minimalia wordpress theme
We’ve tried to make the installation procedure as painless as possible with Minimalia. Please follow this guide, and if you need support beyond it, leave a comment at the bottom of the guide.
The configuration of it requires a bit more skill, and we’re putting some tutorial videos together that will accompany these instructions to help you if you need it.
If you don’t want to use any of the included plugins, the theme will work just fine. Checks for the plugins ensure that whether they’re activated or not, your website will continue to work. Plugin styles disappear and the theme adjusts itself accordingly.
(15/4/2008)
TABLE OF CONTENTS
GETTING STARTED
Before you begin, make sure you backup your WordPress installation and your database. If you’re new to a WordPress backup, you can read this step-by-step guide from WordPress.org.
The installation and configuration of the theme might take up to an hour depending on your skill, experience and the speed of your internet connection. Make sure you set aside enough time for yourself.
REQUIREMENTS
To run the Minimalia WordPress theme on your host, you’ll require a few things, some of which may be obvious to you but we’ll record them all here so we can say ‘we told you so’ if you don’t meet them.
YOU MUST
- Have a webhost capable of running WordPress 2.1 or higher
- Have FTP access to install the theme files and plugins, and change permissions
- Use the plugin versions included with the theme for them to work properly
- Only upgrade the included plugins through Minimalia releases, which will be updated with new plugin versions as they are released. This is to provide the maximum efficiency of the plugins (remove unneeded features) and add Minimalia-only functionality
YOU MIGHT
- Want a text editor to modify and customize WordPress template files
- Want an FTP program to upload your files
(Free options: Windows: Filezilla / Macintosh: Cyberduck) - Need Curl available on your webserver if you plan on running the Gallery part of Minimalia. Many hosts have it but you can ask if they don’t. They should put it on your server for free
- Want to use a good quality photo editor program like Photoshop to modify the included image template files, or to create your own
BUILT-IN FEATURE SET
Minimalia comes with a host of built-in features. Some notable ones include:
- Cross-browser compatible:
IE6+, Firefox 2+, Safari 2+, Opera 9+
& most versions of Camino, Flock, Shiira, Omniweb - Built-in support for featured entries, stickied
- Ajax comments, Scriptaculous effects Javascript in only 49k! new!
- Scriptaculous expanding comment textboxes
- Scriptaculous smooth ‘back to top’ link
- Support for latest FlickrRSS and Slickr Gallery with Lightbox
- Support for WordPress 2.5’s built-in Gravatars feature on comments new!
- Support for WordPress’s built-in tags feature on posts and in the archives new!
- Custom Search, 404, Archive and Category Pages
- Rounded, XHTML valid search-bar in all browsers
- Complete XHTML and CSS WW3C validation
- Post links to popular social bookmarking sites
- Works with all versions of WordPress 2.1 and higher new!
- Degrades nicely with older, non-javascript browsers
- Fast and lean code to maximize page load times and reduce server-load
DOWNLOAD & INSTALLATION
To begin, start by downloading the theme if you haven’t already here:
Minimalia WordPress Theme 1.2.1 - (411kb - 15/4/2008)
Once downloaded, unzip the folder somewhere on your computer where you’ll have easy access to it. When you unzip it, you should see the ‘Minimalia 1.2.1′ folder, and inside it four folders- ‘cache’, ‘plugins’, ‘themes’ and ‘x-No Gallery Files’.
Before we go any further, we’ll assume you already have WordPress installed and configured for these instructions.
Next, upload the ‘cache’ folder to the WordPress ‘wp-content’ directory on your webserver if it does not already exist. Make sure you CHMOD the permissions on this folder to ‘777′. If you’re not sure how to do this, read the tutorial here for assistance.
You should now see something like this in your ‘wp-content’ directory on your webserver, where ‘->’ denotes folders:
cache ->
index.php
plugins ->
themes ->
uploads ->
Once the ‘cache’ folder has been uploaded and the proper permissions set, your next task will be to upload the supported, included plugins you wish to use. Each plugin has been customized to work in a unique way with Minimalia and
The modified plugins included with the Minimalia 1.2.1 release are:
- FlickrRSS 4.0 Updated!
- Stimuli Slickr Gallery 0.6.3 Updated!
- Category Tagging 2.4
- Stimuli Lightbox 2.2.1
Next, upload the plugin files and folders within the Minimalia 1.2.1 ‘plugins’ folder to your webserver’s ‘(your wordpress path)/wp-content/plugins’ directory. You should now have all the plugins required for full functionality of this theme.
