I love it when a WordPress Theme makes my job easier
And better yet still retains custom design changes when you upgrade your theme for the latest and greatest functionality. The Thesis theme available from diythemes.com was developed with that purpose in mind.
Tweak it, bend it, modify it how ever you want, as long as you follow the rules and only make your changes to the files in the “custom” directory. This will guarantee your modifications will be safe and sound; protected from being over written with future Theme upgrades.
My task was simple, make changes to the WordPress theme to allow for a 3 column layout on the home page while keeping the default 2 colum layout on all secondary pages. (you can choose your column layout and design from the Thesis Design Options panel)
No problem right? A few conditional statements to verify what styles to render depending on what page is displayed, write the CSS and poof, a custom home page layout.
Wrong! – Thesis does more than just wrap WordPress in an elegant design, it adds tremendous functionality for the blog administrator and WordPress developer alike. Remember when someone first showed you the keyboard shortcuts for copy, cut and paste? Life was so much easier. Thesis has built in function and design options.
After diving into the code and trying to figure out what happened to the core theme files that I am so familiar seeing in any other WordPress theme, I discovered in order to make changes to the Thesis theme, I need to do things a little bit differently.
2 Files to Make Custom Design Simple
There are only 2 files you need to manipulate to make all your design changes. The custom.css file to overwrite the theme’s default styles and custom_functions.php to make all your functional changes utilizing the ingenious method of Thesis hooks.
Thesis hooks and filters allow you to change blocks of code or module positions. Modules make up your web page layout, the header, navigation menu, sidebars, content area and footers. Click here for a visual representation of Thesis hooks. Its very easy to add custom code, text and images above, within or below various modules in the Thesis framework.
For example, lets say you wanted to move the navigation menu from the top of the page to below your header image.
Just add the following code to your custom_functions.php file. Its that easy!
/*move the nav bar below the header*/
remove_action(’thesis_hook_before_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);
add_action(’thesis_hook_after_header’, ‘thesis_nav_menu’);
OK now lets play with the Thesis Mutimedia Box. A very smart, built in theme functionality. Thesis Multimedia Box is a Thesis design option you can control form the admin panel. Just choose a default setup to display rotating images, a video or your own custom code.
I wanted to show a category relevant video on each different category page. Select the custom code option, remeber to hit the big ass save button. Then go to your handy dandy custom_functions.php file and write a few ‘ if else’ statements to determine which video you want to show up on which category page.
/* Custom mm Box */
function custom_mm_box() {
if ( is_category('twitter')){
?>
} elseif ( is_category('WordPress')){
?>
} else {
?>
}
}
add_action('thesis_hook_multimedia_box', 'custom_mm_box');
Remember to add the 'add_action' hook to call your function. Again simple as pie. For a full visual of the working product, take a look at my video on the Twitter category page and then the video on my Wordpres category page.
So many options.
If you can Imagine it...
Thesis can help you do it. I am continually amazed at the power of WordPress. Thesis is now to WordPress, what Youtube is to video. It is revolutionizing the way we share content and making it very easy for the novice to look like a pro.
Let me know your thoughts about Thesis and some cool ways you use the Multimedia box?
