I'm proud to present the first WordPress theme I'm publishing: "Summer Sun".
I promised to continue the work on my recent blog theme in a recent post because otherwise it would have gotten rusty and old on my harddisk. At that time I still called it Springtime but then the summer set in, hence the new name.
Download & Installation
Download Summer Sun for WordPress 2.1
( Latest Release: v1.0, 02/10/2007 )
Download older version 0.9 for WP 1.5+
- Unzip the package, two folders "themes" and "plugins" should appear in the same directory.
- Upload the "themes" folder to the wp-content-directory on your server.
- Login your WordPress as admin, and activate the Summer Sun theme under the Presentation menu.
If you want to use the archive overview that I have on my site or if you want to keep the example menu-button "Archive", follow these extra steps:
- Upload the "plugins" folder to the wp-content-directory on your server.
- Activate the Clean Archives Plugin under the Plugins control interface.
Changelog
- 1.0 (02/10/2007)
-
- Link Manager output in sidebar now WordPress 2.1 compatible
- included version 2.1 of the Clean Archives plugin
- 0.9 (08/29/2006)
-
- cleaned up plugin leftovers in single.php
- 0.85 (07/24/2006)
-
- WordPress Widget compatibility
- 0.8 (02/20/2006)
-
- WordPress 2.0 compatibility
- demo of CSS-classes for lists in sidebar.php
- main-navigation is now build from pages (using
list_pages)
- 0.7 (09/27/2005)
-
- added the Clean Archives Plugin to the distribution
- fixed deadlink to non-existant archives-page
- 0.6 (09/05/2005)
-
- added a posts nav link at the bottom of index.php and archive.php
- fixed postmeta (Date and Time) in archive.php
- 0.5 (08/13/2005)
-
- changed width from 680px to 730px to let the columns breathe
- added
style_ie.csswith outsourced Internet Explorer styles - improved scalable navigation tabs
- 0.4 (07/24/2005)
-
- changed cols-value of the comment textarea to 34% preventing a layout error in IE (thanks to Thomas for pointing out the fix).
- 0.3 (07/10/2005)
-
- fixed Internet Explorer issue: Content didn't leave space for the sidebar.
- 0.2 (07/04/2005)
-
- cleaned up some useless code in archive.php and page.php
- 0.1 (07/03/2005)
-
- initial release
A few features and specs
- Centered page with
680px730px width - Tabbed Navigation
- XHTML 1.0 Strict Doctype
- Pixel icons for article lists
- Skiplinks for accessible page navigation
- Styled comments and form elements
Bug Reports
FAQ — Frequently asked Questions
- How do I move the comment form below the comments?
-
- Open the comments.php file
- Select and cut the lines 20 (where it says: You can start editing here) to line 50 (including )
- Paste the copied lines below line 91, below the last
- Save. Done
- How do I align the title of a page?
-
- Open the CSS file style.css
- Find the rule
h2.tag, h2.tagline - Edit the attribute
text-align: centerinto your desired alignment (left, right or center) - Save. Done
- How do I add an extra menu button?
- Let's say you want to add a menu button for a static page called 'guestbook':
The PHP if-statement included in theli-element ensures that the button is visually emphasized by using the CSS-class.activewhen the page guestbook is displayed .The equivalent HTML would look like this:
I would be pleased about theme-related feedback and tips for improvement. And I'm sorry if there should be any unneccessary leftovers in the PHP and CSS files. But I've double checked them.
Donate
If you enjoy this theme, use it for client work, or if you appreciate hard work that is donated to the community, consider making a small donation. Funds will go to hosting, time for future updates, and caffeine. Thanks for your support.
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125 Responses to “WordPress Theme: Summer Sun”
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A demo WP install with this theme applied would be a wonderfull gift. :)
Really great work. I´m going to dress my blog for the occassion :)
Ty
Help! I’m getting this error on the pages:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected ‘}’ in /home/xxx/public_html/xxxx/wp-content/themes/summersun/ page.php on line 18
Any idea how to fix it?? Any help would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks for the template. Very nice!
Have a look at archive.php. The link to the comments image is wp-content/themes/spring/images/link.gif. The spring directory doesn’t exist, nor does that image. I replaced it with your normal comments gif instead.
There’s also a line near the bottom that handles the page navigation (angle brackets changed to square ones so it’ll print, hehe:
[div class="page-navi"][?php print_pg_navigation() ?][/div]
Not sure if that refers to a plugin, but it threw an error. I commented it out for now until I can replace it with alternate page navigation.
