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Challenges of the Steira theme

  1. larrymade
    Member

    Hi Guys, I've been working on this theme for months and now I have fogotten how to write In recent days, I've gone from challenged to frustrated with the Steira theme. You talk about what the theme
    can do, but you don't say what it can't do. Currently, an annoying line is overlapping my H1 and I can't remove it.
    All the changes I need to make I can't. This theme has me all boxed in. The Custom Design feature appears to be overrated. The examples of websites using this theme are misleading because there's not you can do that with the
    custom theme alone. This is my run-down of thing I can't do in Steira:

    1. Can't add backgrounds, at least not easily.
    2. Can't change dimensions of the content area
    3. I'm stuck with all that gray text, I'd like to choose text color.
    4. The borders around the photos are unruly, some expand, some don't. The result is the homepage looks tacky.
    5. Those gray horizontal lines that go across content section are useless. I should be able to put these rules where I
    want instead of being confined.
    6. I could'nt use a custom logo if I wanted to. How would I put it in?
    7. The "New" box is useless. I thought it carried the title of the most recent post, but it doesn't.

    I could probably go on, but you catch my drift.
    Any suggestion?

    I don't know if you could help me, but I'm sure you can remove the line from my heading.

    The blog I need help with is skillseeker90.wordpress.com.

  2. panaghiotisadam
    Member

    You could start by giving us the link to the blog in question.

  3. larrymade
    Member

    Sorry, http://www.artbliss.wordpress.com

  4. timethief
    Member

    @larrymade
    Are you experienced at CSS editing and have you purchased the annually renewable custom design upgrade? http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/

  5. thesacredpath
    Member

    @larrymade, as I said (I think) in the other thread, Steira is a bizarre theme and it takes more to customize it than virtually all other themes. One of the main reasons for that is that everything is in "boxes" so making the content area wider takes some work.

    The white area behind the content is the result of not one, but two background declarations, one in "body" and one in "wrapper."

    This will straighten up the spacing on the header and tagline. All I've done is to adjust these two elements so that the title is centered vertically. Find these in your custom CSS and adjust the "top" values to what I show below.

    #subhead blockquote {
position: relative;
top: -80px;
}

#content {
position: relative;
top: -80px;
}

    Quite truthfully, this is virtually the last theme I would start with if I were going to need to make changes to it. Everything takes two or three adjustments of other things.

  6. panaghiotisadam
    Member

    • Re 1, add bgs where?

    • Re 2, the way this theme is structured, changing the width of the content column is very complicated (as thesacredpath already said).

    • Re 3, if you mean the text in your posts, add this (replacing 000000 with the hex for the color you prefer):

    body { color: #000000; }

    If you mean the headings, add this (again replacing 000000 with the hex for the color you prefer):

    h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6 { color: #000000; }

    If you mean other items, please specify.

    • Nos 4 and 5 are related. The grey lines are the default frames around captioned images. Those frames should all be as in the first image of your post, but the sourcecode of your post is messed up. Captioned images are tricky when you use the visual editor: after you insert a captioned image, you must make sure you add a line break or a paragraph break. The easiest thing to do is insert plain, non-captioned images, add the captions in the main body of the post, and center them.

    By the way, your sourcecode includes other junk too. Have you been copy-pasting from another source?

    • Re 6, the theme doesn't natively support a header image, but there might be a workaround. Where would you like the logo to show up? Have you prepared an image in the desired dimensions? If so, upload it via Media > Add New and give us its URL.

    • I don't understand 7. The "NEW" section is the title of the latest post. What exactly do you wish to change?

    PS Agree with tsp: why don't you choose a different theme?

  7. thesacredpath
    Member

    @panos, I told them how to do the header image in another post they started on this theme and site, but they have changed some stuff since then so what I had told them will have to be adjusted (specifically the header image size.

  8. panaghiotisadam
    Member

    Ah, you mean here:
    http://en.forums.wordpress.com/topic/reducing-the-length-of-the-content-area-andor-moving-the-archive?replies=12#post-636642
    Great, thanks!

  9. thesacredpath
    Member

    Yes, that is the one and you are welcome.

  10. larrymade
    Member

    @timethief, I recently purchased Custom Design and I am currently immersed in HTML
    and frequently touch on CSS, so I'm definitely getting my feet wet. It's sinking in. Late
    night I was copying, cutting, and pasting HTML like a mad man. I was attracted to
    Steira by the white space, now I question whether the theme is appropriate.

  11. larrymade
    Member

    @panaghiotisadam,
    1. Basically we're talking about putting an image into the upper right hand corner of the page where the title sits. Imagine a banner-style photo of plush, billowy velvet in a deep, rich burgundy with the word "ARTBLISS" centered. What if I wanted to put a custom logo
    or a fancy customized title?

    2.Life's realities just slapped me in the face, again!

    3.Do-able

    4.&5. Do-able and the only code I added through the visual editor was suggested by @thesacredpath.

    6.Will do.

    7.The information in the "NEW" box is the title of the lastest post. But, as you can see, I'm not using Steira as a blog, per se. Maybe I'm totally off base, but I was wondering if, even with the site as it is now, can I add a separate blog feature?
    Like putting a button on the homepage that takes you to a blog.

    P.S. Could you suggest some appropriate themes, preferably free, but I like to choose from a good selection.

  12. panaghiotisadam
    Member

    a) So 1 = 6. Thesacredpath has already given you the solution to that (third code in the post I linked to).

    b) Yes you can add "a button on the homepage that takes you to a blog" if you set your blog front to display a static page instead of your posts. See here:
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/pages/front-page/

    c) Define "appropriate". If your main concern is a wide main column, you can consult this post of mine:
    http://wpbtips.wordpress.com/2009/07/23/maximum-image-width/

  13. panaghiotisadam
    Member

    For a clean and neat white wide theme I would probably suggest The Journalist v1.9.

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