Five Ways to Tweak a WordPress Theme
Ah, free WordPress themes. I’m convinced they’re one of the biggest reasons WordPress is the most popular blogging platform today. From one-column minimalism to grid-based magazine layouts, photoblogging styles to made-for-Adsense themes, there are free WordPress themes for every taste- just download, install and activate!
But to set your blog apart, you’ll want to tweak that theme- and when I say tweak, I mean make small changes here and there. To make these tweaks to your theme of choice, a tool like the Firebug extension for Firefox can be very handy- but, really, any text editor will do.
- Tweak your header
Usually the first place new visitors will look, and a good place to start. Some themes include “theme options” pages that show up when you’ve activated the theme, and others include banner photos or graphics that can easily be replaced with your own. If you’re using the default WordPress theme Kubrick, the aptly named Kubrickr will automatically find photos on Flickr for you to customize your header with. To get more in-depth, I recommend reading through WordPress’ official codex page on Designing Headers. - Play with your widgets
Most WordPress theme designers “widgetize” their themes, and for good reason: widgets are probably the quickest way to personalize a WordPress theme. Built-in widgets, available in every fresh installation of WordPress, include widgets for displaying your Archives, Calendar, Recent Comments and so forth- and And if the theme you love isn’t widgetized, you can do it yourself. - Experiment with color
Even slight changes to the colors on your site can have a big impact. Online tools such as the Color Scheme Designer can keep you busy for hours, or you can check out pre-made color schemes at sites like colr.org and GenoPal. - Change your fonts
We used to have just two choices when it came to web fonts: serif or sans-serif. Today, we have methods like sIFR and FLIR, which replace your fonts using Flash, the newish Cufon, which doesn’t require Flash, and CSS3′s @font-face, which works by downloading the specified fonts. - Personalize your About page
This one, which requires no CSS tweaking at all, just might be the most important way of all. Tweaking your About page, the only page that comes pre-built with WordPress, is where you can truly let your personality shine through. A photo of yourself is always good, but you should feel free to add anything here that shows the world- or your readers, at least- who you are. You can read more about tweaking your About page in a previous post of mine.
Of course, we’ve only barely scratched the surface of the ways you can tweak your WordPress theme. For more ways, the WordPress Codex is an excellent place to start, or look through our previous posts on WordPress here.
4 Ways to Store your Blog Ideas
Ideas for blog posts can come anytime and anywhere- from when you’re driving home from work, to while you’re in the shower, to waking you in the middle of the night. The first thing to do? Write it down. Here are some methods to store your ideas, so you never forget a great one!
In a notebook
This is great for quickly scribbling down ideas that hit you at a busy time. Because I fancy myself a fiction writer, and I suffer from notebook addiction, I’ve been doing this for a long time, writing story ideas down in various blank books I leave around the house. Since I started professional blogging, I’ve been writing blog post ideas down as well. I have a particular fondness for Moleskine and Rhodia notebooks, but anything will do, really. Always keep a pen or two nearby.
In a PDA or mobile phone
When I’m out, I find having to fish out a pen and notebook too unwieldy- and that’s when noting ideas down in my (ancient Treo 680) PDA is perfect. Most mobile phones have “Notes” sections, but in a pinch I’ve been known to write a text message containing my idea, and saving it in Drafts or Saved Messages.
In your PC
Your options when it comes to software are many. If you use a PDA as above, you might want to use something that syncs automatically- or consider one of these applications:
- Stickies is built-in to OSX on the Mac, and it doesn’t get much simpler than this. Its quick, its free, easy to use, and customizable. There are also lots of Windows versions, from free to paid, available for download (e.g. Notezilla or Neat Note.
- For something a little more powerful, look for “virtual notebook”-esque applications, such as Mori for the Mac or Delphinus Notes for Windows.
Online
If you already use an online solution for documents (such as Google Docs or Zoho), this might be the best bet for you. Not only can you share your ideas with collaborators, you’ll be able to access them from anywhere with an internet connection.
The truth is, I use all of the above- notebooks, my PDA, my mobile phone, Stickies… and then collect them all in Google Docs.
How do you store your blog ideas?
Top 5 Offline Blogging Editors
Editing your posts online is the traditional way to blog, and my preferred method as well- if my Internet connection is stable, and I already have a backup of what I’m posting. And that’s a very big “if”, as anyone who’s ever written a long, well-crafted post online, and lost it because of a browser or connection glitch knows only too well. Which is why offline blogging editors are so popular- especially among professional bloggers who post regularly on multiple blogs.
But which one to choose? Here are my picks for the best offline blogging editors available today (and, yay, most of them are free!)
Scribefire (Firefox Add-on)
I’m starting with Scribefire because if you use Firefox as your primary browser, this one’s an add-on to look at. And don’t let the word “add-on” fool you- Scribefire is as powerful, if not more so, as most of these standalone editors. Professional bloggers, in particular, who spend most of their time in the browser anyway, should find this useful. The advantage of being built into Firefox, of course, can also be a disadvantage- it isn’t a standalone application, and to use it you have to fire up Firefox- so it might not a good choice if you’re looking for something “offline”. That said, I do like Scribefire a lot, especially the option to immediately share links on various Social Networking sites (Digg, Facebook, StumbleUpon, etc.)
Qumana (Windows, Mac and Linux)
This one’s been around for a while, and as you can see from the screenshot above, its user interface is simple to use with goodies such as both WYSIWYG and Source editing, Technorati tagging, and support for images. What Qumana’s done, however- and you can either love or hate this- is provide a built-in advertising option, called Adgenta (previously Q-Ads), which allows you to insert customizable ads in your blog posts, from which you earn money. Qumana is nice and robust- and free.
Blogo (Mac)
If you’re on a Mac, please try out Blogo, which I’m sort of in love with right now. It sports a beautiful interface, but more importantly, it works wonderfully. Posting a regular text entry is lightning fast, and adding everything from images to embedded videos to widgets is a breeze. And if you use Twitter (and who doesn’t, these days?) Blogo can update your status for your whenever you post on your blog. You can try out this nifty little app for 21 days, or buy it for $25.
Windows Live Writer (Windows)
It isn’t often that I recommend a Windows product, but this one is a winner. Windows Live Writer is free and chock-full of features such as great categorization, plug-ins for Twitter, Digg and Flickr, and- perhaps my favorite thing about this program- the ability to see your blog posts as they would appear on your blog live. It also offers powerful image manipulation, allowing you to crop, tilt and place borders on your photos before you post.
MarsEdit (Mac)
Finally, Mac users should definitely take a look at MarsEdit, which is Daring Fireball’s offline blogging editor of choice- and it’s easy to see why. This app may not sport a GUI as sexy as Blogo’s, but it more than makes up for that in features. It integrates with the most popular text editors such as BBEdit and TextMate, allows you to access Flickr right from within it (so you can select photos from your Flickr library for posting), and even lets you set up macros, so you can create your own easily-insertable snippets. There’s a free 30-day trial, after which MarsEdit costs $29.95.
Do you use an offline blogging editor?
