Customize your Magazine themes
As stated in my previous post, I’m back again to do something more in our Magazine themes.
In the Previous Post – Magazine Themes Improvement, we had seen two important customizations. Today we will see few more customizations.
Fulfilling what my readers ask , is been a top priority for me here at igoY So before going into my own customizations here’s what my recent reader has asked.
→ Adding different links to Featured Slide of Magazine
Recently Nix, showed a major concern over modifying his slide widget. He asked me
I have a big problem here and I wonder if you can help me.
It’s about the thumbnails…
1- Is there a way I can add multiple URL thumbnails for the slide in the same post? I want to use three different thumbnails linking to the post.
OR…
2- Is there a way for the slide link other URLs (another blog, for example) instead of a post?
Yes Nix. That is quite possible but there is no easy work around for this. Any ways, for those who want to add thumbnail in their post linking to same post or other sites, then here is what you have to do.
You have to edit slider.php for this. This file is located on your server in wp-content/themes/ANY MAGAZINE THEME/includes/slider.php
Here’s what you have to edit
The code has been created with keeping in mind Natmag Theme. But the code remains same for every other Magazine theme except for ProMag. Also for any other Magazine theme you need to change the width to 200 and height to 156.
To make it simple as always, code for NatMag, ClassicMag is THIS.
While the same for EldroMag, TarouMag, iMag, ReaderMag, NisposaMag is THIS.
→ Modifying Recent Entries & Comments widget
Magazine Themes comes which this inbuilt handy widget which shows the Recent Entries and Recent Comments.
But some may wonder how many recent entries to show and how many recent comments to show. So to work around that we need to modify
# Plugins.php located on your server in in wp-content/themes/ANY MAGAZINE THEME/includes/slider.php, if you are using ClassicMag or NisposaMag or ReaderMag or iMag or TarouMag or EldroMag theme
# functions.php located on your server in wp-content/themes/ANY MAGAZINE THEME/functions.php or in the Theme Editor of your Wordpress, if you are using NatMag or ProMag theme.
Here is what you have to modify
→ Adding Rounded and color background to block quotes
You may have seen my block quotes are rounded as well as with color.
Such blockquotes adds a good look to the quotes. And again Magazine themes lacked this.
If you didn’t understand what I am talking about, then have a look at the image on the right or above where i had block quoted what Nix said to me.
To get such kind of block quote you need to edit default.css which is located on your server in wp-content/themes/ANY MAGAZINE THEME/css/default.css
When you open default.css you need to REPLACE the original blockquote function with the one given in THIS.
So far we had seen
- Making the categories work
- Making Bookmarking link work (Only Natmag Theme)
- Getting Category list under each post (Only Natmag Theme)
- Modifying the footer of the theme
- Renaming Archieves to Archives
- Adding Tags to your posts
- Changing default color scheme (Only Natmag Theme)
- Adding links in the Menu
- Add RSS feed for the comments of particular posts in that post
- Adding different links to Featured Slide of Magazine
- Modifying Recent Entries & Comments widget
- Adding Rounded and color background to block quotes
Well that is all for today, I’ll continue with more Magazine customization later.
If you find my post useful, then please add igoY.in as your Technorati favorite 
You may also be interested in :
- Magazine Themes – Making justified mini post
- Add page menu to footer
- NatMag v2.0 Wordpress Theme
- Magazine themes improvement
- Natmag Theme – More bugs, Solved
I am a human being. Writing such a post consumes my energy. Coffee keeps me energized. Buy me a coffee
Tags: Magazine Theme, Wordpress themes improvement
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how are you??? im having alot of trouble… my recent post/comment/archeive/ does not work what did i do wrong???
and i want to change the footer like you did.. shoot me an email… thanx
Actually the footer is available at http://www.igoy.in/natmag-theme-more-bugs-solved/ Click on the NatMag Footer over there
Regarding, Recent entries and archives, did you mess around with functions.php of this theme ?
If not then I’m sure its one of your plugins which is causing this problem
Deactivate all your plugins then test the theme. Then activate plugins one by one to see which plugin causes this problem
Hi, good post. I have been pondering this topic,so thanks for sharing. I will definitely be subscribing to your site.
Hi Yogi!
Thanks for all your help with the bug fixes!
I am using CorporateMag theme and have also run into problems with the slider. ( I went through your tips but I may have missed it!).
I got the thumbnail to show up but not in animated slider mode.
Also, do you know how to add text to the (blue) area in index.php? I can’t edit it in wordpress!! (it is blank right now!)
Thanks
hi Arturo,
May I know your blog address, so that I may see what exactly is your problem.
If possible show me the screenshot of your problem. I’ll try my best to get you help
Regards,
Yogesh
How can you make the front page a static page? I’ve changed the setting in Wordpress, but it still shows posts at the top of the front page. I want to show posts on a different page, but not the front page.
Thanks for your help.
Hi Bruce,
Every Magazine theme doesnt support the static page option of wordpress.
I need to work on this to get it supported.
In the mean time a simple work around would be create a home.php having the content of index.php of your theme expect remove the contents which show posts.
Then upload it to the theme directory and then go to the reading setting to make POST entry as some different page.
I’ll mail you as soon as I solve this problem
Regards,
Yogi
Hi Yogi,
I am using Eldro theme and struggling to get a static page to show up as the homepage. I have tried creating a home.php file and removed the post loop but seems to override the index.php file which breaks the blog. Is there anyway to fix/hack these themes to work as themes usually work when you select a Front Page and Posts Page from the WP Reading options?