In page.php, there seems to be an extra closing } on line 19 that throws an error.
In page.php, there’s a call to is_tag_single() (line 25?) that throws an error. I commented out that line and the accompanying else statement a few lines down.
That’s all I could find. :)
Hi. Very nice theme. I get this error on the archives page though: Fatal error: Call to undefined function: print_pg_navigation() in /var/www/localhost/htdocs/blog/wp-content/themes/summersun/ archive.php on line 82
Angela+Narada: I once used this theme myself so there were still lines that would require plugins. As I wrote in the article I double checked every file for useless code lines but I obviously forgot something. Sorry for that!
Japthor: Thanks a lot for pointing out those ugly code-leftovers. Those were template tags provided by the WordPress-tagging plugin and the reason for Angela’s problem.
The errors are fixed now and so the version number increases to 0.2.
Giorgio: A good idea that would also have helped to avoid the parse errors of non-existing function calls I accidently included. But actually a free space in the WordPress Theme Viewer would be even greater if this theme has grown up a bit more.
Great looking template!
amazing :)
Very nice styling. The comments portion is great.
On a new site I am working on, I had to remove the PHP code from Line 19 in page.php to avoid getting an error message. As far as I could tell, it wasn’t doing anything.
Thanks!!!
Muchas gracias por el template, es realmente bueno, me dí la libertad de modificarlo y aplicarlo en mi blog.
there’s an extra } near the end of line 60 of the sidebar.php that’s tripping my installation up.
Gorgeous theme, using it right now. May change the header image, but that about everything I’d touch.
It’s amazing. I’ve fallen in love with this theme. However, it doesn’t work on IE (I use FF, but the majority still doesn’t) .
Best regards from Spain.
Thanks for all the great comments so far!
The only issue I could make out in IE6 is the content pushing the sidebar down to the bottom instead of leaving space for it.
This results from the big
marginof the CSS class.thecontent.Fixed IE6 compatibility (and a slightly smaller blue bar in the content’s background) is now included in version 0.3.
Wonderful Template. Clean and structured. :)
Lively template and really very summery! I’m using it now for my blog. Easy to customise, too! Thanks.
Really really nice theme,
But beware: in the footer, the link “Comment (RSS)” links (the link links?) to feed:http://www.example.net/comments/feed/, and gives an error
You’re right Gatto. Sorry. It’s a wrong method linking to a feed ’cause it’s not an approved protocol (see this article about linking to feeds).
Just remove the
feed:before the link in line 8 of footer.php.(This is also fixed from now on in the current 0.3 package).
It looks great alomst everywhere,except the banner picture,personally I don’t like the sunflowers here much.But I will advertise it on m y place for you ,aha..Totally, a good job..:D
There a strange problem.
When using your theme, you’re unable to create a page with a “Page Template”.
Simply there’s no “Page template” option on WordPress.
Maybe you made wrong something…
Gatto, since there is just one default template file (page.php) in the theme there can’t be a template selection in the administration interface.
Try adding a PHP-comment with the template name at the beginning of a new file to implement custom templates. ( Also read the WordPress Codex article on creating pages. )
I’ve tested custom pages with the theme and it works just fine.
Hi Tim!
Am I the only one who has the problem that in IE6 the page template does not leave enough space for the sidebar? It’s displayed right below the content although in Opera 8 everything’s just fine.
P.S.: I love your theme and I’ll be using it in my blog soon.
I’m probably a little bit stupid, but — I’m trying to get the tabs to link to some static pages and it doesn’t switch to the “active” class when the tab’s clicked on. I can see it’s some way-over-my-head php thing, but I’m hoping there’s a simple way to make them link to the pages and still switch to “active” when they’re clicked on. So… is there?
Nevermind, I fixed it. Genius me, oy!
Now I fixed my sidebar-problem with the IE. The “write-a-new-comment-textarea” was to large for the Explorer, when I changed the cols value to 34% everything’s displayed fine.
Eventhough nobody else experienced this issue: Maybe I can help with this piece of information.
I’m algo having problems with IE. My sidebar is places underneath the main body, don’t know why.
molgar: This is the issue with the comment textarea that Thomas just pointed out. Try to change to cols value of the comment-textarea in comments.php to 34%. The fix is also included in version 0.4 … Thanks to Thomas!
