Update May 26, 2006: Whipped up a new version without LiveSearch or Live Commenting.
Due to popular demand (
) I’ve wrapped up the theme I’ve been working on over the past week into a nice little zip file and putting it up for downloading. Hemmed is based off of the Hemingway theme but is a fixed width and adds a small sidebar. It’s now white, gray and blue. I loved Hemingway’s bottom bar which I decided I just had to have. I’ve stripped away the administrator options stuff however. I honestly didn’t feel like tackling that whole part of theming just yet and I needed something quickly for my site redesign. In any case, I may add it back in later on, but for now what I’ve got is working well for me.

The theme is optimized for 800×600 resolution screens and requires a plugin to make it look as good as it can. The LiveSearch sort of broke my XHTML validity, as the autocomplete attribute is, well, not actually a real attribute. That’s the only error I get.
Since the main page uses excerpts, with the default excerpt function, html tags will not be parsed. As a result, any styling you may have for the post content will not show up in your excerpt. This is somewhat problematic, especially if you’ve got lists, links, and whatever else near the top of your post. It just doesn’t look good! Consequently, I’d recommend using the plugin the_excerpt reloaded to get around this little problem. The index.php file will use the_excerpt_reloaded function if it exists (will only exist after you activate the plugin) or revert to the default the_excerpt otherwise.
Another plugin which is useful is the recent comments plugin. There is an if clause in the sidebar.php (really the bottombar) which will enable the block to display recent comments if this plugin is installed. Be aware that you can only fit three modules into the bottom bar for now. I plan on working around that limitation later on. So you can get a view of the demo right here.
The stuff you will definitely need is right here:
I’ve created a new version for the people who have problems with the AJAX features working properly. Hopefully this will fix those issues.
Additionally, if you want those two plugins mentioned above (I’d strongly recommend it), you can get them here:
The Excerpt Reloaded
Recent Comments
If you’ve got any questions or issues with the theme, feel free to leave a comment.
[tags]wordpress theme, hemingway[/tags]
Great theme! Nice design.
Great theme, but a couple of issues:
1. A scripting error when viewed in IE
2. I have link categories but all the links from all categories just get lumed together in the “Light Reading” footer section.
Hope you can fix these up as I’d love to use this theme!
Yeah, that scripting error. I’m not too familiar with JS to be honest and it seems to be a problem with the Live Comments. So I’m too sure how much I can do there aside from taking it out…
As for the link categories, I will definitely have a look at that. I may have to redo that light reading section, since well, at the moment it’s a static header with all the links.
Thanks for the input!
Alright, I think I got the multi-category links at the bottom working now. However, it did expose one other issue. Since I had never nested any lists, my stylesheet didn’t take into account if you have nested lists. At that point the borders get a little quirky looking. I’ll have to fix that as well.
Cool…I’m sure there’s some JS expert out there who can help you out!
Hi,
thanks for the great theme. i found it yesterday and i uploaded and activated it right away. awesome. one little question is left.
how do i get the text next to the uploaded picture in the post?
the old theme showed the text next to the pic and still does when i switch back. any idea?
thanks a lot again,
mike
hi, i’m sorry but i just found the solution for my question. all i needed to do is set the aglinment of the picture to ‘left’ and the result is was i want. so sorry for the silly question.
have a nice eastern,
mike
This theme is beautiful – just what I’ve been looking for. I wanted something which combined the “traditional” blog format but which incorporated the great footer. Thanks!
Good work! Thanks.
Hi, this is great theme. But I want disable the ajax comment. Can I use normal comment without ajax? How do it? Thanks
If you replace the comment form with the default comment form, you should be able to get the original commenting system back. So replace this:
With this:
Of course, there’s some other code in there such as loading and error divs which you can remove since you won’t see those anymore. As well, in the head of the header.php, you can remove the references to the javascript files for the live commenting. That would be the prototype.js.php, effects.js.php, and ajax_comments.js. Those files can then be deleted from your server as well.
I haven’t thoroughly tested to see if that removes everything, but it definitely should work, although the code may be a bit messier than before. (probably some things I’ve forgotten to remove) Give me a shout if something goes wrong. I suggest a backup of the original before you start.
