There are a lot of Israelis using WordPress for their sites, in Hebrew, so if you read Hebrew, you might search via walla or msn/hebrew or google in Hebrew ( http://www.google.co.il/ ) for WordPress sites and blogs and see what you come up with.
There is also a site dedicated to WordPress in Hebrew:
http://www.trans.co.il/wp/
Things like symbols, graphics, and images, Jewish or otherwise, are things that are generally added by the user, not necessarily the Theme author. There are a ton of free Jewish art around the Internet.
As for Themes that “stretch” across the page instead of being forced into a narrow center panel, there aren’t a lot, but there are some. And there are a lot of articles on the WordPress Codex about how to style your own.
http://www.visual-assault.org/projects/wp_theme-basic/
http://www.ifelse.co.uk/gespaa
http://wh0cares.com/2005/01/29/theme-downloads/
http://www.thoughtmechanics.com/blog/2005/01/03/thought-mechanics/ (could be easily widened)
Several here: http://www.erisfree.com/d2/apart.php
And I could go on and on, but that’s a good start. All can be modified by changing the margins and padding of the containers.
Thanks for all those great links. I do read & speak Hebrew but I don’t type HEbrew well since I never learned the keyboard. Plus my MS language bar is really screwy about refusing to revert back to English after I switch it to Hebrew. So I don’t do much googling in Hebrew.
I know about Jewish art on the web. But I have in mind a theme that might incorporate old archival photographs of Jewish life or ancient Jewish amulets (the “hamsa”) & other religious symbols or a medieval woodcut of the ancient city of Jerusalem. It’s pretty specialized stuff that most people wouldn’t know about or be interested in. And I’m not a graphic designer so I can only envision these things in my head. It will take someone with more of that ability than I have to make something like this happen.
I like the THoughtmechanics styles and Eris’ work is absolutely gorgeous. But Eris’ themes don’t give me enough text panel.
I’m now using Almost Spring which I really like. I expanded the text panel greatly which gives me just the right amt. of display space for text. BUt there’s something wrong because a combination of large image & long post title breaks the sidebar, pushing it to the bottom. I’ve asked a friend to look at this who knows more about css than I but he hasn’t fixed it (yet). People have suggested adding image float css & I did that but it didn’t help & it doesn’t work in my image display. SO I did something wrong there.
Playing around with the architecture of a site is like playing with dominos. Move one thing and they all tumble down.
I recommend that you install Firefox browser and the Web Developer Add-on Tools. There is a utility that allows you to edit the CSS live on the page you are viewing, so you can play around to move things so they work really much easier. It’s invaluable – and all free.
There are a lot of resources and help on doing this in the WordPress Codex at http://codex.wordpress.org/Blog_Design_and_Layout.
There actually is a LOT of Jewish art on the web, including hamsas, dradles, and tons of iconography and even paper cutting, which is so amazing to me, the detail…and work! The problem is that much of this form of specialized art is copy protected.
Good luck with your endeavour. Having used a Hebrew keyboard for the past five years, it ain’t easy to learn, but it can be done. Still, for searches, you only have to type in a few words.
I’ve used FF for two yrs. now but I never used the developer tools. On yr. urgining I just upgraded to v. 1.0.4 & added the developer tools. I assume that the DOM inspector is what you were referring to? I just briefly glanced at it & it looks like total Greek to me, but I’m sure I can play around with it. If I can figure it out it surely would be helpful in playing around with modifying themes.
Yes, Hebrew paper cutting is amazing. That’s another great idea for a Jewish blog banner. Have you seen the stuff in museums like the Jewish Museum or Israel Museum? It’s awesome. A friend of mine has taken to it & gave me one as a present. I was so lucky! It’s hanging next to our front door.