I still have the same problem. Maybe it’s got something to do with my tag cloud. I’ll try some more thing later.
I dont want to read this bullshit anymore http://www.yahoo.comhttp://www.slashdot.org
Me neither. So I’m considering to remove your precious contribution. But since censorship is for cowards, I’ll just leave this fainthearted piece of crap where it is.
fine theme! I love it and intend to use it.:)
the best theme i’ve ever seen
however 680px seems too narrow…..
it would be perfect if you can broader it a bit….
There you go: Version 0.5 now comes in 730px width and some minor CSS improvements. The layout really was a bit too narrow in 680px.
You can set any width you want, anytime. Just modify the following CSS-rules from…
#wrapper { width: 730px; }
#blogs { width: 520px; }
#sidebar { width: 210px; }
…to your desired values.
Where the width of
#sidebarand#blogsmust be smaller than the overall width defined in the#wrapper-rule.The only negative effect will be a header image that is too narrow or too wide (730px image included in new version).
I really liked the theme, can you make it with 90% width too? or if you can just tell me how to do it then i will edit the code and do it :)
Thanks
Deep
Thanks for the update.
I am wondering what the ads are on my sidebar. I am thinkin it has to do with the
at the bottm.
Whos ads are these and how do I get them off my blog. I have my own. I guess thats a vcool hack for you to publish your ads and I love the theme and mostr probably wouldnt notice this advertising since it was loaded after so many clicks to my comments pages. I have been working on the template and it suddenly appreares. Any feed back? I would like to remove it…
James
James – what ads do you mean exactly? There was once a release where I accidently included my own sidebar.php file in the theme package that showed links to my flickr and del.icio.us pages. But that’s fixed already.
And there never was an AdSense banner included.
Furthermore I do not intend to use this release to publish ads. Trust me.
I LOVE YOU MATE!!!
yo
there is another problem
it seems that this theme doesn’t have
http://www.23hq.com/aoeking2/photo/105992/original
on the front page
therefore some of my posts become “ghosts”
Jip, this is so true. I added the post navigation at the page-bottom and also fixed the post’s meta in archive.php.
Grab Version 0.6.
cheers
Thank you so much for such a wonderful theme! I’m a High School English teacher and I keep a course blog for my students. I have been looking for something that works well with our school colors (Crimson and Gold) and has an easy-to-use layout. Summer Sun fits the bill! I found it very easy to modify (though some of the design elements, like the side ‘ribbon’, were too sweet to change). Great work!
I wanna move the comment form under the comments, but failed, could u teach me? :)
Hi Tim. Nice template.
I made some changes. Here you can see:
http://www.insomnia.art.br/valve/
But I have some problems.
In this page: http://insomnia.art.br/valve/?cat=1/
The title is not aligned. I tried to fix it but without success.
I loved this live preview. Is it a plugin?
@ sidekick + PC:
I managed to answer both of your questions in the newly set up Frequently asked questions (FAQ) area for the theme.
And yes, the Live Comment Preview is available as plugin here.
Dear Tim,
I tried, but failed, the comment form disappeared after changed.
Sorry. In the last step it’s supposed to say below the last
endif.Shame on me for not testing it. :/
Great work – really nice theme.
Just a question that might sound pretty lame: Are the comments supposed to display in different colors if you have more than one? When I view the code (I’m a a newb) it seems like there are some lines keeping track of even and odd numbers of the comments, but on my site the comments all appear in the same color… which led me to asking here.
i’m having problem with the archive. check out my site and you know what i mean. what should i do?
finally i have figured out how to work on the tabbed navigation. thanks!
Tim, thanks for helping, problem solved. (nearly forgot to leave a reply here.)
Unfornately, when I try to add a div to keep my threaded comments not covering the left blue bar, the comments get floating on the content, sorry for making your template not looking so good… -_-
Hi,
Ur Summersun theme is really great!
I downloaded ur Summersun theme version 0.6. But there seems to be a generic error for the Archives tab. It never displays proper Archive . Can u please guide me on the same.
Is it by chance any thing related to permalink structure?
Cheers.
Ajith: Actually the URL that the archives tab is linking to (archives/) is a kind of generic/example. You are free to change it’s caption and link in the file
header.php.Or if you want to point it to the current year’s archive it should say sth. like /archive/2005/ (depending on your permalink structure).
hi good theme
i would like to know how to and extra buttons on the top
when i try to active the the Clean Archives Plugin, it got an error
Parse error: parse error, unexpected T_OBJECT_OPERATOR in /home/twenty4/public_html/wp/wp-content/plugins/srg_clean_archives.php on line 46
pls help~~
Hi. I want to add some more tabs at the top of the page; I’ve gotten as far as adding the below code, but have no idea how to define a page as ‘about’ – ?
