
8:20 pm on June 20th, 2007 33
Hi Chris, thank you for stopping by.
I went to your site and loaded it in IE6 and IE7 and am not seeing any problems at all. This site (blogdesignsolutions.com) also uses widgets and I don’t seem to have any issues with the display here, either.
Just for further testing - - I loaded it on my Sandbox Testsite (using WP 2.2) just to see if I had any problems with the display right ‘out of the box’ so to speak (i.e. no alterations in code or CSS, just the straight theme)
Your request has me at a loss. Have you, perhaps, modified the templates or CSS at all since you downloaded it? If not, I would recommend re-downloading the theme, completely delete the one you currently have installed, re-upload and activate it and see if that makes any difference for you.
Thanks!
8:36 pm on June 20th, 2007 34
Hi Lisa,
If you have the opportunity, take a look at it now. It’s like when I add a certain number of widgets, the sidebars go crazy? I’ve just set it back up like I had it when I first noticed the problem.
Thanks for responding so quickly. If we can’t figure it out, I’ll take your advice and download the theme and try reloading it.
Thanks!
Chris
8:54 pm on June 20th, 2007 35
Hi Chris —
I took a look at your source code. If you look at my Sandbox Testsite - you’ll see I was able to duplicate your problem there in IE.
Here’s the issue…your text widgets. Currently your code looks like this:
You have your elements wrapped in LI tags with no preceeding (or ending) UL tags.
On my test site - when I added the preceeding and ending UL tags, it displayed just fine.
It also displayed fine if I just removed the LI tags (before and after), as well.
Looks like you have it this way for your Text 4 and Text 5 widgets, from what I can see. I didn’t check all your text widgets - but you may want to.
Let me know if we’ve hit gold
9:10 pm on June 20th, 2007 36
You are absolutely awesome! I don’t know what else to say?!?! Thank you so much for responding so quickly and professionally! You’ve just made my day! Hopefully I’ll get to return the favor some day!
By the way…did you finish up your book? I’ll definitely purchase a copy!
Thank you!
Chris
9:16 pm on June 20th, 2007 37
Chris - that’s great news
I’m glad it helped. Sometimes, it’s just the little sticky things that can muck things up, glad I could help.
I did finish the book at the end of April. I’m just entering into what my editors call the “Final Author Review” where I get the chance to review and revise the text I’ve written and bring it up to date with any new releases and functionalities that WordPress has released since I finished… which has been quite a lot - so I’ll be busy over the next month with that. It is scheduled for release on (or about) Sept. 10th.
Thanks!
2:42 pm on October 8th, 2007 38
Latest Update - xMark has been upgrades for the latest version of Wordpress 2.3 - including tagging features and some clean up of the CSS stylesheet.
11:29 am on April 1st, 2008 39
Lisa,
I found your xMark theme after purchasing your book, which I heard about after I found your blog, which I found after reading about you in Blogging w/ Moxie, which I heard about from reading themommyblog.net…WHEW. I’m preparing (with your book in hand) to venture away from the world of LiveJournal into my own “stand-alone” blog, thanks in part to you.
So my question(s) from the amature…..
1.) I really like xMark…is it a good theme for someone just starting?
2.) Would it be difficult w/ zero code knowledge to change the header? If so would it be ove my head.
Again thanks Lisa for your inspiration and help through your words.
K