In theory, things should look pretty much the same. But this is actually a theme that I wrote myself. I took a poll on Twitter to name it and decided on “Vera.” If you’re not a Firefly fan, here’s the quote from the description section (because why use a description on a custom theme?):
“Six men came to kill me one time. And the best of ‘em carried this. It’s a Callahan full-bore auto-lock. Customized trigger, double cartridge thorough gauge. It is my very favorite gun. [...] I call it Vera.”
I’ve been meaning to write my own theme entirely from scratch for a while now, but I didn’t have the time to work on it until July. I got it started a couple days before the whole Chris Pearson vs. WordPress drama unfolded and based on the way Chris behaved during it, I was glad to be moving toward something else. Still, that wasn’t my motivation.
Why am I switching when it’ll just look the same?
- I wanted to build a WordPress theme from scratch, using only the codex and my own html/css. (I cheated a little in the comments.php file by basing it off one I’d heavily modified for another theme, but reviewing it line-by-line.)
- I like knowing exactly how it ticks and being able to control how it ticks. You can do that with other themes, but with your own you know why every line is there.
- I prefer not having to write a lot of code to negate all the defaults in Thesis (link in footer, that {link to comments}, colors that aren’t available in the editor).
- For the sheer joy of doing so.
When Mom died a bit over a week ago (actually, even before that when we started spending all day in hospice with her), I didn’t have the energy to keep working on it. It was nearly finished, had been running on my local duplicate of this site and on a test site I have.
I think the code is ready, but if you see anything really buggy in it, let me know. If it’s too big a problem, I’ll switch temporarily to Thesis while I solve it. Otherwise I’ll get on it as soon as I can.
I’ll likely be writing some posts about my process. I tried to approach it logically and I think it may have been a bit of overkill but it worked really well for me. It’s possible that I’ll add some things like widgetized sidebars (because I’m hardcore enough to prefer hand-coding) and cut out a few really specific things designed for this site and then release the theme as GPL.
(tip up front, though, don’t forget to set
* {padding: 0; margin: 0;}
right from the beginning. I know to do it but was thinking so much in terms of structure that I forgot it for a while…got a bit confused.)
Andrew August 4th, 2010 at 11:11 am
Looks the same. Good job! I don’t see any major bugs after a quick glance, but I usually read you in my RSS reader so I’m not the best judge.
Ruth August 4th, 2010 at 11:26 am
@Andrew Thanks! As long as it’s functional, I don’t need it to be a perfect match (and some things are a little different, by my own design).
Jason Byrne (geekwithsoul) August 4th, 2010 at 3:15 pm
Great job! In addition to “* {padding: 0; margin: 0;}” do you ever use a more robust reset? I usually use this one, but with some of my own tweaks: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/
Also, you might find interesting this article on vertical baseline web typography (I always like to refer to it and where possible incorporate it into the design of what I’m working on): http://www.alistapart.com/articles/settingtypeontheweb/
Ruth August 4th, 2010 at 4:34 pm
Thanks, Jason, I’ll add those to my resources!
Eleni August 4th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
Very nice! I wish I knew how to write the code for the themes. I do other coding so I could probably figure it out, but at the moment I haven’t the patience.
And I love the Firefly reference, of course. “Well, my days of not taking you seriously are certainly coming to a middle.”
Ruth August 5th, 2010 at 12:53 pm
It helps that I have several years experience of working with WordPress themes. But in the walk-through I’ll talk about some of the ways that one can get past this by using the Codex. It helps to know about how PHP works, but you can get by with just XHTML, CSS, & trial and error.
Such a good scene! Jayne’s fantastic.
Spring August 7th, 2010 at 8:24 am
Great job! I’m not seeing any bugs so far. I used to do websites a LOT, but alas, I quit and now have forgotten SO MUCH. Weird to think that something I found sound enjoyable, I now find daunting.
OH, and I finally saw Firefly just last weekend, so I got the reference. I was like, “Hey, Jayne named his gun after my ex-husband’s great-grandmother,” lol.
Terry August 10th, 2010 at 11:05 am
I heart “Ph’nglui mglw’nafh Cthulhu R’lyeh wagn’nagl fhtagn”
Carrie August 18th, 2010 at 6:18 pm
as soon as i watched that episode of firefly i thought of your theme.