Want to add a custom background to your theme and learn about using the custom stylesheet in the process? Check out the custom background tutorial in the Thesis user’s guide, and get your style on!
The current Thesis version is 1.6.
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Solving the fundamental problems of website development and design
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Eric — The Thesis image rotator is only “intelligent” if your images fit the aspect ratios outlined in the Thesis launch post. The two images you have that aren’t rendering correctly do not fit any of the pre-defined aspect ratios, so they render in their default size. Right now, you have two choices for workarounds:
While looking at your site, I noticed that your sidebars are a little wonky. In particular, your search boxes are behaving strangely because you can only use 1 instance of the default search widget between both sidebars. Right now, you’ve got a search widget in both sidebar 1 and sidebar 2. This is causing the search box to render in sidebar 1 but not in sidebar 2 (underneath the “Search this Site” heading).
Finally, your Google search widget is something I’ve not encountered on the WordPress Widget interface before. Have you installed a plugin to add Google Custom Search functionality? If so, you should delete it, simply because Thesis 1.0 provides you with a “Google Custom Search” widget that you can use instead (if you like).
If not, simply remove that widget from your sidebar, and it will disappear. Also, keep in mind that working with the WordPress Widget interface is an annoying, imperfect art. The interface itself is horrible, and oftentimes, people find themselves making changes to the wrong sidebars and/or not saving their changes. Again, I don’t think this is the fault of the user—crappy interfaces produce crappy results.
Chris,
A HUGE THANKS for your rapid responses to my questions. My site looks like I want it to and it functions the way I want it to. You have helped a ton and I really appreciate it. You are a man of your word and that is an important thing. I can only imagine how many e-mails you recieve daily and your dedication to Thesis and supporting us makes you a special dude. THANKS A TON FOR YOUR HELP!
Eric — Hey, it’s my pleasure! I’m just thankful for the opportunity to help more people through a framework like Thesis.
Chris,
I’m about to go insane – Under ‘Link Catagories’ in the dashboard, I added a new catagory. I then went to change it because I didn’t like the title. Instead of deleting the new link catagory that I had just created, I accidently deleted the first catagory on the link catagory list.
The first catagory in the link catagory section is now blank showing posts without a link catagory title and all the other catogories I have in are listed are below the blank one. Posts are being sent to the blank catagory (first on the list). Since then, my posts are showing up all over the place. It’s as if my links don’t know where to go as the parent in the Links Catagory section is there, but blank. I can’t get around this. Any suggestions?
Eric — I’m not sure I understand your issue entirely, but it looks as though you may have edited both your link categories and your post categories. The WordPress dashboard does a poor job of separating the two adequately (IMO), so it seems likely that you may have simply not realized which categories you were editing.
Did you manage to get this resolved?
Chris,
When I click on one of my catagories, say, “Instruction,” can specific blogs tagged under Instruction be posted under ‘Instruction’ in a new window? When I click a catagory, my ‘recent posts’ show up instead of specific posts assigned to specific catagories.
I’d love for this to work. Is it possible? Any suggestions?
Thanks man
Chris,
You can disregard my question on ‘Notes and Alerts’ I found the difference in the coloring by typing either Note or Alert. Thanks man. Hopefully, I beat you to the punch in responding to this question, saving you some time.
Eric — That type of thing is possible, but it would require the creation of a clever custom function to pull it off. This type of thing may find its way into the theme in the future, but for now, it’s something that has to be handled by the users.
Works Great!
Hi there –
I’ve a problem with my Custom.css – I’m using this:
body.custom {
background: #8db6b6 url(’images/background.gif’) 50% 0 repeat;
}
and have tried… repeat-y / repeat-x…. but no luck, my background image just does not repeat!? (see: http://www.myfriendshotel.com/blog – scoll to bottom pf page). Can anyone help me please?…
Thanks very much.
Pete – otherwise I’m lovin’ it and enjoying the freedom to be creative, ot try!