Now, upload the theme itself. Upload the entire ‘Minimalia 1.2.1/themes/minimalia’ folder on your computer to the ‘(your wordpress path)/wp-content/themes/’ directory on your webserver. Be sure to upload the folder itself, not just the files.
Next, visit your WordPress admin panel in your web browser. Navigate to the ‘Presentation’ tab, and select ‘Minimalia 1.2.1′ to become your active theme.
Congratulations, you’re now running Minimalia, without the included plugins activated.
*NOTE: This theme has not been tested with many different plugins additionally working with Minimalia’s included plugins. That said, it *should* be fine to use many of the plugins available for WordPress, with the general caveat that if the plugin has similar functionality to those which are included, they may cause problems. Plugins like Akismet, WP-Backup, and other administration functionality plugins will work fine with Minimalia.
STICKY FEATURED POSTS
To setup Sticky Featured Posts on your blog, you must first choose the category which you would like to be featured, and know it’s ID. You can find out the Category ID by clicking on the ‘Manage’ tab in your WordPress admin, then selecting the ‘Categories’ tab. You’ll see your categories listed and their respective ID’s in the left-hand column. I have for example setup a new category called ‘Featured’.
With the ID, you’ll need to now open up the index.php file inside the downloaded, unzipped ‘Minimalia 1.2.1/themes/minimalia’ theme folder on your computer. Make sure you use a plain text editor! You’ll see messages in the file about where to change the ID number, it’s pretty simple. Once you’ve finished entering your category ID into the two places in the file where they need to go you can save the file and upload it to your web-server along with the rest of the theme or overtop the current index.php file, if you’ve already updated or installed Minimalia 1.2.1.
*NOTE: Only one Sticky Featured Post will be shown at a time unless you change the ’showposts=’ value in the index.php file as well. Instuctions are included in the index.php file for this change as well.
The reason why we developed a custom implementation of Sticky Featured Posts is to limit the number of plugins which you might be running. Each one consumes server memory, and this method We’re using has the smallest footprint on your server’s database and memory allocation & usage.
PLUGIN ACTIVATION
Navigate to the ‘Plugins’ tab in your WordPress admin, and activate the ‘Category Tagging’ and ‘Lightbox 2′ plugins. No configuration is required for these plugins to work properly.
FLICKRRSS PLUGIN
For the purpose of the following tutorial we’ll assume you have a Flickr account, and are logged into it.
1.) Navigate to the ‘Plugins’ tab in your WordPress admin, and activate the FlickrRSS plugin.
2.) Navigate to the ‘Options’ tab in your WordPress admin. Choose the new FlickrRSS tab below the main tabs.
*If you know your Flickr User ID, skip step 3 and go to step 4.
3.) Select the ‘Use the IDGettr to find your id’ link. It will take you to a page on Flickr which asks for your photostream address. Enter it there and hit ‘Find’. Copy the ID you’re provided.
4.) Go back in your browser to the FlickrRSS tab in the WordPress admin and enter your ID.
5.) Select ‘Update flickrRSS’ button, and that’s it! You’ve now correctly configured the FlickrRSS plugin to display the latest photos from your Flickr account on your website.
*Recommended: follow the steps below to configure caching of your photos, which will speed up your site’s load time for each page.
6.) Scroll down to ‘Cache Settings’ on the FlickrRSS admin page. Enter in the url for your cache directory in the ‘URL’ textbox, which will look something like this:
http://www.yoursite.com/wp-content/cache/
7.) Enter in the root server path to the same directory in the ‘Full Path’ textbox. If you don’t know your root path, contact your webhost or consult your webhost’s FAQ for information about your root address. The root address is the long path from your server’s root directory to your cache folder, and might look something like this (BlueHost):
/home/USERNAME/www/wp-content/cache/
8.) Check off the ‘Use image cache’ checkbox, and select the ‘Save Settings’ box, and you’ve now successfully configured FlickrRSS on your website running Minimalia.
SLICKR GALLERY PLUGIN
For the purpose of the following tutorial we’ll assume you have a Flickr account, and are logged into it.
1.) Navigate to the ‘Plugins’ tab in your WordPress admin, and activate the ‘Slickr Gallery’ plugin.
2.) Navigate to the ‘Options’ tab in your WordPress admin, then select the ‘Slickr Gallery’ tab.
3.) Read the Slickr Gallery information, and then choose the ‘Step 1′ button to Retrieve your Flickr Permissions for Slickr Gallery.
4.) It will open a new window and follow a link to your Flickr home to authorize the plugin. If you’re not logged in you’ll have to do so.
