Grace A WordPress Theme by Sean Johnson

It took less than 24 hours for Grace to get its first user. My brother-in-law has started a blog called Digitally Enhanced Life. My sources tell me that it will quickly become a blog about Wrigleyville and the Chicago area as a whole. Given his status as a modern-day renaissance man, I wouldn’t be surprised to see posts about technology, literature, travel, construction, biology, history, and a myriad of other interesting topics.

Thanks for taking the leap Jeremy. You brave, brave man.

Digg This Filed in In The Wild

Getting grace working isn’t terribly difficult, but there are a few steps to follow to get it running smoothly. I’m hoping to automate much of this process in future releases, but for now the following steps should get you up and running quickly.

1. Download the zip file. unzip it and upload the files to your wp-content/themes/ directory.
2. Select the theme from the presentation tab in your WordPress install.
3. Pour yourself a glass of wine and celebrate.

The theme should now be applied, which means you’re 90% of the way there. There is the pesky problem of your top nav probably not working. In order to remedy this, you’ll need to make the following quick fixes:

1. In the options tab, change your permalink structure to the date/title format. This will make your urls prettier, you’ll reap SEO benefits and the tabs will work.
2. Make sure you have a page (not a post) created called About. If the blog is new, WordPress should have created this for you already.
3. Creates your Archives page (again, not a post.) All you need is to name the page archives and choose the Archives template from the template selector on the right-hand side of the page. Don’t worry about putting anything in the body - it will populate itself.
4. If you’d rather not use this format for your permalinks or you want to call your archive something else, just modify the URLs in the header template file.

Finally, you’ll need to set up an account (if you don’t already have one) with Gravatar and upload an image of yourself. This is the image that will be pulled in on your posts, and in any comments you leave. Alternatively, you can upload your own picture to your own server and use that (it looks best if it’s a 60×60 pixel square.) You’ll need to modify the main index page accordingly (look for the image with a class of author and replace if with the image on your server.)

That should be it. If anything doesn’t work as advertised or you know of easier ways for me to implement this, let me know!

Digg This Filed in Installation

Per Eric’s suggestion, the following are a rundown of some the various styles available in Grace - some added frantically after he pointed that out.

Images

Images are handled with the typical left and right classes, floating in the respective directions. I’ve left out centered, mainly because I’ve never centered an image on a two-column layout like this. If I’m alone on this, let me know and I’ll be happy to include.

Blockquotes

Blockquotes are pretty straightforward as well. An example from Kierkegaard:

I begin with the principle that all men are bores. Surely no one will prove himself so great a bore as to contradict me in this.
Either/Or

Lists

Three things I should have thought of before making Grace live:

• The fact that I’d left a number of basic styles out.
• The fact that my server might decide to go crazy immediately after release (why wouldn’t it?)
• The fact that my stupidity, while immense, is generally hidden…which is a good thing.

Three virtues I’m quickly developing and/or reinforcing, in order:

1. Humility
2. Attention to detail
3. Alcoholism

This post will probably be modified over time as styles are edited or added onto.

Digg This Filed in CSS

Grace is a WordPress theme designed from the ground up to be a simple, classy theme for blogs of all shapes and sizes. Right now Grace is just a little tyke, and my hope is that with the proper care and feeding Grace will grow up to be a lovely, beautiful, admired member of the WordPress community.

This site is designed to serve as a how-to guide, a place to get your questions answered, and a place to discuss ways to improve Grace over time to make sure she (that’s right, Grace is a she) reaches her true potential.

A few disclaimers - Grace is:

• My first attempt at building a WordPress theme - she might be trip up a bit, has a bit of a temper, and might spit up her food. I’m really running with this metaphor, aren’t I?
• The result of a contest in which I lost, which is to say I would be hard-pressed to claim it is the best theme in the world. The good thing is that Grace comes with some built-in humility, which should be beneficial as she grows.
• Built around web standards, which I’m fairly adept at, and Microformats, which I am not. If there are errors in my code related to either, please let me know and I’ll be sure to update it.

The plan is to include tips for making Grace work for you, to get feedback from other Grace users, and to serve up fairly regular updates as the theme becomes better over time. If you have a question, an idea, or advice for other Grace users, ask in the comments - help make Grace better!

Thanks for being interested in Grace - let me know how it works out for you!

Digg This Filed in Release Notes