• Ideally, what I’m looking for is a theme which displays my blog postings in two of the three columns, with the third column displaying the typical blogroll, archives, categories, etc.

    Are there any themes that do this yet?

    Specifically, I’d LOVE it if I could have one of the blog columns display the majority of my posts, with the other column displaying a specific category of posts–say, “highlights,” or, “quotable quotes…”

    This would help me structure my blog a bit more than how blogs can end up–once more than 30 entries have been written it becomes very challenging to make older entries accessible–which is especially annoying if some of those older entries are some of my best.

    Does WordPress even have this capacity? I.e., if there’s no theme out there that anyone knows of that does this, is it even possible?

    Thanks in advance for your words of wisdom!

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • News Print, found at http://www.theenglishguy.co.uk/news-print-theme/ is a four column theme using 3 columns for posts and does have a featured category which spans the other post columns at top. I suppose you might be able to eliminate the code that creates the third post column and adjust the column widths. There is also a way to arrange the columns by category. Here’s a link to a church using the theme. http://www.gcchapel.org/.

    I’m experimenting with using the post column code inside a standard three column theme to create a five column (3 post columns inside left and right sidebars). I don’t have this site public yet, but it does work. In any event, the theme seems pretty flexible so far and might be an option for you.

    Since you mention a main column and a “side” column of highlights, thought I’d throw out the idea of “asides.”

    Here’s a plugin that makes it easy. It doesn’t cooperate with every other plugin in the world, but if you don’t use a lot (or UTW) then definitely worth looking at: http://katesgasis.com/2005/10/24/sideblog/

    Alternatively, you can set ’em up manually yourself. I use the “sidebar” method mentioned in this codex article: http://codex.wordpress.org/Adding_Asides

    As you look at themes, you’ll see some that have the notion of asides built-in. It might open up some more options in your searching.

    Thread Starter laughfactory

    (@laughfactory)

    Thanks for the suggestions, folks.

    HandySolo, I liked the SideBlog idea, but don’t know how to determine whether or not my current theme supports it–though I’m sure my current theme (Blue Horizons) offers sidebar widgets support; apparently, not all widgets are created equally, and are not supported just because some are? I’m also not clear on the length limitations of the sideblog “asides.” I know they’re intended for 1-2 sentence posts, but could they be used for as long of posts as I wanted…Not all the quotes that I want to show are that short.

    I liked the News Print theme, though I’m very interested in your modifications to it…if you are willing to share, I’d appreciate it (davenj).

    I guess, any way I go, I’m going to have to redo some of my hardcoded modifications (performancing metrics, etc.).

    Thanks again for your help!

    The News Print theme includes an order switch, with one option being arranging the post columns by categories created in WordPress. (1 category per column) This is part of the theme – no code change necessary.

    I’ll be using the option that lets the posts flow in order, left to right, and then repeating below, with no separation of categories. (also no modifications)

    Really all I’ve done is taken a three column layout http://kenklaser.gaiastream.com/2005/02/10/new-template-for-wordpress-122/ , and replace the loop code for the center column with the News Print loop code creating a 3 col. loop. I changed the fixed column widths of the News Print loop with percentage widths, creating a fluid 5 column. Mostly a cut and paste job and a little styling – no coding. I’m not a coder. This is for a front news page of a county level community site which will also include vbulletin, classifieds and more. I hope to be live in about a month.

    laughfactory, if you don’t want to have to recode the Performancing Metrics script, you might want to check out the plugin – http://davereid.net/projects/wordpress/pmetrics/

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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