Last fall was the last time I released an update to xMark - I figured it was due for a clean up.
The latest version of xMark is 2.5 released today, July 19, 2008. Please update your themes, as versions prior to 2.5 will not be supported. xMark 2.5 is compatible with WordPress 2.6 and the latest version of WordPress MU.
Changes in this update:
- Plugins no longer supported in this theme: SRG Clean Archives and Wasabi’s Related Posts
- Plugins that ARE supported in this theme: FlickrRSS, ShareThis (version 2.x), WP Related Posts, WP Post Views, WP Print
- When I say plugins are supported.. it means the theme comes with built-in support for those plugins. The plugins listed ARE NOT REQUIRED in order to use xMark - - but if you do use them, the styling and functionality are build into this theme.
- Bug fix: Cleaned up CSS issue that was causing the far right sidebar to drop down underneath the posts when comments were closed in Internet Explorer
- Style fix: Some folks reported difficulty with styling forms in the sidebar. I made some CSS adjustments to prevent this
- Image styling and handling for image galleries and photos, including captions and alignment classes (i.e. .alignright, .alignleft, .aligncenter for images)
- Cleaned up the comments display with some CSS and coding adjustments, including adding support for the display of Gravatars
- Archives pages reformatted and restyled for categories, date-based and tag archives, as well as the search results page
A quick review of the original functions of xMark:
Welcome to xMark, a fully fluid, three column WordPress theme designed with the end user in mind. You know who you are - you bloggers who just want to get on with the business of blogging and don’t want to tinker with all the technical mumbo jumbo… Yea, you! I have done my utmost at making this theme as easy as possible. Straight out of the box, xMark will be a perfectly functional theme for you - however, xMark has numerous options and highlights available to you - check this stuff out:
- 3-column, fluid CSS layout
- A print.css files to maximize print output
- 2 sidebars, both fully widget compatible
- Admin options menu that gives you the option(s) to:
- Display the authors name in the post byline.. or not
- Custom date displays for the posts
- Display the authors name in the byline on static pages…or not
- Allow comments on static pages…or not
- Set up ‘Asides’ for your blog
- Successful cross-browser rendering
- Currently supports the following plugins:
- ShareThis (version 2.x)
- WP Related Posts
- WP Post Views
- WP Print
- Includes optional coding for displaying an ad beneath the first post on the page. This site displays a 336×280 Google Adsense ad block - however, you can choose to display any type of banner ad you’d like. If you don’t want to display any ads beneath the first post - don’t worry, if you don’t add in the advertising code, nothing displays at all
- Category, Monthly Archive and Tag pages that display post excerpts with date, comment count and ‘read more’ link. Each archive page displays the name of the category you are browsing!
- Custom search results page gives a display of post titles, excerpts, date, post comment count and ‘read more’ link
- Custom 404 “Page Cannot Be Found” page
- An optional Archives page - - you can see my archives here
- An optional SiteMap page - you can see my sitemap here
A quick look at the documentation should answer any burning questions you have on installing and using this theme. xMark comes as is - free for you to use and released under a GPL license.
The Credits page give an idea of some folks who indirectly helped make this happen. The Plugins page shows the plugins this theme currently supports.
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 on WordPress version 2.6.
Download the xMark WordPress Theme v2.5
I’ve done my best with testing this puppy out - however, that being said, if you find a bug or somewhere within the code that I tripped up, be sure to let me know and I’ll get a fix right quick!
I hope you enjoy xMark as much as I enjoyed creating it. Please do leave a comment if you end up using it on your site!
Download xMark v2.5
10:43 am on July 19th, 2008 1
[...] been viewed 1 times FYI for users of my xMark WordPress Theme .. yesterday, I released an upgrade. xMark v2.5 available for download. Updated for WP 2.6, with a few enhancements and [...]
11:16 pm on July 19th, 2008 2
Great work!
Found a little item, I think: the tagline shows just fine, but the web log title is half white-on-white (see my site).
11:33 pm on July 19th, 2008 3
Found one more, but that could be somewhere in my custom files (although I can NOT find where it is…): Every post (for example http://evert.meulie.net/2006/08/27/gregory-smith-mark-harmon/ ) has 2 sharethis buttons…
11:51 pm on July 19th, 2008 4
One last thing I noticed: firestats icons get blown up by the Xmark theme. Bug filed (http://firestats.cc/ticket/785 ) at firestats, but I am not sure whether it’s the theme or the plugin which needs fixing…
12:20 pm on July 20th, 2008 5
Very nice theme,
how about making it internationalization ready?
it will also be great if it supported right to left layout (for Hebrew and Arabic).
