I have just installed a very beautiful WordPress Theme, Quadruple Blue (test run). It isn’t perfect, but it is nearly so.

The designer, Small Potato, creates some of the very finest themes for WP that I have yet encountered. There are, however, a number of functional and stylistic changes that I need to make; in fact, quite a few changes. While this is ongoing, the blog may look and act weird, so, sorry.

One of the reasons I like this design is because of the clear separation of purpose between the left and right side bars. Although I haven’t any at the moment, my eventual plan is to have a great many static WordPress Pages, that is, content which is not necessarily related to my blog…perfect for the site-wide left navigation bar, while I will be able to use the 2 right sidebars contextually, based on the page, post, or category one is viewing. Unfortunately, contextual sidebars are not a normal, built-in aspect of any theme, thus, I have a lot of work to do.

The major concern I have is that Quadruple Blue is a fixed-width theme (the elements on the page do not resize as you resize your browser window), and the main content area is very narrow: less than 440 pixels. This is just barely adequate for the YouTube videos that I post, and will make posting pictures of appropriate size somewhat difficult. I am hoping to eventually work all of this out (perhaps individual post pages may not need two sidebars).

This video from blogging instructor Chris Abraham is long and boring, like any tutorial is, but if you are completely new to blogging in general and/or WordPress (.com) specifically, it’s a must watch; WordPress.com - Step-by-Step Tutorial on How to Blog:

Quite a bit of it isn’t relevant for me, of course, since I am hosting my own installation of WordPress, but it is a nice introduction. (Let’s see if Mr. Abraham’s site permits pingbacks. )

Cheers

Filed under: Blog