farfromfearless
"Lemon Twist" v2.0 - Updated WordPress Theme
I've recently updated my WordPress theme - "Lemon Twist" 2.0 -- which you can see here. This release includes a number of features on top of the recently released "Lemon Twist" v1.5.
There are some significant updates to this WordPress theme, and most of the updates are intended to make the theme a little friendlier for new users to tweak and modify as they need. Some of the updates you may not notice come in the form of significant code refractoring, where I’ve optimized how components on page are rendered as well as how the typography is rendered across browsers, etc.
Perhaps the most visible addition to the theme is the sidebar where I’ve added box-toggling features through jQuery, as well as reformatted the "Recent Comments" box so the whole item is clickable.
Also, I’ve incorporated a simple feature into the comments display which allows you to quote any of the comments — there are some minor tweaks I am thinking of making to it, but it is functional and I’d like to hear what others may think of it.
I’m sure there are a half dozen other features that I’m probably forgetting to mention, but then again, most of the updates are code-based rather than design-based. I will release a build of this theme when I feel that I’ve tested it out with a live audience and tweaked the new features.
Let me know what you think!
UPDATE: As promised, I’m releasing Lemon Twist v2.0.36 theme. This is a significant update to the 1.5 and the 2.0 versions, the most current of which you see here. I’ve handled the majority of critical fixes and tweaked a number of IE6 specific bugs (not including [its lack of decent] PNG support). Here are some of the features that are available with this theme release:
- Code refactoring – I’ve made some significant improvements over how portions of the page are structure, as well as cleaning up the directory structure. You will find the root directory of this theme free of all the extraneous files such as the sidebar includes. All of the sidebar includes, style sheets, images, and JavaScript libraries are now contained in an include directory.
- Sidebar boxes now include a toggle feature to expand and collapse them — this is intended to give users some basic, temporary control over the layout. Future updates will include some persistence for the last state of each box.
- Comments — the comments portion of this theme has been modified to display the comment form at the bottom of the comments stack rather than as a sidebar box. An additional feature — the "Commentors on this Post" box — was created as a means to quickly jump to a particular comment on the page or see who has commented at a glance. Also, as I’ve mentioned earlier, there is now a feature to allow you to quote a particular comment; the implementation is rudimentary at the moment, but I will extend it further if it proves useful.
Please let me know if you find bugs and such — leave a report on this post — and I will add it to my todo list 
I hope that everyone finds this new theme fun to work with as much as I have enjoyed creating it!
Download Lemon Twist v2.0.36 here.
84 people have left comments
Christina Warren said:
Chris it looks great! I love the addition of the javascript sidebar expansion controls and it looks like the CSS problem that was presenting itself in Safari (and IE 7) unless an unordered list was in use (such as on this comment bar) has been fixed as well. Great job! The subtle typography adjustments are great too.
Oh, by the way, I figured out how to widgetize version 1.5 of the theme (and by widgetize, I mean by making all widgets look the same as the sidebar elements - though there is a CSS problem in all browsers with how the CSS displays a un-unordered list that doesn’t specifically use the ul-class tag — but that exists even if you build your own sidebar element — it’s easy to override for the default widgets). If you want the code, I can e-mail it to you. I did it more to see if I could, rather than out of any necessity (I’ve found that building my own sidebar elements is better for me because I like the flexibility), but it might be helpful to others.
Chris Murphy said:
Christina, Consam, thanks for the comments on the updated theme. It looks as if I may have inadvertently introduced some bugs with this new build (one of the annoying hazzards of generating text files on a non- unix system).
Christina, I would love to see how you generated the widgets in the sidebar. I’m sure there are some pretty nifty ways to work around the list bugs. This build uses jQuery to work around some styling issues (check out ui.js via you FF developer BST extension). Perhaps I could include you widget code with the 2.0 release?
Christina Warren said:
Chris,
I sent you an e-mail with the function and sidebar PHP file - feel free to use them if you can!
parandroid said:
It will surely become more powerful, and I am looking forward to see it as soon as possible
Chris Murphy said:
Well, I’m not sure if anyone has seen this theme in IE7; if you have you may have noticed some rather unusual characters displaying on certain components of the pages. It is also evident in FF. After a bit of hair pulling and some rather colorful word choices, I realized this was an issue not of the file encoding (UTF-8) but rather it was the result of a “feature” introduced in WordPress 2.1.x - joy.
If you are unfamiliar with some of the upgrades in WordPress, I hope I can save you some time: WordPress introduced additional features into the wp-config file which allows developers to specify encoding types supported on recent database servers. This is actually petty great, but if you are upgrading from legacy versions of WordPress, be sure to use the new version of wp-config.
In wp-config, find these lines:
1. define(’DB_CHARSET’,'utf-8′);
2. define(’DB_COLLATE’,”);
Set these values to nothing which forces WordPress to default back to Latin-1. In most cases this should fix the encoding issues and help your pages to render properly.
I do not have a deb server on m my iPod unfortunately, so I will have to wait 
David Collantes said:
Chris, the comment problem is fixed under IE 7 now, but it shows a new problem now, on the right hand side of the main box, a 5 pixels or more. Left side is also affected (main box of weblog, no coments). Also, the footer is bad as well.
The comments begining of the bubbles show all white (like the one for the weblog author) as well.