9:28 pm on July 20th, 2008 6
@Evert - please refer to the xMark docs page where it states:
Unsure about the FireStats thing - will have to look into it.
Checked your site, as well, your title looks to be displaying fine - - white on dark gray… what browser are you seeing this in?
9:28 pm on July 20th, 2008 7
Omry - good suggestions for future upgrades to the theme. thanks!
11:23 pm on July 20th, 2008 8
NP.
while we are at it, please take a look at this bug report:
http://firestats.cc/ticket/785
it’s a CSS compatibility with FireStats comment icons.
12:47 am on July 21st, 2008 9
#6: Wow, it’s been a while since someone told me to RTFM, but you’re totally right!
and the logo does display fine here as well now. I have no idea why it didn’t do so earlier… I just tested in Konqueror, Seamonkey & Opera, and my site looks great/identical in all of them!
#8: Omry, thanks for seconding my firestats ticket!
Lisa… Great work!!
1:11 am on July 21st, 2008 10
Evert,
I wasn’t sure you notified Lisa as you didn’t made any replies to the ticket.
(Just in case it wasn’t clear, I am the FireStats developer
)
2:14 am on July 21st, 2008 11
Yeah, I figured that by now
I’ve implemented the suggestion you added to the ticket, and that works like a charm!
Thanks!
9:07 am on July 21st, 2008 12
Two questions:
1. Why is the SRG Clean Archives no longer supported in the new theme? I thought that was a valuable plug-in for google juice purposes. Does that mean if I upgrade, the archives will no longer function?
2. Does this theme make the comment boxes wider or at least fix some of the cutoffs that appear to happen in Firefox browsers?
11:05 am on July 21st, 2008 13
Hi Stephen -
I’m trying to go with plugins that exist in the official WP directory because I know, for the most part, those developers are keeping their plugins supported and up to date. The sitemap template in this theme creates some pretty nice archives.
RE: the comments - yes, they have been completely reworked and some of the cutoff issues, like the ones you had, have been fixed and the boxes are wider.
11:54 am on July 21st, 2008 14
What’s the difference between http://blogdesignsolutions.com/archives/ & http://blogdesignsolutions.com/sitemap/
1:14 pm on July 21st, 2008 15
Not a darn thing, Evert
I should probably get rid of one of them on this site to avoid the dup. content thing — just showing you can do one or the other. SRG Clean Archives used to power the archives page and showed only by-month and by-topic archives.. the sitemap pulls in more comprehensive archives.. pages, rss options, blog posts, monthly, category…
1:24 pm on July 21st, 2008 16
Ah, just like I had on my site… But I DID scrap one of them from the menu after upgrading xMark…
7:01 am on July 22nd, 2008 17
Lisa:
Very nice job with new theme - my comment boxes in FF are no longer cutoff and the gravatars for commentators look great!
Two new questions for you about the related plug-in:
1. Obviously Wasabi’s plug in no longer works w/ the theme. I was using that. If I use Filezilla and delete this folder in the WP database, will this automatically lift whatever coding it put in the templates for related posts? (I read somewhere that when deleting plugins, certain lines of coding are not necessarily removed, thus “bloating” the templates with useless coding - is that true?)
2. With the related posts plugin you do support, it says in the instructions to:
Place in your templates
That makes me nervous - what template(s) is this developer talking about? Where do I put it? Top, bottom, middle?? See why I feel nervous about this one? I wish there was a plug-in that would automatically do this for me - without me potentially messing up the templates.
Thanks.
7:12 am on July 22nd, 2008 18
p.s. Also, since SRG Clean Archives are no longer “supported” in this theme, does that mean I need to delete that plug-in? If I do that, what will happen to the Archives page I currently have?
11:42 am on July 22nd, 2008 19
@Stephen - thank you, I’m glad you like the new chagnes.
On your questions:
1. Wasabi’s plugin didn’t put anything into the template that you need to worry about. You’ll be able to delete that plugin, and all related tables in the DB, without disrupting the theme.