>AboutGreat looking theme – thanks.
Nice looking theme. We are going to test it out. Thanks…
Thanks, very nice theme and I’m using it right now.
Wanna ask can I use different header image (bg_header.jpg) for differnet categories?
I absolutely love your theme! Your color scheme is amazing! Keep up the great work!
Great theme! I love sunflowers!
thx for the teheme
I really liked the theme, can you make it with 90% width too? or if you can just tell me how to do it then i will edit the code and do it :)
Tim,
I havn’t understand how to use the navigation in header.php
Your code is:
?php if(is_page('archives') || is_archive()) echo " class=\"active\""; ?How can I add a navigation to a page called “guestbook” (e.g.). I’ve tried some ways but get only errors?
Perhaps you can add an example in your FAQ??? Thanks in advance!
Beside that: This is a great theme, I will use this in my blog (with some adjustments if you allow).
This theme is showing as broken for me under WordPress 2.
It wasn’t really broken but the screenshot.png was missing. This and a few other things are fixed in the 0.8 release now.
I’ve been using it before 0.8. so do I need to upgrade it to 0.8? I’m using WP 2.02 now, and if yes, what’s the upgrade procedure as I changed some of the code of comment.php, sidebar.php…thanks!
Nicholas, just update the files header.php, style.css and screenshot.png. The new version only includes minor changes for making it easier to use and a screenshot for the WP 2.0 theme interface.
thx for the teheme
Mmmm… Site looks good! Real good!;-)
I have the latest version yet it still has the sidebar down the bottom of the page. What would be wrong?
Adrian: In which browser does this issue occur?
Hiya,
This issue occurs in Internet Explorer. In Firefox it works all well.
Thanks.
Try to alter the width of the CSS-Definition for the
#blogs-Element (e.g. change it to 510px). I assume it occurs in IE5.5?I’m using this theme in WordPress 2.0 and it works fine. Will you be adding widget support to the theme?
I thought about this option…and as you’re the first person requesting this I definitely will upgrade the theme with support for widgets — Yes!
Update: Version 0.85 is available now. Ready for widgets. Happy accessorizing!
Hey all — was hoping that someone could clue me in on a total n00b CSS issue:
I’m trying to customize the Random Image Theme for WordPress, and I’m running into a small — but *incredibly annoying* — problem.
I’m trying to make the background of the content area white. The background of navigation column that runs down the right side is not plain white (FFFFFF). Rather Photoshop’s color picker claims that it’s F9F9F9 — but this isn’t anywhere in the style.css file. There is a .alt that has a background set at F8F8F8, but when I change that to FFFFFF, it doesn’t help.
Where is that shading coming from?
many thanks…
downloaded for my colection :) or – for this theme Davinci Code ?
Hi, I’m having a function error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: bbls_print_language_indicator() in /home/xx/public_html/xx/wp-content/themes/summersun/single.php on line 27
But I think in general I’m having troubles with the bbls functions. Any help would be appreciated. Oh and nice looking theme.
Adun, the “bbls” functions are leftovers from my language switching plugin. I accidentally forgot to catch this error with a
function_existstest. A fixed version is now online. Just replace the newsingle.phpfile. Glad you like the theme.Nice and clean layout, will look for some tweaking, thank you for developing this.
HI, I have wordpress 2.0.4 and i installed the theme but when i go to view the site it loads a styleless
Any suggestions on how to fix the blog titles for IE7? Mine seem to be nudged over to the right and I can’t seem to fix them via the css…
Thanks so much for the beautiful template!
Having upgraded to WordPress 2.1, the Sidebar that displays the BlogRoll gives this error:
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax; check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1]
SELECT cat_id, cat_name FROM
If you could fix this problem it would be muchly appreciated.
Hello when i install this theme i get error on internet explorer 7
“Done but with error on pages ” and when i click details
Line: 2
Char: 1
Error : Stantax error
Code : 0
is there a fix for that please ?
When you are in uncomfortable position and have got no cash to move out from that, you would require to take the mortgage loans. Because it will aid you definitely. I get student loan every single year and feel OK just because of it.
fresh thenme!
great!