Is this a one time wish or are you going for a full design look? Stopdesign is a wonderful site and it’s evolved a lot over the years. I’ve learned a lot from their tips, but they are SERIOUS about what they do and worked hard to create that look. It’s not as simple as you would like to think it is.
First of all, the get_sidebar is a function of WordPress to get a specific template file called the “sidebar”. To get something like a php file that isn’t part of the normal WordPress functions, you would have to use INCLUDE tags which work the same but a little differently.
StopDesign uses a three column layout with a lot of tweaks. You can learn about three column layouts at Position is Everything’s 3 Complex Column – Perched on a Lily Pad
Position is Everything Piefecta Ridid 3-Column Layout
And break your head, or look through the many themes available and find a three column that sorta matches what you like and then tweak it to death.
But none of these are easy answers. It’s a lot of work and study. Can you be more specific with what you want and we can get more specific on our help?
Thread Starter
Jabbok
(@jabbok)
MT has templates for the look that StopDesign is using. I’ve seen many sites that that look just like that. I’m not as concerned with all the bells and whistles and colors and banners. I just want the columns to line up like that.
I opened my sidebar.php and stripped it of everthing but the division and saved it as centerbar.php.
I added the call function to get centerbar.php in the index. I added it just below the call to get sidebar.php. I figured the positioning of it would be in the stylesheet.
So far, nothing shows up on the page.
I would imagine not.
Is the positioning of what you want in the style.css? Did you change the stylesheet?
To call the centerbar.php……wait, we’re getting ahead of everything. Where are you going to put The Loop? In the centerbar? Across two columns?
There is a lot you want to do….
Thread Starter
Jabbok
(@jabbok)
Here is the first section of my index.php —
<?php
/* Don't remove this line. */
require('./wordpress/wp-blog-header.php'); ?>
<?php get_header(); ?>
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
<div id="content">
The “LOOP” starts after <div id="content">
You can see that the call to get the sidebar is above the loop. Why can’t I add another sidebar and call for it before the loop? The content of the sidebar/centerbar/rightbar are all outside the loop and controlled by their own .php files and the stylesheet. Are they not? That’s how the sidebar functions now.
As to taking an existing 3 column theme and tweaking it, I have two (Bricks and Sand) and neither of these show anything on the screen. I get a white, blank screen. I figured it would be easier to tweek what I have since I can at least see it.
Okay, if you have two 3-column themes and you can’t see anything but a white screen, we should start solving your problems there. If you downloaded them, unzipped or whatever and the look “fine” on your hard drive, and then you uploaded them to your wp-content/themes/themename directory on your website (with themename being the name of EACH theme) and you check with FTP that they are there, then you should see them.
I’m sure you did all this already.
Okay, the sidebar calls are usually at the end of the index.php template for a reason. I’m sure they can be anywhere you want, but they follow the content so that it is the last of the information that is fed into the loading sequence, and the last of the information that a search engine spider would read or a blind or visually impaired person would read….but that leads us to a different topic. I guess you can move them where you want, but their placement only changes the order in which they “appear” on the page as it loads. In other words, on a slow browser, they will be looking at whatever you call the sidebar for a long time before they see your content.
Now, did you do anything with the stylesheet to instruct the page on what the centerbar or whatever should look like? You can all all you want, but until the stylesheet TELLS the page what to “look like”, nothing is going to happen much.
I’m going to have to go back to work in a bit, but I’m sure someone will jump in here and help. Tweaking a two column theme into a three column is challenging and involves a total work over. I’d fix why you can’t see Bricks and Sand before trying to force in a third column without spending a lot of time at the Position is Everything site.
Much as I absolutely love stopdesign – like everybody. We must not get carried
away and discourage people. The core functionality and layout is pretty straight forward for WP users.
Thread Starter
Jabbok
(@jabbok)
Well, I have 13 different themes saved on my server. They all show up on the “Presentation” page. I can select them. They are all saved in the appropriate manner on my server. Each is in it’s own folder in the “Themes” subfolder of WordPress.
The only theme that shows any content is the one I’m using, “Benevolence”. It came up the first time and I’ve been using every since.
That’s really odd. Okay, so my question still lays unanswered. Did you dig into the stylesheet and make any changes/additions to influence the look? And what is now “in” the sidebar and centerbar to “prove” that there is something in there to show up? Little details will get cha!
I recommend that you start by adding a border style to each of the sections, featuring a different color or look to each border:
sidebar {border:solid 1px red}
centerbar {border:dashed 2px blue]
and so on. Then you should at least SEE something if you have succeeded with your includes and gets.
Thread Starter
Jabbok
(@jabbok)
That’s exactly what I’ve done.
Here is my site
You can see the sidebar. I’ve given the centerbar a different color and added a border around it. All this was done in the stylesheet but I can’t see anything yet.
I’ll keep playing till I get it!
The link to your site didn’t show up. Try again.
Thanks. Okay, took a look. First things first. Before you start applying any new “look”, you need to clean up the old or you are just compounding problems upon problems.
I ran a validation test for HTML on it and there is a lot to clean up. Some of them are things you can’t clean, as those came with all the bells and whistles you’ve included, but a lot of it you can. Begin there.
I saw no borders around anything, but I also saw no references to a centerbar or anything other than your basic layout that is there. No references to a third “column” just sidebar and content.
You also have to work around all those insideWrappers and wrappers within wrappers that are part of the original theme.
I have to get back to work now, so I’m really sorry that I can’t help much (I’ll try to get back) for now, but if you are not using Firefox, I recommend it, and install the add-on (extension) for Web Developer’s tools. It will help a lot as you go through this.
Go through and fix your errors, and that should take you a while. Then put a border around everything, and content and style references within your centerbar column and keep poking at this until you can SEE something. Make sure you hit SHIFT+Refresh button in MSIE in between “takes” or CNTRL+SHIFT+R in Firefox to reload the page completely. Once you can see something, then you can poke at it better.
It’s a lot of work. WordPress Themes were supposed to make all this easy, but everyone wants to get their own show going. Which I love. I’m thrilled that WordPress Themes are introducing the exciting stuff of CSS to the world, but it’s still a lot of work. And you got some work and learning ahead of you!
Still wish I knew why those other themes weren’t working. I tried one of the ones you mentioned and it worked for me. Odd. Good luck and I’ll try to check in before heading off for the night.
Another poster (tarpon) with the same “not showing up” problem had to tweak a setting as follows:
“I fixed my problem — it had to do with permissions. The major problem was SEL was turned on for httpd. I had to disable SEL, put the folders in the directories then turn it back on.”
Permission settings was one of the things that was discussed in Jabbok’s earlier thread at http://wordpress.org/support/topic.php?id=27342. It might be that he needs to check with his host about permissioning on their server….
