The Lemonade Theme

PLEASE NOTE: This theme is toast. I managed to delete the original a long time ago so it no longer exists. My bad, but feel free to keep reading if you want.

Introduction

You can demo the theme at this link.

Though I don’t use Wordpress Widgets people seem to enjoy having them so they’re support in this theme as are the following plugins:

• Gravatars
• Ultimate Tag Warrior
• Live Comment Preview
• Extended Live Archives
• Share This
• Similar Posts

The theme is also hatom, hcard, and Ma.gnolia bookmark ready. In addition this theme will support the use of XFN icons like so:

• [friend] - Paris Hilton
• [friend, met] - Tom Cruise
• [co-worker] - Decon Jones
• [co-worker, met] - Bruce Wayne
• [colleague, met] - Guinness Beer
• [sweetheart] - Cate Blanchett
• [sweetheart, met] - Kate Winslet
• [muse, met] - Thich Nhat Han

The hatom code is just sitting in the guts. You’re not required to do a thing. The hcard and Ma.gnolia bookmarks, if you choose to use them, require some slight finger work on your part. The XFN links require you use an a class=xfnRelationship. I also included a compressed CSS file just because, trash it, use it, it’s up to you.

There is also a hcard map included in the download. It needs editing to personalize it but I thought it was a great idea. I like the use of maps and such to display relationships. I think it helps put things into context. The heat map is for the USA only and let me be absolutely clear that I did not create this thing, Jason Beaird did. All love and kudos should go his way. You’ll probably want to edit the index file and drop the whole folder into your root folder, though put it where ever you want I suppose. You can see an example of the hcard map here. I added my personal information as an example. I have no business being included with those people but I thought it’d provide some useful visual input as to what you could do. You can read Jason’s hcard map post here. He has an example as well.

Testing and Caveats

Lemonade was cobbled together on my MacBook Pro running 10.4.8. It’s been tested, to varying degrees, on the following browsers and Wordpress versions.

• OmniWeb 5.5.3
• Camino 1.03 & 1.1a2
• Opera 9.02 & 9.10
• Safari 2.0.4
• Firefox 2.0.0.1
• Flock .7.9.1
• Shiira 2.0b2
• WP 2.0.3
• WP 2.0.6
• WP 2.1RC 1

Looks and acts fine on everything listed above. Of course there’s a few caveats. One, I’m not a proper coding wizard, not even a decent one. Therefore, I’m sure there’s superfluous, redundant and rotten code rattling around Lemonade’s innards. Two, if such a thing exists or is even appropriate, Lemonade is a Mac-centric Wordpress theme. It was thrown together on a Mac, the first choice fonts are for a Mac, and it looks best on a Mac. This may appeal to some and annoy others. It is what it is. Three, I don’t have access to a Windows computer. Therefore, I have no idea how Lemonade will render in IE 6 or 7. My best guess is okay to slightly askew. The header would be the area that would cause the most problems. Again, I risk annoying people by not testing it out on IE and, again, it is what it is.

Installation

Unzip the file you downloaded and you’ll have yourself a brand new file called “lemonade-theme.” Open it up and inside you’ll discover a “lemonade” folder, a “plugins” folder and a ““hcard-map” folder. Place the “lemonade” folder into your “…/wp-content/themes/” wordpress folder. Open up the “plugins” folder and drop any of the included plugins into your “…/wp-content/plugins/” wordpress folder. Please read any/all of the included plugin documentation. I did not create these plugins so all love and questions should go to their respective authors. I’ll gladly help where I can. The “hcard-map” folder could go into your root folder though as it stands you’ll probably want to play around with it. It’s included as something to play with and use if you wish and has no real bearing on the theme itself.

If you’re the type that likes crawling around code then I’m sure you’ll figure out all the things you’ll need to change/tweak. If you’d rather have instructions I’ll list the various places where you can configure Lemonade using Wordpress’ own Theme editor or some other editor.

header.php

• line 24: The download technorati vcard item will only work if you also use the hcard in the footer. Replace the capital letters with your blog URL.
• line 25: if you do choose to use the hcard map, it requires work, and put it in your root folder, then uncomment this line to link to it
• line 28: If you use the Ma.gnolia bookmarks then uncomment this line and enter your user name.
• line 31-39: This lists your pages. Read the comment. If you choose to use the list then replace the two “PAGE-SLUG” with the page slug of the page you’d like to list.
• line 41: Write your own author introduction and include a different picture if you want.

sidebar.php

• lines 30-36: If you want to uncomment the Ma.gnolia sidebar section to use the bookmarking script. You can try entering your user name over the capital letters. If that doesn’t do it then you’ll need to grab your own code. Ride this link for Ma.gnolia’s Link Roll Generator.
• line 65: uncomment this line to display your Ma.gnolia bookmark feed.

comment.php

• line 24 & 25: change the capital letters to your blog info for author comment highlighting which I may not have styled. I don’t remember.
• line 94: you can change the default gravatar path and picture here.

footer.php:

• line 4-21: this is an hcard. If you’d like you can easily create your own here or enter your info where the capital letters are and uncomment the whole thing. The code is set to not display so it won’t show up on your blog but it will be visible to those that look. I’m not sure why I put it in the footer. Feel free to use it, move it, style it or delete it. For an idea of what it might look like check out the following screenshot taken while using Flock:

Credits

Lemonade was made possible because of the following resources:

• Small Park Industries original design, Lemonade
• Brand Spanking New’s mini-icons 2
• Wolfgang Bartelme and Chris Messina’s great XFN icons
• Steven Harmon’s helpful write up on using XFN links and icons
• The Cutline Theme, a great theme to learn from, easy to use and customize, you’ll see little pieces of it in Lemonade.
• Christian Montoya’s comment.php which he graciously provides to any who want it
• Colin Devroe’s instructions on how to add hcard to Wordpress comments. While there may be problems with the implementation it’s a good first step.
• Michael Jolley’s awesome introduction to using hcard and hatom
• Code Style and Web Space Works for some great details on font usage across platforms

Feedback

I’m under no illusions when it comes to putting together a Wordpress theme. I’m a novice who tries hard and attempts to do better. Therefore, please let me know if you have problems or suggestions. I’ll do my best to help where I can and will gladly take feedback and constructive criticism so let it rip.

January 23 2007 12:36:14 PM EST