A client contracted us to make some updates to the StudioPress Lifestyle Wordpress theme. I’m documenting the changes here so our client can possibly do this work themselves in the future, and it may also help others out there looking to tweak the StudioPress (or really any) premium theme.

Changing the Menu Colors

Changing the color scheme involves updating the style.css stylsheet and creating new versions of various images. I did a rough mockup of the color changes in Photoshop, and then went to work on the images.

To change the header and headline elements from blue to orange, I did the following steps to these files:  header.png, header_blank.png, logo_blank.png, headline.png, and topnav.png.

1. Open the image in Photoshop.
2. Goto Image –> Mode –> RGB Color to change the mode.
3. Create a new layer on top of the background.
4. Use the paint can tool to fill the new layer with your new color.
5. Change the layer type from “Normal” to “Color”.
6. (optional) If the brightness of the image is off now, create a new layer filled with the new color and change the layer type to “Luminosity”.
7. Save the image for web as a PNG 24.

To change the background color of the higlighted/active submenu item, I changed the background color of line 381 (the “#subnav li a:hover, #subnav li:active” declaration).

You can also edit the navbar.png and navhov.png files to change the main menu.

Changing the Header

To change the logo from an image to plaintext, in the WP admin goto Appearance –> Lifestyle Theme Options and change the Header Blog Title setting from “Image” to “Text”.

You can also edit the file in the /images/psds folder to use an Image logo in the header.

Changing the Body/Page Background Colors

I used the Firebug plugin for Firefox to inspect the original website to find out where certain colors and styles were set in the style.css file.

Using Firebug, I learned that the body’s background color is set on line 19. I changed this color from #E2DDCB to #1462A6.

You could also do a search and replace, but this color was only used in one spot in the style.css file.

Moving inward from the background, the next band of color is actually the border of the “wrap” element. I changed the color of the border declaration on line 35 to #6595BF.

Changing Link and Text Colors

The hyperlink colors are declared between lines 40 and 60.  The lifestyle theme uses the same color for links and visited links. I wanted a different visited color, so I changed that section of code to look like this:

a {
color: #1462A6;
text-decoration: none;
}

a:visited {
color: #6595BF;
}

a:hover {
color: #6595BF;
text-decoration: underline;
}

a img {
border: none;
}

a:focus, a:hover, a:active {
outline: none;
}

To change the article heading link colors, search for “#content h1 a, #content h1 a:visited” and “#content h1 a:hover”. (I changed the colors around lines 586 and 595.)

Hiding the Post Meta (“by”, “posted on”, “filed under”, “tags”, etc)

I hid these using CSS. I added a “display: none;” line to the .date  declarations in style.css on line 779. To hide the tags (postmeta2) section, I add these lines under the .postmeta2 declaration around line 841:

.postmeta p,  .postmeta2 p {
display: none;
}

This will hide everything inside the postmeta2 section, but will still show the bottom border and bottom margin.

Changing the Sidebar

I removed the Blog Roll and Admin sections by commenting out lines 9 through 25 of the sidebar_right.php file in the theme directory.

I then added the following widgets:

• I added a “text” widget to “Sidebar Top” with some Google Adsense code for a 300×250 ad.
• I added a “text” widget to “Sidebar Top” with the title “Featured Video” and some embed code from YouTube. (Note: it didn’t seem to matter that the YouTube embed width was greater than 300 pixels. YouTube must size it to fit the page.)
• I added a “recent posts” widget to “Sidebar Top” with the default settings.
• I added a “text” widget to “Sidebar Bottom Right” with the title “Advertisement” and some code for a custom 120px x 600px ad.

Updating the Homepage

The first thing we need to do is enable the home.php file as a template for our pages. We need to change this line in home.php:

<?php get_header();  ?>

to:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Homepage
*/
get_header();
?>

Save and upload the file. Now edit the “Home” page in WP and choose “Homepage” as the page template. Save the page.

To choose which blog categories are used for the featured content areas, in WP Admin goto Appearance –> Lifestyle Theme Options. Change the appropriate settings.

To get thumbnails to show up in the featured sections, add a custom field called “thumbnail” pointing to an image (70×70 pixels is good) to use. You can upload these images to the post first and then copy the src url.

