The Quick Plugin Theme
In order to support the plugins on this site I developed a theme I could use to do my testing. It proved so versatile and easy to modify I use it as a starter theme on just about all my WordPress projects.
This is not a theme that will make you go WOW!
It’s not one of these fancy drag and drop themes and it’s not full of clever doodahs, what you do get is a light, robust and very adaptable theme with most of the features you need to set up and launch a WordPress site. All you need to do is play with the CSS to make it a wow theme.
So What does it look like?
You are looking at it. It was also used here: blinkimage.com and here: imagesofplaces.co.uk and here: debtadvocate.co.uk
Among its many features you get:
- Fully responsive CSS
- Logo and Header Settings
- Background Colours and Images
- Social Media Icons
- Google fonts
- Analytics code editor
- Option to display blog as a grid
- Lots of widget areas
- Site configuration function that builds pages and menus
- Built in SEO editing (that looks like this)
And because its not one of those complicated WYSIWYG themes editing the CSS to change the layout is a doddle.
Site Setup
When you activate the theme you get a bunch of setup options. This includes: basic WordPress configuration, plugin installation, customizer and theme settings.
The WordPress Customizer
I’ve only recently discovered the power of the WordPress Customizer. An awesome bit of code that lets you make live updates to your site. When you are logged in to your site just click on the customize link in the admin bar:
This will take you to the customizer where you can now change a whole range of settings:
And because the customizer knows which page you are on it displays settings appropriate for that page. This for example is the widget settings for the home page:
And these are the widgets for the blog page:
Theme Settings
The theme settings are options for the engine that drives the sitew. It includes things like analytics, header content, social media, comment noticiations and SEO.
This is the general settings page where you can add your analytics code
(no need for a plugin) :
Adding social media icons:
Image control:
Image control demo:
All easy peasy to edit and update.
Been playing with your Aerin theme and looks good and simple. However on smaller mobile screen if there is a sub-menu, it doesnt show. Perhaps there is something I have missed in the settings
Hi AJM,
I turned dropdowns off on small screens because they are often awkward to use. If you want them back find this line in the stylesheet and delete it:
nav ul ul li,nav ul ul li a {display:none}
You will then have to do some fiddling with the styling so they display properly but it’s not amojor hastle. If I have some time later I’ll add a page explaining how to do it. At the moment I’m busy playing with the funky new blog layout settings.
That took less time than I thought. If you look at the site on a phone you will see the dropdown working on the ‘Event Manager’ link. I’ve updated the theme so the dropdowns are now included in the zipped download. If you want to do it yourself here are the instructions:
1. Delete the line: nav ul ul li,nav ul ul li a {display:none}
2. Insert a new line after the nav li:hover style
3. Add the following style: nav ul ul li,nav ul ul li a {width:100%;border:none;opacity: 1;filter: alpha(opacity=100);}
Hi I really like your Aerin theme. One thing I can’t figure out is why you don’t put the sidebar below the main content when the theme resizes to a mobile device. By putting the main content side by side with the right side bar, the main content becomes a skinny strip of words that requires a lot of scrolling. I guess I shouldn’t complain since the theme is free, but is there an easy workaround? Thanks
Hi Sean,
Pleased you like the theme – I’ve got an update with some new features and widgets if you are interested. The sidebar thing is easily fixed. In the CSS there are some @media styles. The sidebar slides down below the main content on 320px wide screens. All you need to do is change these settings. I might have another look at this as most modern phones do have higher resolutions.