2. RE: WP Related Posts plugin - - when I say that xMark supports a particular plugin… that means the coding for that plugin, and any associated CSS styling, is already in the template. If you activate the plugin, it will work for you - not necessary for you to add anything for this.
3. You don’t need to delete the plugin if you don’t want to. The archives page in xMark 2.5 is coded to display as mine do: http://blogdesignsolutions.com/archives - - it’s using the sitemap template .. so you can use that page as a sitemap or archives, whichever you prefer.
4:17 am on July 23rd, 2008 20
I just upgraded to your latest theme on my site and it is working great. I appreciate all the hard work you put into this upgrade.
I have read your book as well and it is excellent. Keep up the good work.
4:53 am on July 23rd, 2008 21
Wow, thank you Lisa - your responses were exactly what I needed. They gave me the confidence to take care of what I needed to do.
Thanks!
5:08 am on July 23rd, 2008 22
One thing that happened after uploading the WP Related Posts plug-in is that I have duplicate listings of related posts.
Go here: http://www.adversityuniversityblog.com/2008/07/22/stephen-hopson-interview-with-chris-guillebeau-of-the-art-of-nonconformity/
Scroll to the bottom and you’ll see what I mean. How do I fix this?
5:11 am on July 23rd, 2008 23
Lisa:
I found the answer after writing the above question. If you leave the “auto insert related posts” box unchecked, you will not have duplicate related posts.
I had checked that box thinking I wanted it to automatically generate other related posts but apparently your theme is coded in such a way that it does that on its own.
Quite ingenious!
5:18 am on July 23rd, 2008 24
p.s. I want to have that tiny little Twitter and LinkedIn boxes in the sidebar - how do I get one for my blog? I also want a tiny little one for Facebook too.
Can’t seem to find little tiny ones - they all seem to be too big to fit in the sidebar.
Thoughts? Tips? Ideas?
3:55 pm on July 23rd, 2008 25
@GI Korea - cheers! Thanks for stopping by - - glad to know the theme is working for you and that you found the book helpful
3:57 pm on July 23rd, 2008 26
@Stephen - happy to hear you got it figured out. Regarding the Twitter and LinkedIn icons - I created my own for Twitter - - the LinkedIn one I got from my LinkedIn profile page… feel free to use them if you want to - - just be sure not to hotlink them (download them from my site and the upload them to yours)
7:22 am on July 24th, 2008 27
There appears to be a malfunction of the CommentLuv plug-in. A subscriber reported that some people’s last blog post was not being pulled while others have theirs pulled.
I tried to go to Andy Bailey’s blog but there appears to be a database error, making it impossible to locate the developer of this plug in.
Any suggestions? The Comment Luv plug-in is a vital part of my rewarding readers for leaving comments.
1:10 pm on July 24th, 2008 28
@Stephen - I know a lot of people who use it without problems, and I know a few who use it and have had a lot of problems with their blog.
My experience? I used it for a few months and then deleted it. Why? It caused database bloat - particularly in my wp_options table.
My wp_options table was overflowing with about 18,000 rows - 90% of them had the option name of ‘rss_xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx’ (where the x’s were a string of numbers).
After further investigating I found WP was storing RSS lookup information in my wp_options table - the direct cause of that being the Comment Luv plugin. The RSS lookup it was storing was the RSS feed of the last commenter on the site… stored so that your blog would continue to display the last post from each commenter.
If you have a lot of people leaving comments - that wp_options table is going to get huge and could potentially cause issues with your blog and MySQL optimization and can cause some veeeeeeeeeryyyy slow queries
You can safely delete all those ‘rss_xxxxxxxxxxxx’ rows in the wp_options table - - but continued use of that plugin will cause that table to fill up again, and again.
This is just MY experience with it and it is the reason I, personally, do not use that plugin. Others mileage may vary.
Some resource links:
WP Support Forum Topic on the rss_ issue
How to clean up wp_options slow mysql queries discusses this issue related to the Comment Luv plugin.
12:06 pm on July 25th, 2008 29
[...] The second is because it was causing my WP database to become enormously bloated with worthless junk, which would have slowed everything down if I continued to let it accumulate. (See Comment #28 at Upgraded: xMark 2.5 Released). [...]
6:39 am on July 26th, 2008 30
After reading your latest thoughts on the CommentLuv plug-in and checking out those links you provided, I decided to delete the plugin.
