At this time I am also developing a new theme for this site and will submit a similar version of that new theme to the WordPress Repository for inclusion there, also. Hopefully, I will have the new theme, which I believe will be titled “Skyline Colors” uploaded to this site in the next week or so. There will be several theme options and multiple color options, too.

Below you will see some of the different color options available in the new theme.

Skyline Colors (Red Style)

Skyline Colors (Yellow Style)

Skyline Colors (Blue Style)

Skyline Colors (Green Style)

Skyline Colors (Magenta Style)

Skyline Colors (Gray Style)

The theme I recently released on the WordPress Repository, Wordsmith Anvil, has a number of features and some custom page templates. After taking a quick look at several sites that have downloaded this theme, I have made a few observations and thought it would be a good idea to make not of a few of them.

The font size for the title is designed to be fairly large. As a result, if the title of the blog has more than 15-18 characters it will not display very well (up through version 1.6.3). If your title contains more characters, you will need to edit the file main.css, located in the stylesheets directory. Decrease the font size until your title displays correctly … or select a blog title with less characters. NOTE: You will most likely need to also adjust the height, margin and/or padding on the header elements to accommodate your changes. DOWNLOAD VERSION 1.6.6 … I fixed it for you.

I have also seen several sites where someone has attempted to edit the pages and the end result is that the pages do not display correctly. I cannot provide an easy explanation that will address every possible edit to the pages in this theme. However, the best caveat is to save a backup of the page before you attempt to edit it. That way, if you delete something that breaks the page, you can always revert to the original version of the page and try again. One of the most common errors I have seen is removing an opening <div> or a closing </div> tag; and not deleting the companion tag. Every opening tag needs a closing tag. Otherwise, you end up with unexpected results. Your sidebar may not display correctly, or maybe your footer, or the widget areas above the footer, or the page itself may not display properly.

If you would like to use any of the page templates, take a few minutes to read through the FAQs, which you can find here. Without reading the FAQs, it is not likely you will be able to setup the page templates. You will need to understand what the custom fields are, and the directory structure.

I have also seen where a different header image has been uploaded which displays a title or other text. Unless you comment out the site title in the header.php file, you will see the title of your blog displayed over the top of the text in your header image; which, is not likely your intent. I may consider adding the option to enable or disable display of the site title in a subsequent version; as I have done for the tagline, and logo.

I have also seen where people have tried to hardcode in elements that are already made available in the theme options page; or install a plugin that does not have theme styling already built in. Unless you are very comfortable editing php code and comfortable with editing stylesheets your best bet is using the theme options to perform the functions they are designed to perform. If there is not a theme option available, then feel free to make a suggestion about other functionality you would like to see in future versions of this theme. Also, you might find other plugins that will perform functions that are not already built in.

Theme options include:

• Remove those pesky auto p tags
• Custom Logo options
• Custom Header Backgrounds
• Custom Background Options
• Custom Menus
• Five Widget Areas
• Tagline Display Option
• RSS and Social Network linking options
• Feedburner Subscribe Options
• External Feed Display Option
• Coupon or Special Text Display Box Options
• Footer Links Display Options
• Copyright Text Display Option

The current version can be downloaded from the WordPress Repository. At the time of this post, the current version available for download is 1.6.2. There was a minor display issue which only affected certain versions of Internet Explorer. This was corrected in version 1.6.3. If you have downloaded 1.6.2 and are wondering how to correct the display issue, you can find the solution here.

If you have a comment on this post, feel free to leave one here. If you have questions about the theme, or would like to have the theme customized for you, then use the links above. This post was not intended to be a Q & A Forum, or support page for the theme. … However, I may not have made that clear on the theme options page until version 1.6.8. So, because of that, there are a number of Q & A and support related comments found here. For future use, to centralize the support-related threads for the Wordsmith Anvil theme, please use the Feedback & Support Forum Page on the theme’s demo site.

Toms Skyline Design has developed and bundled a couple of custom plugins to compliment this theme. You have the option of purchasing the theme by itself, or you can purchase the theme and the plugins together, or you can always get the theme now and purchase the plugins separately later.

The delay in releasing this theme and the accompanying plugins was because the first version of the theme had been designed to be compatible with WordPress 2.9.2. However, at about the time it and the associated custom plugins were near completion, a newer version of WordPress was released … WordPress 3 Beta. There were a number of changes in the new version of WordPress and some of the prior code was deprecated. Also, efforts were being focused on another project that was just beginning at that time; which meant there was no time to validate the code in the theme and make any necessary adjustments to make it compatible with the new WordPress 3+ versions. So due to the release of result of WordPress 3.0 and the resulting changes therein, the theme was not released in the summer. Earlier this month I started reviewing the code, made some necessary adjustments and fixed a number of little bugs, too.