To set the thumbnails for the last (bottom) featured section, use “hpbottom” as the name of the custom field.

Setting up the Featured Gallery (Fading Script)

The first step here is to install the “featured content gallery” plugin. (It wasn’t included with my install, but it’s a freely available plugin.) In the WP Admin goto Plugins –> Add New. Search for “featured content gallery”. Install the plugin. Activate the plugin.

Now goto Settings –> Featured Content Gallery and choose either the category or page/post IDs to use for the gallery. You must also set a height and width and text area height in the next section (I used 588 width, 400 height, 100 height for the text). I left the colors as default. Update the settings.

The last thing you need to do is make sure you upload a picture (mine were 588×400) and set a custom field called “articleimg” that points to the URL of the image you want to show up. The gallery will not show up unless you set this custom field.

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I’ve been doing some illustration work for a client who is self-publishing a book. I am doing the drawings completely in Photoshop with my handy Intuit Wacom Tablet (I have an older series 2 tablet) (thanks, Dad! – that was a great Christmas).

I’ve probably watched this video below at least 5 times since I started this work. Mike Krahulik, from Penny-Arcade, has mad skills with the pen. It’s a great inspiration, something to aspire to. I learn something every time I watch it. And the music isn’t too bad either (kuh-kuh-kuh Q-Unit!).

The video was first posted at Penny-Arcade on October 11th, 2006. In the blog post, Mike shares some pointers about his brush sizes (all defaults) and techniques. It’s good stuff.

PhotoCrank’s Demo presentation is available for viewing at demo.com. Go, Jeff!

I am pleased to finally be able to write about PhotoCrank, a service that adds clever overlays to the photos you snap on your mobile phone. Since mid-August, Kim and I have been helping the PhotoCrank team with their website’s design and development. The secret is out now; their site went live sometime this morning.

If you’re still reading this, you should take a break and check the service out for yourself. (Here’s the link if you missed it the first time: PhotoCrank.com.) From their blog:

PhotoCrank is a fun and easy way for you to add entertaining graphics and customized captions directly on top of your mobile photos. There is no software required. All you need is the camera phone in your pocket, and it works at the speed of a picture message.

Cranking a photo is as easy as sending a “pix message” from your mobile phone to an email address (like try@photocrank.com). A team of leprechauns and fairies, working for minimum wage, will add the crank over top of your image and send it back to your phone. A version is also stored at PhotoCrank.com for archiving and to send mass emails later.

Your carrier will charge you their normal fee for sending a picture message. PhotoCrank will charge you an additional $0.20 to $0.30, which is billed to your cell phone, depending on the package you choose. Right now, PhotoCrank’s part of this charge is waved on the first 3 cranks you send.
Jeff and the crew at PhotoCrank are great to work with, and I’m proud of the application they are releasing this week. Kim and I thought the idea was awesome back when it was just a few sketches and a simple prototype. But now that I’m actually able to crank photos from my own Razr and browse through all the cranks on the website, I’m even more excited about things. I can’t wait for my next night out just so I can create more images like this one:

I’m also proud of the design work Kim did on this project. Take a look at how far things have come from the design for the early prototype we built back in July to the final design of the site launched this week.

Kim also did some print work for PhotoCrank, designing this awesome one-sheet they’ll be handing out at the Demo conference in California, where Jeff and the PhotoCrank team will be presenting later this week. (Be sure to check them out there if you are attending or keeping tabs on that event.)

I have a minute, so I’ll throw in a little praise for myself. The original plan was to handoff a static HTML wireframe, with just the HTML, CSS, and JavaScript components programmed. Jeff and Paul were busy jumping hoops for the phone companies and tweaking PhotoCrank’s porn filter however, so I brushed off my VB and ASP.net skills and helped out with some of the server-side programming. For a couple of weeks, I moved shop over to the PhotoCrank office where I got busy, did some .net development, ate as much as 1 1/2 cheese steaks each day, and brushed up on my devil-sticks skills.
Again, I can’t emphasize how great Jeff, Paul, Cristyn, Yoni, and the others behind PhotoCrank are. This is just the beginning for them. I know they have a lot of plans for their product, and I look forward to working with them in the future.