Hi does this template have options for ads, link buttons or banners, and ad space? It looks and sounds awesome but I blog and I need a template I can put money making stuff on…..thanks, Daniel
Daniel — You can leverage the available space on the theme in various ways to incorporate ads, affiliate pitches, and other monetization vehicles. I highly recommend taking a practical look at making money with Thesis, especially since some of the methods described in that article are somewhat non-intuitive, but highly effective nonetheless.
I am having trouble with changing the background using the set of predefinded backgrounds, but am unable to get it to work.
I have opened up the custombackground css sheet and have tried copying and pasting the required code into the custom style sheet, but nothing happens and Im wondering what Im doing wrong.
Is this the exact code I have to paste for set 1? –
body.custom {
background: #8db6b6 url(’images/bg-ocean.jpg’) 50% 0 no-repeat;
}
.custom #container {
margin-top: 2em;
margin-bottom: 2em;
}
.custom #page {
background: #fff;
}
Do I just add this code to the bottom of the custom.css sheet? Does it need to be place within any tags? Ive tried a few combinations,, but nothing seems to work.
Chris,
I’m pretty new to this, and am having similar problems as others in applying the custom css style sheets. I’ve copied the codes into the customer css file and saved them, but the styles are not being applied.
Any help would be appreciated!
Guys the only reason you are still waiting for an answer is because you have decided not to post in the forums for help. By the way why is the font so small here?
I posted this question in the forums and am trying to be patient (I did it like, um, five minutes ago) but I thought I’d mention a couple of things from a non-coder perspective.
The custom background tutorial says that header.php should have the following html in it:
But in Thesis 1.3.1, those elements aren’t in the header.php file. I added them manually, and then proceeded with the tutorial, but the result is still not correct. There’s now a grey background and a white page, but the margins are totally wrong.
May need to update that tutorial? Or clarify some of this?
I love Thesis, and appreciate how much I can customize even being a non-coder. But I really, really want to be able to customize.
the html elements (of course) didn’t show up in my comment above. Here they are:
body class=”custom”
div id=”container”
div id=”page”
Myg — That tutorial needs to be updated for Thesis 1.3+, and if you’ve added anything to your
header.phpfile, you should take that out now. All you have to do is add the appropriate CSS to your custom stylesheet—you won’t have to add any HTML at all.Thank you Chris.
I actually just figured out what I had done wrong. I had ticked “full width framework” instead of “page width framework” under Design Options. That’s probably the only update you need in the tutorial – make sure people like me (who know jack about coding) realize they need to use the page width framework in order for the custom background to work. Otherwise, there’s no background! Sounds obvious enough, but sadly for me it wasn’t.
When I changed that and took that extra code out of header.php, all was well!
Now I’m all pro with Thesis – http://wisermom.org
Thanks for a great theme.
Hello Thesis creators…
I am interested in using the Thesis theme for my existing wordpress site. I have some questions before I make my final decision. Can you contact me by email so I can discuss certain aspects that I want to know before I make the switch to my already active site.
My email address is : chuck@rebeltraders.net
Kind Regards,
Charles Young
President Rebel Systems LLC
Charles — Please direct all pre-sale questions to diythemes [at] gmail [dot] com. Thanks!
Thanks for your hard work. Great stuff!
Chris,
I noticed that when I click the “About” page on your site, the header within the post says, “About the thesis theme.”
If you go onto my site and click “About” in the Nav menu, you will see the word “About” as the header above my personal information.
How can I write whatever I want to for a title of a post without that same title showing up in the Nav menu when creating a page? For example, I want the Nav menu to say “About,” but I when someone clicks to view that page, I want them to read a different heading other than “About” which is in the Nav menu. What if I wanted it to say “About Me” in the header of the post? How do I do that?
Suggestions?
Thanks
I am trying to figure out how to tile an image for the background, so far…. no luck. I did as you may note get the bg color to change. However, I know it’s not the way the tutorial suggested.