5.) Close that window, and select the Step 2 button, which will Apply your granted permissions to Slickr Gallery on your website.
6.) You’ll see the Slickr Gallery page refresh, and now your gallery photos will be shown, along with more settings which you can specify. To use the default Minimalia settings, choose the following to correspond with the options given:
- Slickr Gallery URL: gallery/
- Show Albums: (all selected)
- Albums Per Page: 3
- Photos Per Page: 42
- Slickr Gallery Theme: Minimalia
- Widget and Hemingway Block Options: (Not Required To Modify)
7.) Choose the ‘Save Settings’ box, and you’ve now successfully configured Slickr Gallery on your website running Minimalia.
GRAVATARS PLUGIN
*As of Minimalia 1.2, the Gravatars plugin is no longer needed. Minimalia uses WordPress 2.5’s built-in support for Gravatars on comments. If you don’t want to upgrade to WordPress 2.5 right now, don’t update your copy of the Minimalia theme if you want to keep the Gravatars plugin.
CATEGORY Tagging / WPTags Archives Page Creation
By default, there is no page for the Category Tagging Plugin to create a cloud out of your categories, so you’ll either have to modify your existing Archives page to use the cloud if you wish, or create a new one. We’ll cover both here.
Obviously, you’ll have to activate the plugin first before doing the following.
MODIFY YOUR EXISTING ARCHIVE PAGE
1.) Navigate to the ‘Manage’ tab in your WordPress admin, and then select the ‘Pages’ tab.
2.) Select ‘Edit’ for your current archive page.
3.) On the post edit page, scroll down, and open the ‘Page Template’ box in the right hand hand column of post options. Choose ‘Archives’, and save your changes. You’ll now see the Category Cloud beneath whatever content you have on your Archives page.
CREATE A NEW ARCHIVE PAGE
1.) Navigate to the ‘Write’ tab in your WordPress admin, and then select the ‘Pages’ tab.
2.) Select the ‘Create a New Page’ link.
3.) Title the new page ‘Archives’ (or whatever you like), and place any text content you’d like in the page’s body content. You don’t have to put anything in their if you don’t want to, but whatever content is there will go above the Category Cloud.
4.) Scroll down, and open the ‘Page Template’ box in the right hand hand column of post options. Choose ‘Archives’, and save your changes. You’ll now see the Category Cloud beneath whatever content you have on your new Archives page.
If you do not use this plugin and wish to use WordPress’ default Tags ability, it will show up here instead of the Category Cloud if you don’t use the plugin.
If you have an older version of WordPress which does not support built-in Tags, and you don’t use the Category Cloud plugin, a list of your month archives will be shown on this template.
Release Notes (Current: 1.2.1)
The current release of Minimalia is a solid 1.2.1 version, with development originally starting months ago as a theme for matthewgood.org.
PERMALINKS
Make sure you update your permalink structure after activating this theme and its plugins. To do so, visit your WordPress admin, and select the ‘Options’ tab. Next, select the ‘Permalinks’ tab. Select ‘Update permalink structure’. Additionally, you want to change your permalinks to be more user friendly, and show names instead of numbers.
For example, on this Minimalia demo site, I use Date and name based permalinks, which looks like this for this page:
http://www.bravenewcode.com/minimalia/installation
Instead of this:
http://www.bravenewcode.com/minimalia/?p=123
*IMPORTANT*
This is required if you will be using Slickr Gallery.
NO SLICKR
If you do not plan on using the Slickr Gallery plugin, and you won’t have any gallery located at http://www.yoursite.com/gallery/, you’ll want to replace a couple theme files. Inside the minimalia_latest.zip file you’ll find a folder called ‘x-No Gallery Files’. Upload the two files inside (header.php, header_single.php) overtop the existing ones in your ‘wp-content/themes/minimalia’ directory on your webserver.
SUPPORT
If you’ve installed Minimalia and would like to give us some feedback, or have followed the installation instructions to a tee and are still having issues regarding setting up Minimalia, you can leave a comment or question below.
UPDATES & REVISION HISTORY
Tuesday, April 15th, 2:56pm EST
A new update for the theme (1.2.1) has been released, a minor revision with the addition of the new FlickrRSS 4.0 plugin. Support for Minimalia’s Lightbox features was added to the plugin, with no other modifications.
Tuesday, April 8th, 4:31pm EST
A new update for the theme (1.2) has been released, this one includes a major javascript overhaul, saving browsers 150kb of load and processing time, speeding up the theme dramatically, while preserving all affects, ajax, and the rounded search features. Support for WP Tags was added. Two plugins were updated and WordPress 2.5 compatibility added, and another removed, among other minor fixes.
