Una WordPress Theme
Una is my very first free public release WordPress theme. It has 2 columns divided with the guide of the divine proportion. The front page shows the latest post with it’s accompanying large graphic image which helps attract readers more than the usual large text titles. Below the latest post is a list of the 3 other recent posts with each post accompanied by a nice thumbnail image. Each section title is supported by a nice subtitle. The comments and trackbacks are divided to produce a clean and organized look. This theme was inspired by a lot of great blogs out there like Web Designer Wall, Matt Brett, Avalonstar and 5 Thirty One to mention a few.
This theme is a little advanced for beginner bloggers but it doesn’t mean they can’t use it. Before you download and install this theme, you might wanna get into the details below to see what you’re getting.
Update
The theme is now Widget ready! For those of you who have downloaded and installed the first release, you may download the latest version and just overwrite the files.
Demo and Download
The live demo for this theme is used in this blog. What you see here is powered by Una.
The theme is tested on WordPress 2.5 and WordPress 2.5.1. I haven’t tested it yet on lower versions of WordPress and I’m not planning to. If you want this theme then you better use the latest and safest WordPress package.
The theme uses valid XHTML and CSS so please use valid mark-up in your content.
If you find this theme useful, please consider donating a small amount.
Una WordPress Theme Screenshot
Installation
Before you activate this theme, there are a few things you must prepare for.
Mother Set-up
- Go to Settings > Miscellaneous and enter these values for the Thumbnail size. width=195, height=155. And make sure the “Crop thumbnail…” is checked
Required WordPress plugins
- Download the Twitter Tools Plugin. Install and activate. Configure your settings like the image below.
- Download the Advanced Excerpt Plugin. Install and activate. Go to the settings and set the Excerpt length to 25 and uncheck the
img
The above plugins are not really required to make the theme work, however, if you want to optimize the output or the look of this theme, you must install these plugins.
Setting up your avatar
Create a 36px by 36px avatar image, save it asavatar.jpgand upload it towp-content/themes/una/images/
You can now skip this part. Una will automatically fetch your avatar image from Gravatar. If you don’t have a gravatar, the default gravatar will show up.
Setting up twitter on your sidebar
Opensidebar.phpand modify line 5. Change the value of the username to your twitter username
Thanks to Efren for the tip. This one will work automatically now. It will fetch your username from the Twitter Tools settings.
Setting up the footer about info
- Open
footer.phpand change line 8 to your own self introduction text
Setting up the accompanying image for eash post
This step is optional. The theme will work with or without this one. That’s how flexible and user friendly it is. If you have no image for the post, that’s ok. The theme will run smoothly.
- Create a 580px by 215px image. This will serve as the main image on the main page. While on the Write Post page upload the image using the Add Image button.
- After the image has been uploaded, right click on the thumbnail (in Firefox Browser) and choose Copy Image Location.
- Close the media window and expand the Custom Fields panel. Enter a new key titled post-thumb and paste the image location under the corresponding value.
- Get the direct URL for the original image. Enter a new key titled post-image and enter the direct URL of the image under the corresponding value.
About & Licensing
This theme is absolutely free for the taking. All I’m asking is the footer credits to remain in tact. I request that any distribution of the Una theme out of this website be notified to the author.
Bugs and Known Issues
- Sidebar Widgets is not supported
- Non-transparent comment icons
- Footer not sticking at the bottom
To Do
- Add the caption style for WordPress 2.6
Theme Updates
July 26, 2008
- The theme is now widget ready.
July 07, 2008
- Updated
sidebar.phpandfooter.phpso that you don’t have to manually upload your avatar for it to show up. - Updated
sidebar.phpso that you don’t have to open the sidebar.pohp file and get your hands dirty. The twitter username will be automatically fetched from the Twitter Tools settings. - Fixed a few bugs
If you have downloaded the theme and you find any bugs please report it by using the comments section below. I would also love to hear your suggestions! Thanks!
Tags: 2 Column themes, Free, Una, WordPress, WordPress Themes
wow this looks great! lovin it!
Thanks mae.
the page is so relaxing to the eyes because of the color. keep up the good work pre. im also looking forward to stylemo v2.
lupet! idol talaga kita. :p
Excellent new theme. Thank you for adding it to my site.
Love the theme, but unfortunately I can’t use it really until it’s widget ready. Looking forward to the update!
A great theme - nice, clean design!
waiting for it to be widget-ready, many few people will use a non widget-ready theme.
very nice theme, i tried recently migrating to a wordpress.org blog and maybe il try this out when its widget ready.. =)
Thanks for all the comments guys. Been very busy with the past few days, I haven’t posted an update. But I have updated the theme and had it made Widget Ready. I’m just fixing a few minor bugs and cleaning up the code. I hope I’m gonna be able to upload it tomorrow.
I hope you can also provide the plain XHTML file for this layout because I want to try to integrate this layout with cakephp.
@phpcurious: On Firefox, right click and choose View Page Source… tada, plain XHTML.
I just downloaded the update…and am unable to view my widgets. I still just see categories, recent comments, tags, and recent posts - not the four widgets I added to the sidebar.
I completed deleted the old theme, and reinstalled the new one.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.
@Stacy. That sounds weird. Are you sure you have overwritten the old theme files? Please try to overwrite the theme again. Delete the old theme folder then install the new one. If it still doesn’t work, I’m here to offer you a free service of configuring your theme.
love the design… gave props on my site footer… i built my portfolio using the basic architecture of the Una theme with a few minor and major alterations…
Congrats on your first theme.
Thanks so much Josh! I love the alterations that you made on your website. I also dig some of your work like the retro trees. I’m really happy that someone found my little project very useful. Again, thanks Josh!
Hi!
Your theme is cool. One glitch I noticed was in Firefox on an Ubuntu OS where the “Search” button isn’t beside the search bar, it gets placed below the search bar.
I’m not sure if there are any other glitches, but that is what stood out.
@Jessica: Thanks for the info. It’s not actually a glitch but an incompatibility thing. Different browsers display form elements differently. I guess I will have to fix that. Again, thank you Jessica!
Dino, great theme. Is it possible to have a “featured” post setup so that on the main page a post that is most significant (not necessarily most recent) at the moment is the one that gets displayed under “home about subscribe”, and the recent posts just get posted under “my recent posts”?
Also, it’d be cool if you could have a “reply” tag in your comments so people can reply to others comments and the person who’s comment gets replied gets notified of the reply.
just some thoughts
@Chard: Thanks for the cool suggestions. Yeah there is a way to make the main post on the front page become a featured post. I can help you out with that if you want. Just hit me back if you are interested in pimping the Una theme for you.
Love the design! Really suits my style. I’m still wanting to tweak a few things, but over all not much to alter! Great job!