Deconstruction of TwentyTen theme to bare minimum

1. Via the child’s stylesheet. You may have to over-write all of classes that specified font families in the parent’s stylesheet.

2. I think the only way to do this is to create the appropriate template files (page.php, archive.php etc) in the child theme – without the <?php get_sidebar(); ?> call.

3. If you don’t call the sidebar, you won’t have a search form. Other than that, I’m not sure what you’re asking for.

4. I don’t think it matters if the quote container is being positioned absolutely. From an SEO perspective, placing it just before the footer in the markup would probably offer some advantages.

Thanks for the speedy reply esmi!

1. In the parent style.css I found the following chunk of code:

/* =Fonts
-------------------------------------------------------------- */
body,
input,
textarea,
.page-title span,
.pingback a.url {
	font-family: Georgia, "Bitstream Charter", serif;
}

h3#comments-title,
h3#reply-title,
#access .menu,
#access div.menu ul,
#cancel-comment-reply-link,
.form-allowed-tags,
#site-info,
#site-title,
#wp-calendar,
.comment-meta,
.comment-body tr th,
.comment-body thead th,
.entry-content label,
.entry-content tr th,
.entry-content thead th,
.entry-meta,
.entry-title,
.entry-utility,
#respond label,
.navigation,
.page-title,
.pingback p,
.reply,
.widget-title,
.wp-caption-text,
input[type=submit]
{
	font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Arial, Helvetica, "Nimbus Sans L", sans-serif;
}
pre {
	font-family: "Courier 10 Pitch", Courier, monospace;
}
code {
	font-family: Monaco, Consolas, "Andale Mono", "DejaVu Sans Mono", monospace;
}

I pasted this into the child style.css, and replaced every font family specification to Monaco,Lucida Console,monospace; and there was no difference at all. Is there anything else in the parent style.css I am missing?

2. Sounds easy enough, that shouldn’t be a problem ??

3. Sounds like the should do the trick

4. So, you’re saying I can put the quote in the footer, but position it absolutely on the top of the page? Interesting solution, thanks!

Thank you!

As a follow up, I have removed all traces of

<?php get_sidebar(); ?>

I still have the “Search” options there though. Hmmm. This is a fiddly child! Any ideas?

This is how it’s looking so far.

https://visualcontinuity.co.uk/dev/reel/rtfwp/

Thanks!

1. Can you confirm that your child is picking up its stylesheet correctly?

4. That just one way of approaching it. There are many possible methods depending upon whether you want to use absolute positioning or not.

With regard to that search form – it’s in 404.php. Make a copy in your child and remove <?php get_search_form(); ?>.

Thanks for getting back to me.

1. I’m pretty certain the child is picking up the style sheet. This is line 7 of my main.css
@import url('../twentyten/style.css');

4. I had already removed <?php get_search_form(); ?> from 404.php

This is how it’s looking so far

<?php get_header(); ?>

<div id="main-content">

	<h2>Error 404 - Not Found</h2>

</div>

<?php get_footer(); ?>

What am I doing wrong?

1. Have you validated the child stylesheet? Or checked the css being applied to the generated pages using an add-on like Firebug for Firefox?

4. What about removing it from loop.php?

1. What’s interesting is that I cannot edit style.css in firebug for some reason.

I have found that I can play about with the menus in index.php though. I’m torn between persevering with this theme, or going back to the more simple Lines & Boxes theme. The pickle here is that I am new to this, I am not sure of the benefits of either, so unable to make a judgement on “personal preference” at this stage.

4. loop-author.php is the only loop file there and there is no <?php get_search_form(); ?>

Not sure if I’m crossing the lines of forum help here, but do you have Skype at all? ??

Thanks very much for your help so far!

I meant index.html not index.php!

Sorry – I don’t use Skype.

In my copy (version 1.1) of TwentyTen’s loop.php file, <?php get_search_form(); ?> occurs in line 36 – so near the top of the file. Remember, you need to look in the parent theme – not your child (there’s no loop-author.php in TwentyTen) – and copy loop.php across to your child theme. Then edit it.

Not sure why you can’t edit the stylesheet in Firebug. Do you have any javascript in the child theme or have you installed any plugins that might cause the CSS to continually refresh in Firebug?

Personally, I’d recommend sticking with the TwentyTen child theme. I think child themes are going to be become a much more significant feature in WordPress generally and a child based on TwentyTen has all the benefits of being upgraded by the www.remarpro.com development team on a regular basis.

Nope, haven’t installed any plugins.

I REALLY want to use twentyten as a parent file, but I’m running out of time (9 days left for my deadline).

Not sure if you have heard of Sandbox, https://www.plaintxt.org/themes/sandbox/ But so far, it seems like a really simple way of getting what I am after. My head is spinning after this day!

Thank you once again!

I’ve heard of Sandbox but have never used it myself. Another good (free) theme framework is Thematic but there’s still quite a learning curve involved with both frameworks.

Um – where’s this index.html file? WP only uses .php files.

Just a thought, there is code in sidebar.php that will populate the sidebar with default widgets including the search, if you have not populated the sidebar.

There are also many calls “404” in other files that will return the search in the pages, archive.php, loop.php, page.php, search.php, 404.php, and sidebar.php, copy all these files to the child themes folder and edit the search out as required.

HTH

David

B.T.W. I prefer to develop on a local install so I can edit the files in real time, if you have windows then something like WAMP has easy installs.

@esmi I really don’t why I wrote that. I can’t find the file I was talking about. Must have been index.php all along. Clearly I am out of my comfort zone of working with InDesign/Illustrator etc. Thanks for the link to Thematic. It’s actually based on Sandbox. What appealed to me about Sandbox is that there is not much php involved so it’s mainly a CSS job. Thematic should be the same I imagine?

@adeptris. Thanks, I’ve had a wee look at some of those files, I found a call to 404 in the loop.php file. I’m getting my fingers in about 3 themes right now, which is a bit chaotic. I really appreciate all this help from everyone, but I understand that there is not one strict solution to this.

If Thematic only requires css to modify it, I may go along with this or stick to sandbox. You can see by my visuals that the final site will not really be that complicated at all (will it?).

https://visualcontinuity.co.uk/dev/reel/rtfwp/wp-forum/RTF.jpg

Any thoughts?

Thanks!

You can modify Thematic using just CSS but when you want to get in a little deeper, it offers a lot more in the way of templating flexibility.

Another theme you might want to have a look at – especially when you’re on a tight deadline – is Suffusion. Aimed more at the experienced end user rather than developers but still very customisable. Exceptionally well supported too.

Thanks esmi, I’ll check that out. No doubt I’ll be posting back here in a couple of hours with another issue!

Really appreciate your help!