It has been awhile since I released a freebie, which is why I built the Side Blog WordPress theme this week. Side Blog is exactly what you would expect it to be… a blog theme will all sorts of customization and content management options, widgets and more. I just realized that this only my second theme actually dedicated to “blogging”. Most of my themes are niche themes focused on business, video, photography, etc. and it was fun this time around to get back to the basics with the Side Blog theme downloadable today on the Press75.com home page.
Options & Widgets
Don’t be fooled by what you see on the surface because the Side Blog theme is actually pretty packed with custom options and widgets. For starters, you can customize your Logo, Theme Background Color and/or Image, Footer Text and much more right through the theme options page. Also, feature whatever content you want within 4 unique sidebars using the “Side Blog” widget. There is plenty more where that came from, so watch the video tour below for a full overview.
Gravity Forms Styles
Side Blog marks my first theme to integrate Gravity Forms styles to match the theme styles. Gravity Forms is probably the most comprehesive Form Management plugin you can get for WordPress. All Press75.com themes will soon include matching Gravity Forms styles which can be enabled within the theme options page. If don’t own Gravity and need to integrate some forms with this theme, you can purchase a copy at http://www.gravityforms.com/.
Hello great theme!
But I have a problem with the thumbnail, they are not displayed in posts and in the widget uses the plugin Simple Post Thumbnails 1,5 wordpress 2.9.2
The Side Blog theme does not use the Simple Post Thumbnails plugin. I would recommend that if you need further support for the Side Blog theme that you purchase a support package.
thanks, I already figured out this issue
Good to hear…
Nice bit of freebies, Thanks a lot
Clad you like it… more to come soon.
How do you post a thumbnail picture?
Using the WordPress post image feature…
Hi Jason
Just wanted to say thanks for releasing this theme. It’s great, and reminds me of the time when you were one among the few WP developers releasing free but very high quality themes. Great stuff.
Thanks also for naming Tycho as the artist behind the soundtrack on your explanatory video. Fell in love with the track, and bought it and Tycho’s latest album about 10 minutes later!
All the best.
Richard
Thanks for your comments Richard, and glad you like the theme.
HEY the themes have two bug.
1 If u use WP3.0+ , when u use custom menu, in the background after delete one classification, once home still showed .
2 in the widget “excerpt length(in words) can use, but failure.
can u answer ? THK U
If you need support for the Side Blog theme, please purchase a support package.
Hello Jason,
I like this theme a lot, you did a wonderful job :) … and for free, this is great!
Do you like feedback? I hope so ;) I figured out a failure: If you use a password protected post, Mozilla Firefox doesn’t display the posts correctly. (Internet Explorer works fine, Opera and Safari not tested)
Here are some screenshots: http://twitpic.com/2i4xb2, http://twitpic.com/2i4xoi, http://twitpic.com/2i4xvl, http://twitpic.com/2i4y06
(This is not a support question, I just wanted to give you some feedback)
Thanks for the heads up. I will have a look at that when I go to update the theme next time around.
I’ve got a bug fix for this theme. It breaks if a post contains floated elements on the index pages. I’ve got a simple solution but you guys can probably fix it. Email me if you want to know my solution.
Already have a fix in the works for this that will be included in the next update… but thanks for reaching out.
Hi,
I run version 1.1.1 on my site and the issue still exists – can u pls advise – thx
Very sorry, but I do not provide support for my themes in the discussion thread. If you need support for this theme, I would suggest that you purchase a support package.
WOW, such a great theme! I used this in my personal blog and I am very happy with it. It’s flexible and clean! Thanks and good job!
Thank you very much. Happy to hear you are enjoying the theme.
Off topic question. What did you use to create that demo video? It’s really well done. I like the red highlights around the click points.
I am using “ScreenFlow” for the Mac to create my demo videos.