Monday, March 10th, 12:31am EST
A new update for the theme (1.1.2) has been released, this one includes minor bug fixes (the Flickr image spacing issue) as well as other minor tweaks and adjustments. Additionally, futher testing reveals that this theme does not function well enough to be considered working on WordPress 2.0 or lower, so you’ll need to update to 2.1 or higher to run this theme.
Thursday, December 13th, 8:31am EST
A new version of the theme (1.1.1) with updates to the style sheets, images, and more minor bug corrections. Updating plugins will retain you current settings, so don’t worry about having to re-configure them.
**A planned future update includes support for WordPress 2.3’s built-in tags feature, and a theme administration page with style, plugin, and theme feature options for each usage.
Wednesday, November 21st, 1:28am EST
A new version of the theme (1.0.3) has been released. Please download it and install it over top of your current theme. You only need to update the themes files, not the plugins, etc- if you already have it installed.
Tuesday, October 16th, 2:59pm EST
A new version of the theme (1.0.2) has been released. Please download it and install it over top of your current theme. You only need to update the themes files, not the plugins.
Make sure you backup any custom headers, modified files, and any other files you placed in the theme directory prior to upgrading.
Sunday, October 14th, 2:26pm EST
Minimalia has been updated to version 1.0.1. The updates includes minor bug fixes and changes to the theme files. If you’re updating, just replace the theme folder on your webserver wit the one inside the zip (’Minimalia 1.0.1/themes/minimalia’).
Saturday, October 13th, 11:11am EST
A new .zip file has been uploaded of theme with a couple minor tweaks and fixes. If you’ve downloaded a version of it prior to now, please re-download a copy for your installation. If you’ve already installed Minimalia, please overwrite the theme files on your webserver with the theme files inside the zip.
REVISIONS FOR 1.2.1
- FlickrRSS 4.0 plugin support included with the theme package
- Unneeded development files stripped from the .zip
REVISIONS FOR 1.2
- New compressed & combined javascript from 200+ kb to only 49kb (faster page loading)
- Updated FlickrRSS & Slickr Gallery to most recent versions
- Compatibility with WordPress 2.5 (WP 2.1 - 2.5)
- Removed dependence on Gravatars plugin- using WordPress 2.5’s built-in capability now
- Support for WordPress’ Tags features
- Fixed a template path reference which is needed for unique installation paths
- Code clean-ups throughout the theme
REVISIONS FOR 1.1.2
- Flickr image spacing issue fixed on Firefox, Opera, and webkit-based browsers
- Minor style sheet fixes for Firefox, Safari and IE browsers
- Revised images in headers
- Spacing adjustments
REVISIONS FOR 1.1.1
- Minor style sheet fixes for All Browsers
- Small code corrections
- Revised images in headers
- Font adjustments
REVISIONS FOR 1.1
- Added a sticky featured post ability, see the new listing in the TOC for details
- Fixed the group error with the FlickrRSS plugin, it’s been updated as well
- Fixed some glitches on older versions of Safari with the Slickr gallery plugin, as well as other fixes
- Changed the single post page header font color to a dark blue
- Optimized new header images
- Minor style sheet fixes for Firefox, Safari Opera
REVISIONS FOR 1.0.3
- Added a page with comments template file - to use it, select it in the template preference on the page’s edit screen in the WordPress admin. You’ll find the template selection dropdown in the right-hand column of page options
- Several stylesheet fixes & changes for IE6 & 7
- Several stylesheet fixes & changes for Safari, Opera, Camino, etc
- Over a dozen code corrections in template files which should help with those who have installed the theme using unique directories on their webserver
- Removed all relative paths and replaced them with detected paths in php
- Fixed broken RSS link in the footer, RSS image alignment in IE
- *Ajax Comments: Those having issues with ajax comments should make sure that they CHMOD their Minimalia theme directory to at least 755. Additionally, make sure comments-ajax.php remains in the theme directory, and ajax_comments.js remains in the js folder inside the theme folder. Ajax comments does not appear to work with all languages, sorry. If anyone develops a solution for this let me know
REVISIONS FOR 1.0.2
- Made header adjustments, fixes
- Fixed paths to pages not working on some installations (*see note on permalinks above)
- Other style tweaks and adjustments for IE users
- Removed excess unneeded code and spacing to speed up the main page
REVISIONS FOR 1.0.1
- Fixed search not working on some installations
- Moved favicon.ico link in the header to look in the website’s root directory
- Stylesheet fixes for the blog header titles not positioning correctly
- Removed unnneeded images from the .zip used in development
REVISIONS FOR 1.0
- Updates to all plugins for WordPress 2.3 compatibility
- Code clean-up to speed up load times and provide better theme stability
- CSS styling and refinements
- Search-bar moved to the footer, widened
14 responses to “minimalia wordpress theme”
Feedback & Support
12:18 am
There doesn’t seem to be any provision for site registration/login… or maybe I am missing something?