As referenced above, the Realty One Theme is available by itself or can also be purchased along with a bundle of custom plug-ins to facilitate listings, require visitors to login to view all or portions of the site, integrate with a comprehensive list application (phpList), as well as, being able to integrate the list application with email blasts that take advantage of sites that require visitors to login. For reference, phpList is an Open Source application that is free to use. NOTE: It does require an intermediate to advanced level of skill and understanding of PHP to fully set it up and integrate phpList with WordPress. Once setup properly both applications can be used on the same site and play well together.

Click to View Realty One Quick View Screen Shots Gallery

Read All the Details About the Realty One Theme on the Theme Description Page …

Realty One Theme Now Only $29.00

Development started using WordPress 2.9.2. Prior to completing the theme, WordPress came out with WP 3 and WP3+. Realty One has not been tested on WP 3+.

Screen Shot of Home Page Featured Slider

Realty One utilizes a couple of back end admin listings pages; with, literally hundreds of options. Adding photos to your listings is a breeze; and all the thumbnails, and various sizes of images are created for you. All you do is upload the large size images you want displayed and the rest of the work is done for you. As a site owner or a site visitor, you will appreciate the Google Maps on the main listings pages and each individual listing pages, too. You can even search the listings by various criteria.

Using the Realty One Theme including all the plugins as initially built, allows the site owner to allow visitors full access to the site, require registration for portions of the site, or require registration for the entire site. Additionally, if the site owner maintains a marketing list, the Realty One Theme is already configured to integrate with a Mailing List application; including a signup page. NOTE: The mailing list application configured with Realty One, is very robust and managed from a separate admin panel.

Click to Play Video

If you are interested in using Realty One for your Real Estate or Manufactured Home related business, please contact me for more information.

When Elsie contacted Toms Skyline Design for this project, she wanted to use the Esther Theme for WordPress. However, the color scheme was not to her liking, she wanted some type of menu boxes on the home page and to compound the navigation issue … there was no menu or navigation system with this theme.

Additionally, the photo frame at the top of the page took up a major portion of the screen; which took up way too much real estate. So, the color theme was changed, the photo frame was reduced for better aesthetics; and a navigation menu was created for use on all pages except the home page. A different menu was created for the home page, using box graphics; which, are carried through the theme, where practical.

On her site, Sonya says she will share

[...] with you inside knowledge of the publishing industry, the process of getting your book published, how to build a platform and additional insights on how to promote yourself.

Interestingly enough, the site does not have its own blog; however, it does link to a blog on one of their new sister sites. LHP says it is their aim to positively impact the world, one book & one magazine at a time. Their mission is to help today’s writers become tomorrow’s authors.

The LHP site is using the latest version of a Bytes for All Atahualpa theme; setup, configured and slightly customized by Toms Skyline Design; who is a Bytes for All Gold Member.

When I talked with Dr Alvarez about the purpose of her site, the plans for her practice and her target audience my suggestion was to create a WordPress site to accommodate the current needs and be flexible and scalable for future usage. Dr Alvarez had some colors she wanted to use and wanted a minimalist Zen-styled look and feel to the site. So, I custom designed a very simple theme that matched the color scheme she wanted and fit the style she was looking for. I titled this WordPress theme, SkylineZen. You will not find any fancy sliders, rotating headers, or ad rotators on this site. However, it does provide the functionality and matches the design that Dr Alavarez desired; and allowed her to be able to have her interim VistaPrint website closed and that url pointed to here new site. In other words, you can access Dr Alvarez at http://www.kathyalvarezmd.com or at http://www.partnersinwellnessswpdx.com SkylineZen is not currently available on the Wordress.org site.

In the past, Dr Wright had maintained this practice as a walk-in clinic. However, Dr Alvarez wanted to convert the practice so that patients scheduled appointments rather than having walk-ins. Accordingly, I asked Dr Alvarez if she wanted her patients to be able to schedule appointments from her site. She thought that would be a great idea, so I added a plugin to the site that would provide this option to visitors on the site. The result of this website and the online scheduling has been a resounding success…

… per a recent comment from Dr Alvarez …

… thanks Tom
the feedback on the website and the scheduling has been all positive!

Dr Alvarez has not yet had time to start blogging, so I have disabled the display of blog posts until she is ready to start blogging and publishing articles on her site.

This WordPress theme includes a slider that utilizes the new set thumbnail functionality in WordPress 2.9.2 and later. The theme includes several options and is a two-column type theme, with a widgetized sidebar and widgetized footer.

I also created this header image of a loupe and documents that I thought I would showcase here as well.

What they wanted was a new WordPress theme that would represent their business and their connection to the local historic aspects of St Johns. Toms Skyline Design created a new site for them, which of course, includes a lot of CSS, PHP and image editing. Now they only need to begin re-adding content. Good Luck to everyone over at Plews Brews.

The site I have been working on is for a local organic restaurant in the St Johns area of Portland, Oregon. Angel, the owner of the restaurant, The LadyBug Cafe, was in need of a face-lift …

and talked with another St Johns business owner, Jeffrey Selin of the Dojo Creative Agency and they decided to make the switch. Jeffrey and the Dojo, whom I perform behind the scene Web & WordPress Development for, asked me to help him make the face-lift for the Ladybug site become a reality.