Hi,
Thank you for the beautiful theme! I just have 1 simple question. On your live demo page, it shows the “Continue Reading” link after just 90 words… but on my home page, the whole blog post is there – it doesn’t cut off after 90 words. Is there a setting that I am missing? That’s the only question I have, so I hoped you could help without the support package. Thanks!
Nevermind, I just installed the Advanced Excerpt plugin and fixed it. Thanks!
Good to hear you figured it out.
Quick Question…
Is the featured picture suppose to show up twice? When I insert the featured picture into a post and publish it, the picture shows up twice.
You do not need to insert your featured image into your post as well.
Nice theme – however the background image doesn’t appear in I.E., it looks fine in Firefox, Chrome and Safari. Is there a simple fix? Thanks again!
Works for me in IE7 and IE8.
Sorry – forgot to mention that it is the Side Blog theme where the background image doesn’t appear in I.E. 7.
Just tested, and it works for me in both IE7 and IE8. IE6 is not supported.
i too am having trouble with the theme depending on the browser. also, i’m having difficult installing audio players for this theme. does any one recommend a specific audio player?
thanks!
The Side Blog theme has been tested and works perfectly in Google Chrome (for Windows, Mac, and Linux), Microsoft Internet Explorer (IE) Versions 7.0, 8.0 and 9 Beta (for Windows), Mozilla Firefox 3.5 and Later (for Windows, Mac and Linux) and Safari 3 and Later (for Windows and Mac). If you are having problems, I would recommend de-activating any 3rd party plugins you are using.
Awesome theme. Just what I needed for my blog (Genvejen, http://www.genvejen.dk).
Thanks a lot.
PS: I link to this page on my about page, http://www.genvejen.dk/om/
Thanks… glad you like the theme.
Is this theme still free? I’m not seeing a way to download it any more…
Go to the Press75.com Home Page and click “Theme Info”. After the dialog box loads, you will see a “Free Download” button which you can use to download the theme.
Super theme. I hope to get it working.
Like a few of the people above, the body background image does not show up in IE.
When I validate the CSS through Firebug, it returns with the following:
“In URI : http://pedantand.dk/site/?sf-custom-content=css
2 body Value Error : background Parse Error :
3 body Value Error : color Parse Error
7 #footer, #footer h3 Value Error : color Parse Error
11 #footer a Value Error : color Parse Error
15 #footer a:hover Value Error : color Parse Error”
I have not specified anything custom for the background yet. Do you have any suggestions?
Cheers,
Anders
I commented out the “Custom Styles Function” in functions.php to test if it had an impact on IE, and yes, the standard background image is now visible in IE
This is a known issue in IE7 only which I am working on a solution for.
Very Nice Theme THNx
I downloaded the theme and uploaded it to wordpress the same way I’ve done with many other themes. It shows up in my Manage Themes area, but the thumbnail view is missing. If I try to preview, my blog shows up as plain text with no graphic elements at all. If I activate the theme, the same thing happens. I’m using WordPress 3. I’ve got Side Blog 1.1.5. Any ideas why it won’t work?
I realize this is a support question, but at the moment I’m just trying to get the theme to load so I can see if I want to use it.
This means that something went wrong during the upload process. Try uploading via the WordPress admin rather than via FTP.
Ok. Thanks! I’ll give that a try when I get home.
That worked. For some reason it refused to upload properly by FTP (I tried about 4 times). It’s displaying properly now. Thank you for your quick reply.
Glad to help…
How to remove the category and subscribe from the menu?
Enable and use custom menus.
I can’t seem to figure out how to get the small thumbnail pics inserted into the side blog. Excerpts from my posts show up in the side bar on the right, but no thumbnail pictures. Can you tell me how to fix this?
Katie
Sounds like you just need to read the setup and usage instructions… specifically where it says “Writing Posts With Featured Thumbnail Images (IMPORTANT)”. Hope that helps.