Hi Charlie, Thanks for your reply. I have done as you said, but it’s seen no work. you may take a look my site. Thanks
Hi Charlie, It’s done! Thanks a lot. Have a great-day!
Hi,
Nice theme. Why do you think these appear on the top of the page though:
Warning: main(): Unable to access detectbrowser.php in /home/customers/kompassi/public_html/blogi/wp-content/themes/hemmed/header.php on line 46
Warning: main(detectbrowser.php): failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/customers/kompassi/public_html/blogi/wp-content/themes/hemmed/header.php on line 46
Warning: main(): Failed opening ‘detectbrowser.php’ for inclusion (include_path=”) in /home/customers/kompassi/public_html/blogi/wp-content/themes/hemmed/header.php on line 46
Hmm, so this theme uses live commenting? I’ll need to test this with coComment to make sure it sends the comment to my account properly. I have heard of people having trouble submitting to coComment when Live Commenting was used…
Nope, it didn’t work. Meh. I guess I will have to mod out the Live Commenting to use this theme. ;P
Wow, I love this theme! I’ve been theme-hunting the past few days, along with appropriate plugins to enhance it (some plugins go better with some themes than others…) and this one is just perfect!
By the way, I found a slight fix that should be placed in livesearch.js.php, line 38 should be changed from:
document.getElementById('livesearch').attachEvent('onkeydown',liveSearchKeyPress);
to:
lsElement = document.getElementById('livesearch');
if(lsElement != null)
{
lsElement.attachEvent('onkeydown',liveSearchKeyPress);
}
This keeps IE quiet when the ‘livesearch’ ID element isn’t found, which it won’t be because the livesearch search box isn’t being used.
I’m actually posting to ask another question though: If I wanted to make the theme wider, either a) to have a fluid center width of say 80% or b) to simply make it 800px wide, what should I change?
In short: Loving this theme.
I really enjoy the Hemingway page layout, but I wanted something with a fixed with, and not so dark and gloomy. Hemmed is right on the money. Thanks for making this!
Incredible theme… thanks a lot!
IS there a way to edit the page info displayed on the left for each page?
Keith: You can, but not for individual pages. You can only modify what the template uses in general for that area. Find the single.php file and look for a div with the id “infomenu”. That’s where the details are found.
I came across this theme after reading one of my bookmarked blogs. I’m actually strongly considering changing my blog’s current theme to this one!
Just a question, though: I kinda don’t like the idea of the search button being at the upper right, especially if I input my own header graphic. I’ve been experimenting with a “test” blog trying to get the search button to appear on the sidebar after Archives, but no dice so far.
How can I make that happen?
Thanks for the great Hemmed template. I am looking for a new one for my WP blog and yours should do me fine.
the recent comments plugin website is not availabe anymore. can you email me the plugin???
Hmmm, the site to the Recent Comments plugin seems to be working for me. Perhaps it was down when you tried to access it.
I love this template! It’s very clean and very quickly to load. The simplicity is superb.
How do I display links to the previous pages?
Charlie: Tried to contact you by email to no avail.
Just wanted to let you know that I built a theme on top of Hemmed called “Ahem” (how original!). Take a peek if you get a chance, and thanks for the great theme!
i’m very impressed, like it plenny
check out my use for it… i wish there’s was a bottombar widgets option on the dashboard to choose what goes on the bottom in a simpler way, but i managed to hack what i needed… awesome overall…
Really liking the theme. Came across is at another site and followed the footer link here.
Actually, really like the theme of this site too. Simple, clean, non distracting. Cheers-Grace
Hi,
I actually just installed the theme on another site, and I was able to fix the index so it doesn’t show excerpts, but it shows 4 posts, and I only want to show 1 post. I tried to reset the settings in the reading tab to show 1 post, but it won’t take. Is there any code I need to adjust?
I love this template! It’s very clean and very quickly to load. The simplicity is superb.
These templates should be posted on the main wordpress site. I bet a lot of people would download and use this and your many other great templates.