12:41 am
You’re right, that’s not in the release to date. We’re working on a 2.0 version which will have a number of features that can be controlled from an admin panel, login/reg appearance is one of them. For the time being, you can place this code in the footer.php file, just below
<div id="footer">:<h3><?php if (is_user_logged_in()){ ?>
<?php wp_loginout();?> | <a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/wp-admin/profile.php">Account Profile</a>
<?php } else { ?>
<?php wp_loginout();?> | <a href="<?php bloginfo('url'); ?>/wp-register.php">Register</a>
<?php } ?>
</h3>
That will produce a ‘Login | Register’ link pair for users not logged in or registered, and a ‘Logout | Account Profile’ link pair for users who are registered and logged in. Both will be wrapped in the h3 tags, and it will be above the search bar.
You don’t have to put it there, but I think it would be a good spot for now.
6:32 pm
Hi,
Great theme thanks for making it available.
I’m trying to use it in an iframe and need to make it narrower and remove most of the image space from th header. Any ideas?
http://daybreakoc.com/index2.htm
thanks,
J
12:38 am
Hey guys,
Great theme. I’m a big fan. One thing I’m having trouble with though is getting rid of the automatic ‘more>>’ function on the index page. I would like to just have it show my entire post instead of automatically cutting it off. It also isn’t showing pictures that I link to in posts on the main index page. You have to click the actual post to see the pictures. Any ideas on how to fix? Is this possible?
Sorry if this doesn’t make sense. It’s pretty late ;)
RN
1:52 am
Thanks for this theme, it looks great.
7:25 pm
Loving the theme. I’m with Ryan above though, wondering if there’s a way to still show images without the “more” feature.
4:22 am
I just figured out that if I changed the_content_rss to the_content in the index.php file it would show images on the front page again. I already knew how to alter the parameters of the_content_rss but it hadn’t occurred to me that images wouldn’t show up when using it to call excerpts from pages as opposed to just using the_content.
Useful note you might want to add for users looking to change this feature!
I’m an illustrator so I wanted to be able to show images from the featured post (always showing my most recent work) and be able to decide if I wanted any image to show up on the rest of the page.
If you figure out another way to do this, please by all means, let me know!
2:21 am
LOVE the theme. Followed your instructions closely but have still noticed a few weird things:
1. Nothing’s hyperlinked on the main post page.
2. The “Post Meta” box is not showing up.
3. Individual post pages are being cut off with [...] almost as if they were being treated as excerpts.
4. The Tag Archive doesn’t seem to be functioning.
Are we just waiting for a new version of the theme? If so, no rush. Just wanted to make sure I did everything on my end properly.
2:26 am
Think I figured 1/2/3 out at least– had to do with a bad permalink call. Sorry for the scare!
4:50 am
Thanks a lot for this great theme. I’ve installed it the other night and with your instructions it went super smooth. One thing I had a little trouble with was finding the ID’s in wordpress. Apparantly WP changed that (removed them from view all together) in the latest version, saying the average user had no use for it. There’s a little plugin to fix that though. I think you might want to include that in your instructions. The plugin can be found here: http://www.schloebe.de/wordpress/reveal-ids-for-wp-admin-25-plugin/#english
I have a few post-setup questions though:
I’d like to modify the pages ‘main’ and ‘gallery’ but I can’t find them in the dashboard. The only page there (by default)is ‘about’. Does that mean the other two aren’t pages? It’s not much I want to do but I’m wondering if it is possible at all. I’d like if ‘main’ in the menu linked elsewhere, i.e. http://www.mydomain.com not http://www.mydomain.com/wordpress.
also I’d like to create a child page(or more, probably just the one though) for ‘gallery’. So that I could put my regular portfolio, I mean the menu item ‘portfolio’ only visible on the gallery page.
thanks in advance.
Bas.
1:48 am
Great theme! Only problem (big issue) is the “featured post” not working because it needs category tag id. Unfortunately,the new versions of Wordpress stripped ids out, and the plug-in mentioned above didnt work at all. :-/ maybe next version of this theme won’t rely on that and maybe instead on just the “featured” category NAME (instead of id number)? Just a thought.
Otherwise a thing of beauty! :)