Jason
Also, why is there nowhere for readers to enter their email address when clicking the “subscribe” tab? When I click on it, it just goes to my rss feed. How are people able to subscribe?
The “Subscribe” link is for users to subscribe to your RSS feed. If you want to integrate email subscriptions, there are several plugin you could use for that functionality.
I pasted google analytics into my footer and then decided to use a plugin instead. After I deleted it out of my footer it now shows up as error at the bottom of my site page along with a bunch of other stuff. I think i accidentally deleted something but I really don’t know what went wrong. My website is http://www.hotelpillowtalk.com let me know if you can tell me how to fix this or what to do about it.
I would recommend just replacing your modified footer.php with the un-modified footer.php.
Hi, great template. I just have one question though. How do I get the ‘P75 Sidebar ads’ to display the pictures and the link?
Thanks
Richard
Just configure the Simple Sidebar Ads widget with your images and links.
can you give a little bit more info on how to configure it? i can’t get it to work. thanks.
All you need to do is activate the theme and publish posts using featured images as explained within the setup and usage instructions.
will you send those instructions? the person who set this up is no longer here. please sir.
The setup and usage instructions are included with the theme download.
Hi, great work! For some reason, my custom menu won’t show up when I reload the page. Any ideas?
Have you enabled custom menus within the theme options page?
Awesome theme.Thanks for making it :)
Wow – what a well designed & impressive theme to give away for free – thanks.
Quick question, is there a way to remove the “75″ from the webpage title tab displayed at the top of the browser?
I want you to get credit just not there :)
Thanks again.
You can change that within your “Favicon” customization options within the theme options page.
Hi,
Thank you for this theme – it’s really great!
I’m having some problems trying to alter the menu bar – I’d like to get rid of the ‘categories’ and ‘subscribe’ options..
I’ve tried using the custom menu bar (and I have enabled it) but that doesn’t seem to work. Is there any way I can alter the standard menu bar to remove these extra options?
Thanks for your help!
I’ve managed to figure it out myself.. thanks anyway!
Good to hear.
How did you figure it out Josie? Please let me know. Thanks.
Oops, I got it, lol.
“Appearance > Your theme supports 1 menu. Select which menu you would like to use.”
duh!
quick question for anyone…..how do you set things so that the entire post is not displayed…..ie just the first few sentences are displayed, not pages and pages the example seems to be set up this way
All you need to do is insert the “More” tag wherever you want your post to be cut off.
Hello there, thanks for a great free design. I downloaded it today and am having fun customizing it. I read in the comments above that you suggested people read the setup and usage instructions that should be included with the download for help. I haven’t been able to find those. Where should I look?
Thank you!
The setup and usage instructions can be found here:
http://www.press75.com/downloads/setup-usage.pdf
Jason
Hi Jason,
Awesome Theme btw. I was wondering if you could help a little with an issue I’m having.
I am trying to edit the ” section with a custom page template
The template has the removed and a custom “Main” section added in the style,css.
#mainns {
background: #FFFFFF;
color: #6D6D6D;
width: 960px;
float: left;
padding: 30px 30px 15px 35px;
}
The idea is to remove the sidebar colouring and content just leaving an extended white box for a full page post.
Every time I change the to on my custom template the box disappears. Any ideas how to achieve this effect on a single page?
Thanks
David
This should read:
I am trying to edit the div id=”main” section with a custom page template
The template has the div id=”blog” removed and a custom “Main” section called “mainns” added in the style,css.
#mainns {
background: #FFFFFF;
color: #6D6D6D;
width: 960px;
float: left;
padding: 30px 30px 15px 35px;
}
The idea is to remove the sidebar colouring and content just leaving an extended white box for a full page post.
Every time I change the div id=”main” to div id=”mainns” on my custom template the box disappears even though it has all the same details. Any ideas how to achieve this effect on a single page?
EDIT:Sorry I left the brackets on the code examples and it remained hidden. All visible now I hope!