And … Woila … here it is

[UPDATE: Sadly, a few months later this establishment in the St Johns area closed its doors and went out of business]

However, nine modules are in the Proposed Recommendation stage.

However, historically one of the problems with CSS and the various web browsers is that one browser will support some of the standards and not others, and likewise another browser may support a subset of those standards, or a completely different set of standards. So, building sites that render the same way in each of the popular browsers becomes rather tricky. At the time of this post, it appears that Google Chrome 4.1.x is the most compatible with the current stages of the many CSS3 modules. Unfortunately, from the perspective of the designer or developer, as of February, 2010, Google Chrome only accounts for a little less than 12% of all browsers. However, we could see those numbers change in the future. In fact, statistics show it was only a few years ago that over 55% of all web surfers were using Internet Explorer (IE5, IE6 & IE7) and only 36% were using Firefox. The latest results show that Firefox has nearly 47% of the browser market; while IE8, IE7 & IE6 all combined for only about 35% of the browser market. For many web designers this is a good trend because traditionally, IE has been responsible for countless hours of additional work and headaches in the continuing efforts of web professionals working to get pages that render the same in all other browsers to render the same in IE browsers. According to Microsoft, they plan for IE9 to work much better with the CSS3 modules; getting away from the proprietary nightmares in their pre-IE9 browsers. However, the downside is that with IE9 they will not be supporting Windows XP. So, this may backfire on Microsoft. The other major browsers, Google Chrome, Mozilla Firefox, Sarari and even Opera support XP. Plus, in potentially 70% of the world, PC users are still using XP and have not upgraded (term used loosely) to Windows Vista or even to Windows 7. From a designer/developer perspective I will be happy when the proprietary prefixes are not needed and multiple hacks in order to get a page to render the same in one browser as in another.

Also, over the years the display size and color depth that a designer needs to take into consideration have varied considerably. 640 x 480 resolution used to be popular. Then it was 800 x 600 which was most popular. Then 1024 x 768 became a popular screen resolution. Along with this we saw the color depth go from 8 bits, to 16 bits and now 24 to 32 bits is most common. Of course, when there was a large enough demographic using each of those three display resolutions and color depths many companies and website owners would want pages to load the same for each resolution; and colors to be consistent with the lowest common denominator of color depth. With newer technology and wide screen displays, as of January of this year, the 1024 x 768 resolution only accounted for 20% of the current screen size; while a whopping 76% were at higher resolution rates … with 1280 x 1024 being the most common.

Its Another Portland Skyline

Also, several months ago I converted this site over to a WordPress site and also have my old Rants, Raves & Insights blog up and running on this site, too; notwithstanding that I have not posted to it in almost forever it seems. What I noticed was that I had grown tired of the theme I had been using and decided to build a new WordPress theme from the ground up. You are looking at it. I call this WordPress theme, Skyline Two. Website design, coding, Photoshop design and slicing, Flash design and a bunch of PHP coding all go into developing something like this.

This is the second WordPress theme I have built from scratch in the past few weeks. You can see the other theme at Portlands Foreclosures. I also created a landing page for them too. Check out the “Coming Soon” link on that site to see a Real Estate Listings mockup with a nifty Flash intro.

Speaking of Flash … if you haven’t clicked on the PLAY INTRO link on the header image above … do so now. That’s another Flash intro that I am using here; because I Flash adds to a site, but an entire Flash Driven site is not so good for most sites, because Flash still is not as search engine friendly as standard XHTML and CSS driven sites. Nonetheless, Flash still looks cool and adds some pizazz to a site. In fact, I have recently put together a couple other sites that include Flash banners. Check out Just Settle My Debts and Renegotiate My Home Loan websites.

Rather than run on a bunch on this post, I will keep it short by saying that I have also been doing some social media marketing with Facebook and Twitter, some online classified marketing, developed some landing pages, tying some of them to lists and autoresponders. I also put together a few ebooks and done a little bit of work with Joomla, too. I will write more later to update the site.

I am talking about this now, because, you may have noticed my site was down for a few hours today. I didn’t really want it to be down. However, the upside is that I am now working with a really great web hosting service that should make my life easier; so I can focus on positive activity rather than spending my time trying to troubleshoot server and support issues.

I transferred several domains over to my new hosting partner today; and for the most part, everything went off without a hitch. In fact, on one of my other domains I was able to quickly install and configure the newest release of Joomla in a matter of a few minutes. This would have taken me several hours with my former web hosting partner. The biggest issue I had with transferring this site was that my database import said it went okay, however, it missed chunks of data here and there. Also, I did not use shell access and ftp’d everything; which, normally is fine. However, I did discover that some files did not upload the first time around. So, this caused me a little grief. Fortunately, I have experienced that before and was able to recognize where the potential issue was at.

All said, I don’t think I lost more than three or four hours, with the transfers and setup. Now, with a great hosting partner, I can focus on design and marketing.