With my stupid actions of last weekend where I deleted all the themes for my blog in one swift click of the mouse I settled on Chaotic Soul. I am really happy with the look of the theme (as seen right now).
For a while I have been toying with the idea of creating a wordpress theme for photoblogging and on Friday decided to try and create something to match Chaotic Soul. For the most part I have managed it. My photo blog now has a funky photoblog theme that kind of matches this blog. I have called it YAPT which stands for Yet Another Photoblog Theme. It shows one post per page, has a maximum width for images of 740 pixels and, most importantly (!) has a black background.
I still have a couple of issues though. The main problem is that when “reading options” is set to show only one post the index works beautifully. When a reader views the archives pages though, that also only shows one post. Not exactly useful eh!
IfElse posted a solution for showing only one post but this breaks the next/previous links at the top. I have spent ages trying to find a fix for this but nothing so far. :(
Anyway, have a look and tell me what you think. Constructive criticism is always welcome. When the theme is complete I will release it for public consumption.
#1 by Donncha O Caoimh on December 4th, 2006
The one thing that annoys me about that is the next and previous links go to /page/X/ instead of the permalink of the post. There has to be a better way of doing it.
What I would is:
Front page shows the last photo and description on the left, and maybe 10 or so thumbnails on the right.
Then underneath will be the last post from my Words category, because I like writing about photography, as well as posting photos.
Then, if the user clicks a button, the page becomes like a normal blog with several posts.
It should be possible to do with a little Javascript and CSS trickery but I find myself too busy with other things to work on it.
#2 by Collin on December 4th, 2006
Hi Donncha, thanks for the comment.
I agree there has to be a better way for the permalinks. I’ve seen it done in other blogs so it has to be possible.
The CSS side of it shouldn’t be a problem, just move the sidebar to the right and put the navigation into the footer. The problem is going to be how to generate the thumbnails. I was trying to achieve a photoblog with no external plugins. Like you say though, JS should do the job.
I think I’ll o do some investigation. :)
#3 by Collin on December 4th, 2006
Haha! I might have a solution for the thumbnails! ;)
#4 by Daze on December 5th, 2006
Mm yes nice. I really must skin my blog again from scratch!
#5 by Eric on December 14th, 2006
Hm, I think I have a solution for making your previous button links directly to your previous image permalink rather than the previous page. Please check my photoblog and see if there’s anything you like there, if any :)