Michaela
Here’s what I did to change the bg color.. I know, not correct… Secondly, I want to use my own image to tile in the background. So, do I upload it into the folder where the other custom images are? Please help. I really want to understand this stuff
body.custom {
background: #C35617 url(’images/images/bg-ocean.jpg’) 50% 0 no-repeat;
}
.custom #container {
margin-top: 2em;
margin-bottom: 2em;
}
.custom #page {
background: #fff;
Hello,
Question please?
Am I able to build websites and sell them using the thesis developers option?
Excuse the ignorance I mean if i can build a website for my local butcher(on thesis) and he pays me?
Thanks in Advance Alan
I’m about to build a website using the Chinese language, can thesis handle this as I’ll be using wordpress 2.7.1, Chinese language version. I’m assuming it’s language independent as it is more a design tool than a content tool. Is this correct?
The download link for the custom background files tells me it’s corrupted.
Chris,
I volunteer as Webmaster for a nonprofit historical maritime museum in Sausalito. We have a number of blogs that use WordPress and I’d love to use Thesis. We operate on a shoestring, especially these days. Do you offer a nonprofit discount for the Developer’s Option? We’d promote Thesis with credit on our site and links.
Thanks, Rod
Hi there, I’m a newcomer to Thesis and Wordpress. Just downloaded both and have them installed. I’m having A TON of trouble uploading a custom header/masthead on the page. Can anyone give me some tips on this? Or could you redirect me to a Web site with a good tutorial (I can’t find one!) that is good for people who aren’t tech savvy? Editing code scares me.
I wish there was an easy way to upload a new masthead/header in the dashboard area, and frankly, I’m surprised that there isn’t! Any help would be GREATLY appreciated.
It would be nice if this tutorial could be updated to Thesis 1.5 because copying and pasting custom image background code does not work at all for me. I’ve followed all the steps and still no image.
Hi. I’m interested in purchasing Thesis but am fairly new to the blog side of life. Will I be able to customize it “before” making it live on my blog or do I have to make the switch and quickly go through and make changes as quickly as possible? I’m trying to keep from having visitors seeing my mess of the change over if I can. Thanks so much. Looking forward to learning more.
Lovin the theme! My biggest headache with WP themes is getting a contact form, newletter sign-up, etc to work properly!
How is Thesis with adding contact forms???
If easy enough, I might just have to buy! Thanks!
Hi,
I am looking to get a Thesis theme
but was wondering if they were compatible with the Apple Mac
and would I be able to download it onto my computer,
I have downloaded a few free ones but with no success.
regards
Jean Nash
Followed instructions for custom backgrounds – even watched the video tutorial… When I copy and paste ‘Set 1′ from the Background Startup Kit, I should get a dark background with a white page and some sort of border. Instead, I get one solid dark khaki-ish green across the board. All the other coding I’ve found on other tutorial sites give me the same problem. Can you tell me what I’m doing wrong? I’ve successfully managed to use the custom.css for other things… but this background thing is about to kill me. Thanks.
Is there anywhere to send in a question? I can’t find a contact link and have a couple of things I need to clarify before I purchase this and I can’t really find anything about them in the documentation.
Thanks.
Chris,
When I insert the following code into my custom.css file, the background is the only thing that changes. The .custom #container and .custom #page values don’t seem to be controlling anything on the page. Am i doing something wrong?
body.custom {
background: #44443f;
}
.custom #container {
margin-top: 2em;
margin-bottom: 2em;
padding: 0.3em;
background: #33332f;
border: 0.4em solid #3e3e3a;
}
.custom #page {
background: #fff;
}
Thanks for the info. I’m in the process of shopping around and Thesis looks like my best option. I’ve got several clients, including myself, that this looks like the best of all worlds. I’m actually looking at putting a “watermark” on the page, almost like the WordPress logo on their site. Thanks again!
Hello
I have a huge question,maybe you already addressed it, but i just didnt get it.. I am new in thesis wordpress, and i selected a template, with a orinetal leave.. i just want to change the background image.. I created an image exactly the same size as the original one, but i dont know where it is the CSS code to replace it.. I have it in my server but i dont know how or where to change it. Please help me
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