When you start designing Wordpress themes it becomes a real hassle to constantly upload files to your web server to see if your latest tweak did what you wanted it to. And what happens when your latest modification messes things up and your live site is non functional? What you need is your very own web server. All of the individual applications are available, Apache , PHP and mySQL. But putting all of the pieces together is a real challenge. Now you can set up your own web server on your local computer with just one application that includes everything you need. You can do all of your theme... Read more
Some people are never satisfied. They liked the Super Simple Random Header Image but they wanted more . They wanted the header images to change every 10-15 seconds without having to refresh the page. So after a little head scratching and searching I’ve found the solution. This tutorial will be aimed at Artisteer generated themes, but it will work for virtually any Wordpress theme. This will also only work with Artisteer themes with square header images. Rounded headers have two images, a .png that provides the round corners and a .jpg that is positioned on top. The first thing you need... Read more
Modifying your theme to include random header images doesn’t have to be difficult. In fact it isn’t any more complicated than adding a few lines of code to the header.php file. I’ve created themes with random header images using a number of different techniques and this is by far the simplest way ever. It may not be the most efficient technique or the most random but it is easy. Note: This really only works for headers that are square cornered. When you make a header with rounded corners, Artisteer creates two images. One is a square cornered .jpg that sits on top of a rounded... Read more
You’ve probably seen the cool peel away effect in the upper right corner on some websites and wondered how the heck they did that. It certainly caught your attention. The peel away effect is a great way to get your visitors attention and direct them to some special content or product. It’s fairly easy to implement. You can also place it just about anywhere, not just in upper corner. The directions will show implementing the peel away in an Artisteer created theme but you can put it into just about any theme or website design. Download the zip file containing the peel away script and... Read more
There are a lot of reasons visitors to your site may get the feared “404 Error” page. They made a mistake and typed in the URL wrong. Or the page was renamed or deleted. Whatever the case they end with a page that just says “Error 404 -Not Found”. Check out the default “Kubrick” themes 404 page (default 404). That surely doesn’t help your visitor. They may think there’s something wrong with your site and just move on and leave for good. Instead of just giving your visitor a confusing page with a cryptic message, offer them a solution. I’ll bet... Read more
People have asked how to add a widgetized sidebar area above an existing double (two narrow) sidebar. So here it is. This tutorial is geared toward Artisteer generated themes but the concept will work with most themes, you’ll just have to work a bit to figure out where to modify your non-Artisteer theme code. This tutorial also uses a theme that was created with and earlier version of Artisteer so some of the CSS classes may have a slightly different name but it won’t be too hard to figure out. WARNING: Make sure you make backup copies of all the files that you are going to modify.... Read more
