Most of our recent in-house themes are built on _S, like http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/publish/ and http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/superhero/

When you start using Custom Design, you have the option to either add to a theme's CSS or replace it. Basically, these themes are some very fancy CSS on top of _S. Replace the CSS, and you have an _S-powered blank slate.

Your choice is just about right. Toolbox comes, in a way, as a newer and modernized Sandbox, coded in HTML5 with latest web practices in mind. Toolbox would be a more solid and forward looking choice for you to start with.

So Toolbox has gone, underscore isn't arriving yet... and I'm not sure I want to head back to Sandbox.

The recent email regarding business websites was interesting, but I'm not sure if there is a good generic business theme. Some specific business types are well catered for, but I need a theme for a business who have virtually no photos ( so there goes the portfolios), no products (it's a service industry) and will write few posts other than the occasional news items. They want it quick, cheap and easy to use themselves. WordPress.com fits, but picking a theme which works isn't easy, especially if we only have Sandbox as a framework theme. Suggestions?

Sandbox is very similar to Toolbox and hasn't been retired yet. You might want to try that for now.

Is Toolbox retired? Is it being replaced? Is underscore coming to WordPress.com?

Your question got me to thinking about how many completely awesome themes there could be out there! And now I'm going to keep thinking about it… and how we can help and encourage each other in creating CSS-only themes.

The following sandbox type themes are currently available on WordPress.com right now:

* Sandbox 0.6.1
* Sandbox 1.1
* Sandbox 1.6.1
* Sandbox 1.6.2
* Toolbox

I'll look around some more myself to see what I else I can find. In the mean time, if you guys know of any recent ones, let me know!

I'll look around some more to see what I else I can find. In the mean time, if you guys find any recent ones, let me know! Also, what do you think about a contest? A gallery? Some other way to recognize excellent CSS themes?

Unfortunately, as I'm just starting out with this, I don't have the $$ to spare on upgrades and premium themes (no matter how much I want to play with CSS), so if the upgrade is required to make those themes usable I'll just pick a different theme and move on :-)

Thanks for your help - while I did in the end figure this out before I was just alerted of your post, I made a few changes based on your advice.

I guess I had just been working for a bit too long - couldn't see for all of the looking ;)

Thanks,
Will

Sometimes, it helps to put a temporary border around elements to help you visualize them. Here is an example you could try as a first step so you can see how the spacing is working with your current setup.

#container {
	border: 2px dashed DodgerBlue;
}
.sidebar {
	border: 2px dashed Lime;
}

Of course, remove those after your done looking at the spacing.

To get the current CSS you've added back on track try starting with these steps:

1. If you don't want the site to span the width of the entire browser window, set a pixel width on the wrapper ID and center it like this:

#wrapper {
	width: 980px;
	margin: 0 auto;
}

Adjust the 980px number to your liking.

2. Find the "#container" block in your CSS, and change the width to 74%

3. Find the "div#content" block in your CSS, and change the width to 100%

4. Find the "div#primary.sidebar" block in your CSS, and change the width to 25%

Any help would be greatly appreciated. The custom CSS is here:

<br /> * {<br /> margin:0;<br /> padding:0;<br /> }</p> <p>#container {<br /> /*float:right;*/<br /> /*display:inline;*/<br /> background-color:teal;<br /> margin-right:auto;<br /> margin-left:auto;<br /> width:800px;<br /> }</p> <p>div#content {<br /> width:100%;<br /> margin-left:auto;<br /> margin-right:auto;<br /> margin-top:1em;<br /> background-color:salmon;<br /> }</p> <p>h1#blog-title a {<br /> font-size:0;<br /> }</p> <p>div#blog-description {<br /> font-size:0;<br /> }</p> <p>a:link {<br /> color:#A6003E;<br /> text-decoration:none;<br /> }</p> <p>a:visited {<br /> color:#A6003E;<br /> text-decoration:none;<br /> }</p> <p>a:hover {<br /> text-decoration:underline;<br /> }</p> <p>a:active {<br /> color:#A6003E;<br /> text-decoration:none;<br /> }</p> <p>#header {<br /> background-image:url('http://i.imgur.com/WWebL.png');<br /> background-repeat:no-repeat;<br /> background-position:top center;<br /> height:180px;<br /> padding-top:20px;<br /> margin-top:5px;<br /> }</p> <p>.skip-link {<br /> position:absolute!important;<br /> clip:rect(1px 1px 1px 1px);<br /> }</p> <p>#access ul li {<br /> float:left;<br /> list-style:none;<br /> margin-right:20px;<br /> margin-bottom:0;<br /> padding:5px;<br /> width:80px;<br /> text-align:center;<br /> font-family:arial;<br /> }</p> <p>#access ul li a {<br /> color:#444;<br /> font-weight:bolder;<br /> }</p> <p>#access ul li a:hover {<br /> color:#75AADB;<br /> text-decoration:none;<br /> }</p> <p>#access {<br /> margin-left:auto;<br /> margin-right:auto;<br /> padding-bottom:13px;<br /> width:100%;<br /> height:1em;<br /> padding-top:3px;<br /> font-size:12pt;<br /> border-bottom:1px solid gray;<br /> }</p> <p>.menu {<br /> width:70%;<br /> margin-right:auto;<br /> margin-left:auto;<br /> }</p> <p>div#primary.sidebar {<br /> background-color:tomato;<br /> overflow:hidden;<br /> width:200px;<br /> /*display:inline;*/<br /> /*margin-right:auto;<br /> margin-left:auto;*/<br /> }</p> <p>div#secondary.sidebar {<br /> display:none;<br /> clear:left;<br /> }</p> <p>h2.entry-title {<br /> color:#75AAE5;<br /> }</p> <p>#footer {<br /> width:0;<br /> font-size:0;<br /> }<br />

Thanks again.

The padding-top might be something artificially added in for the WordPress.com toolbar, and if that's the padding you're referring to, I would recommend keeping it or your design may look different for logged in versus logged out views.

Thanks in advance for any suggestions!

Which helped me and works now. Thanks very much my friend. I used the exact text from the last post in that thread and changed the dimensions to fit my own header.