Did this problem solved? Because placing home.php not solved.. Thanks right now.
hi Akif,
Home.php should work properly.
I have tried it and it works properly. make sure you change the blog url to YOURDOMAIN.com/blog or blog.YOURDOMAIN.com then after
Your tips are great.
One thing I would like to do is have an image displayed in the “featured-posts” section of the main page. Currently, all featured posts do not have images and can be bland looking. If my post has an image in it, it is not displayed there. It shows “caption id=”" align=”alignleft” width=”120″ caption=”"][/caption]“.
Any ideas?
Hello Rel
By feature post do you mean, those mini posts that we see in odd and even manner. Or do you mean the slider and glider ?
Also specify your blog, so I can look at it inspecting the exact problem
HOW do we add images to the slider?
Well the author has included how to do that in his theme.. but anyways heres the thing
Go to the Edit menu and edit the post of which you want to show in slide..
Over there follow this settings
http://www.igoy.in/wp-content/uploads/2009/04/7.jpg
In simple words, all you need to do is, Create a custom field by name ‘thumbnail’ for the images of the particular post that you want to display. Its value has to be the complete address of the image
This can be done in the custom field section of each post
Then you have to go to .. featured settings and then select the category under that post is
Now if you may ask I want to display all the latest posts over there, then a big NO. you cant.
The author has designed the theme in that accordance only. But I found a way around. One thing you can do is that Label a post of a particular month under a category of, say – “May-09″
Then in the featured Theme setting you make that one category as “May-09″ and then it will show the latest posts that belong to May 09.
In this way your category widget will also work as archives .. but then you will have to post every post of a month under that months name and you will have to change the featured post category every month
Sorry, it does not work for me…
I just added articles with “thumbnail” and the link, but it shows only empty squares instead of pictures…
Ok, everything works now.
Glad that you solved it…
I see that in Eldro Mag theme even if i insert the #more tag it doesen’t display “Read more >>” on first page. How can I insert this option ?
Hello twist3r,
Go to index.php and change <?php the_content(”); ?>
to <?php the_content(‘Read more…’, TRUE, ”); ?>
This would work then.
By the way I’ve made that code for, different color for authors comment and time display as well.
Check this http://www.igoy.in/tlog/index.php/customize-your-magazine-themes/ it shows authors comment in blue and also alternate color. I’ve to add Gravtar though
hey yogesh all the best for ur exams
cheers
Hi there. I love the ClassicMag theme, but I do have a couple of questions (sorry if I missed the answers before):
1. How do I change which categories are shown on the bar under the blog title?
2. I have noticed several people asking how to configure the feedburner RSS feed, and I am having the same problem.
I would appreciate any help on the matters.
Keep up the good work!
I am trying to individualize the ProMag theme to fit my needs. I’ve found that the ProMag theme shows not only recent posts in “Recent Entries”, but also static pages.
To avoid this, open functions.php and search for
else $request .= “AND post_type=’post’ “;
replace it with
$request .= “AND post_type=’post’ “;
This is also how it’s done in NatMag. Now it will show recent posts only.
Hi igoy,
I’m just setting up a new website using this Classic Mag theme and tried to make a drop down menu but it the drop down menu is hidden behind the slideshow. I have set the z-index value accordingly but it doesn’t work at all.. Have been working on it for few hours… do you think you can help? You can check my WIP website http://www.travel-living-bliss.com.
Thanks.
hi,
When i made a posts like the one in 5thview.host56.com, why it is overlapping so much? I couldn’t get it worked. Could you please help me fix it?
cheers
elvi
Could you please help me fix my problem?
When i made a post, it is overlapping…and i couldn’t get it worked…If you know how to fix it…can you show me how?
Cheers
hi yogi.
i’m customizing a theme on my other website http://intisonline.com/
and i need your help in adjusting it right.
1. how can i remove the top10webhosts ads and instead, put a snippets on my recent post?
2. my footer is gone. how can i adjust it back in?
i’m using this template http://topwpthemes.com/hostingpress/
teste
How can I use static page in this corporate theme. i tried from the reading option but its not working.
I just updated my word press to the latest version 2.8.6 and the slide-show disappeared on the ClassicMag theme…. any advice?
There shouldn’t be any problem with it as, I’m using 2.8.6 as well on my test blog. All you can do is make sure the the categories which are used to show the sliding post in not hyphenated..
To test whether there is something wrong with your slider or not.. just make a new test post with a custom field name of “thumbnail” and its value pointing towards the image.
Make sure you give this post a new category (keep the name of the category simple eg. test) and then go to theme options and change the sliding settings to that category..
If things work then, there is nothing wrong with the slider. If it not then you have to provide me a temporary admin access to your blog and I’ll do my best to fix it. Use the contact page if you want to provide me the admin details.
Regards.
Thank you Yogi for your response. I will play around with it today. Again, thank you.
Thanks so much for the awesome Theme!!!!! I love everything about it, but I can’t seem to get the Title of my blog to show up? Is that in a tutorial somewhere? My blogger Title is “CurryStew” and I have it entered in settings Blog info but it doesn’t show up? Any thoughts?
Hi Yogi,
I would like to change the font color in the Taroumag theme from grey to white to make my site better readable. I tried different things but it won’t work. Do you know how to do this? Cheers
Excellent tutorial! One question though, I can’t figure how to make a drop-down menu in the navigation bar. I have a Products main page which has a few sub-pages (phones, tvs, etc) and I want them to show when the mouse cursor hovers over the Products page. My theme is BeachlerMag.