Here are some thoughts, Sweet66, for what they’re worth…
I, too, never figured out how to get Minimatica to work (at all) and tried several other templates, such as “Autofocus”, “Picturesque”, “Origami”, “News Channel” but none of them came close to the image layout that I wanted (like “Minimatica’s”) nor could I figure out how to tweak them to get them closer to the functionality I wanted. That seems to be a common theme (no pun intended) with a lot of the layouts in photography, which are a lot trickier and temperamental than simple blogs with a few photos. (Even those blogs with photos can be tricky, though, as I learned with my blog http://www.internationalperspective.org) Handling photos is tough and tricky in any post, more so with photography-centric templates. (And then you have to get a theme that will handle each of the main browsers well, as well as mobile: iPhone, iPad, Android… They’re all a bit different.)
It’s also frustrating because the photography templates rely on subtle differences between “media”, “portfolio”, “gallery”, “post” – and sometimes that’s so subtle it’s confusing. Sometimes the way you set up one affects the other down the line…
So I was pretty frustrated, too. I realized that since I needed a lot of support, it was difficult to do this with free themes. So I looked at paid photography themes.
Then I discovered “Photolux.” This was a paid download but I really liked the layout even more than “Minimatica” and it seemed to offer a lot of variations. So I bought it.
Then, more frustration! At first I couldn’t get it to work very well or to look like the demo version at all. But – and here’s the important thing – the author walked me through each and every problem I had. I was very specific. “How do I do this?” or “Why doesn’t this show here” and he provided good details. There is a 24 hour turnaround time from when you post to when you get an answer; fair enough. But he was very prompt in answering, showing and explaining, (and very patient) and several times, writing CSS snippets and telling me where to insert them. Gradually, over a couple of weeks, things started to resemble what I originally had in my mind’s eye.
Also, though the process I learned a lot about WordPress and a couple of times was able to figure out the solution I had asked before I got the response. It’s a learning process…
Right now, I’m pretty satisfied with the look, feel and function of the site. You can check it out at: http://www.garymak.photography
I’m not saying don’t use “Minimatica.” I am saying that if there’s a paid version, you may get more functions and features and quicker response from the author than with the free version. (I’m not sure if there’s a paid version of “Minimatica”, I can’t remember.) Certainly I can only speak from my experience with the paid theme i used and attest to the author’s responsiveness, patience (!) and effectiveness as helping me understand better and resolve me issues.
Be confident that you will become more competent as you plunge into it, you will gain more confidence, and the more you work with it, with the right consistent and prompt help, you’ll eventually get to your solution, and it’ll start to make some sense.
I hope this was helpful. Again, one man’s experience.
Good luck to you!