My WP Options table was showing several lines of “rss xxxxxxxxx.” While my table was only showing 1,600 rows (compared to 18,000 rows in yours), I decided it was best to cut this short to prevent the table from getting too bloated down the road.
Because I’m not a techie, I was just a tad bit afraid to delete those “rss xxxx” rows for fear of messing something up. Is there a surefire way of making absolutely sure that what I’m attempting to delete in that table is the right ones?
I’m loving your newly updated theme! It resolved the sidebar and comment box width/length problems I had in the FF browser.
7:22 am on July 27th, 2008 31
xMark…
xMark is a fluid, widget-ready, three-columns theme….
1:02 am on July 28th, 2008 32
Hi Lisa,
this is Otilia again, sorry to be a nuissance
I am installing a customized version of this on another site of mine (moving my old blog to a new domain) and am confronted with a problem I wrote you about a couple months ago and you’ve fixed it: the second sidebar collapses at the bottom of the page in all individual post pages (all other pages are fine).
My old blog is acting fine and I copied its css and php pages to the new one but the sidebar issue doesn’t get fixed.
Would you be able to help, once again, and let me know where to look for te problem? It looks as if for the individual pages, the second sidebar is not included in the container but I can’t figure out what’s wrong.
Many thanks,
Otilia
9:31 am on July 28th, 2008 33
Lisa,
Thanks very much for the new version (2.5) of your theme. It is great and I would say “almost perfect2. Regards. Jose
10:38 am on July 28th, 2008 34
@Otilia - be sure you are using the most recent version of the theme that I released on 7/19/08 - xMark 2.5. I did notice that you’re using xMark 1.0.2 on your Ad Operations site.
The sidebar drop down thing has been fixed in this most recent version - you can grab version 2.5 by clicking the download folder at the top right of this site.. or in the WordPress Themes Directory here.
10:40 am on July 28th, 2008 35
@Stephen - when I dealt with the Comment Luv plugin issue - I completely deleted the rss_xxxxxxxxxxxx rows in my wp_options table with no problem.
If you’re going to proceed, backup your database, of course, before you delete anything so that you can restore it if something goes wrong.
10:41 am on July 28th, 2008 36
@Jose - thank you very much
7:05 am on July 29th, 2008 37
I’m just new to this and I’m planning to change my theme to xmark. I just want to ask whether I can change the “X” to my name (pepper) instead of keeping it that way? I really really like the theme as I’m also planning to earn a few bucks by adding adsense and other kinds of tools that could help on monetizing my blog site. Pleas help me and give me some suggestions on where to start. Thanks.
5:04 am on July 30th, 2008 38
Was anyone using Google Analytics before the theme upgrade? Up to that point it seemed to be working but right around the time I upgraded the theme, my stats dropped to zero on Google Analytics.
Anyone else experience this? When I looked at the “source page” of my blog, I could not find the google analytics code anywhere. I wonder if the theme upgrade had something to do with that?
8:26 pm on July 30th, 2008 39
@Stephen - I’m guessing you have to put your analytics code back in the footer? I’m using the Ultimate Google Analytics plugin and it’s working for this site just fine - - even after the theme upgrade.
@PEpPeR - You can change the “X” if you want to, there are no restrictions on this theme .. you can do unlimited modifications to it, if you want. I’m not big on monetization advice - -you may want to read through the archives at http://problogger.net for some ideas. cheers!
5:04 am on July 31st, 2008 40
I was wondering if the Ultimate Google Plugin you mentioned was anything like the code hogging CommentLuv?
8:00 am on August 13th, 2008 41
@Lisa: hey there, so sorry for the late reply! Site fixed now, template is really really great. Again, thanks so much for everything!
6:34 pm on August 13th, 2008 42
While my blog looks GREAT in Firefox (no problems at all!), I was just notified by a subscriber of mine that the comments are sometimes “bunched up.” Meaning some lines either disappear or have lines that are half visible.
Take a look at this in Internet Explorer and you’ll see what I mean:
http://www.adversityuniversityblog.com/2008/08/12/how-i-will-lose-20-lbs-in-30-days-an-experiment/#comments
Scroll down and you ‘ll see some of the comments displayed in this manner. Why is that happening?
Firefox does not display any such thing but IE 7.0 does.
Advice?