David Collantes said:
Rats! Forgot to add that “recent comments” is not translating the quotes. Also, the side boxes titles are thing and the text is not vertically centered.
I know, IE 7 is junk… but most people uses it.
Chris Murphy said:
Thanks for the heads up David, Im aware of most IE7 issues and will be fixing those on Monday 
Chris Murphy said:
I’ve solved some of the issues surrounding the display features in both IE and FF — but as David kindly pointed out, there are still some others such as the character entities which need to be addressed — especially with the new funtionality I’ve introduced into the commenting.
David Collantes said:
Looks excellent now. Waiting on the download link (just as consam). Was going to take 1.5 and start personalizing, but with 2.0 fixing the browser problems, plus adding some interesting things, I would rather wait ’till this one is out…
Good work Murphy! ^_^
Chris Murphy said:
Man, I can’t believe I forgot to deal with the search page. In any case, thanks David for pointing it out — I truly appreciate everyone who has taken the time to give me feedback
Phil said:
Great looking design. Not sure if its already been mentioned, but the PNG graphics don’t work in IE <7.
I notice you have the pngfix.js included, but this doesn’t work on background images in your css.
Best to use the “filter” hack inside the css where any PNG’s are being used
Chad said:
David Collantes said: Looks excellent now. Waiting on the download link (just as consam). Was going to take 1.5 and start personalizing, but …
Any update on the download link for these new 2.0 theme? I love the theme, and would much rather work off of the updated/patched version than off 1.5.
Please release it! THANKS!!!!
Chad said:
Chad said: David Collantes said: Looks excellent now. Waiting on the download link (just as consam). Was going to take 1.5 and …
Hi Chris! Any update on this please???
Chris Murphy said:
Just a quick update for anyone interested: I’ve wrapped up some significant fixes to the theme, and refactored the sidebar components to handle some silly layout bugs in IE6. To be clear, I have no further plans to downgrade the PNG’s used in this theme to satisfy IE6’s lack of proper PNG support. And while I understand the ramifications behind such a statement, this is me drawing a line in the sand — so to speak 
I am in the midst of completing work on a revised comment form layout which will have the form at the bottom of the comments rather than where it currently resides. This is intended to handle posts with a big collection of comments. I’ll detail some of the tweaks and how you can customize certain portions depending on your preferences.
A link for Lemon Twist v2.0 will be available by Wednesday if all goes well.
I truly appreciate everyone’s patience
Chris Murphy said:
Well here *it* is — the updated Lemon Twist theme with 95% of the fixes and updates that I mentioned before. I have a few components which I want to build later, but these are going to come in the form of sidebar includes. One of the most notable updates to this theme is the comments area of this page. I’ve opted for a three column layout for it, so it feels less constricted, and to avoid having to scroll back to the top. In place of the original comment box, I’ve created a nifty little “Commentors on This Post” box, which is essentially a list with anchors to comments. In any case, I’ll leave this live for a couple of days before releasing the source.
Special thanks to Christina Warren and David Collantes for their valuable input, and everyone else who has been very patient with me while I muck around with this theme
Chris Murphy said:
It’ll be available on Wednesday. I just want to give the opportunity for others to spot anything that I might have missed
madalin said:
I can’t wait for the 2.0 version. Also, i think i’ll help out with a romanian translation and surely i will use it on my blog. Did you ever think about a 3 column based version of this theme ?:)
Todd said:
I look forward to seeing this theme as a download! Are you going to release any of the source files? I am creating a site for our new baby on the way (our first, sept 17th, yes I am nervous and thrilled…) and was wondering if you would allow non-commercial modifications? I would only really want to add some rhinos to the logos…its part of the nickname for our last name. Thoughts?
I am REALLY impressed with the polish of your work!
Thanks,
Todd
Chris Murphy said:
madalin said: I can’t wait for the 2.0 version. Also, i think i’ll help out with a romanian translation…
Madalin, localization would certainly be appreciated I have thought of a three column version of this theme, but the proportions of the content would be quite different, but I may create a variation of my Lemon Lime theme which is a three column layout.
Todd said: I look forward to seeing this theme as a download! Are you going to release any of the source files?
Todd, I’ll be releasing the theme source tomorrow night, and if you take a look at the 1.5 release, I’ll have included the Photoshop files for you to make any modifications you might want.
Thank you both for your kind comments!
Chris Murphy said:
The new Lemon Twist v2.0.36 theme is now available for download — please see the post for an updated link to the zip file.
Before you rush off and load the theme onto your blog, please be sure to review the Readme.txt file for plugin support for the theme as well as formatting for the get_recent_comments plugin. Thanks!
Christina Warren said:
It looks great Chris! Thank you so much! I’m editing the CSS now to fit my existing scheme. Awesome, awesome work!
Christina Warren said:
One question Chris — how do I enable the JQuery functionality? I see that the JS files are included in the theme, but even if I copy them to WP_Include/JS/JQuery, I can’t seem to get the menus to work. I’m missing something, and I’m sure it is dead simple, but I’m at a loss.
I really like what you did to change the sidebar controls - it’ll make it much easier to add/organize customized sidebar elements. I might even try to see if I can get a less hackneyed widget solution working, once I get the JQuery thing working, that is.
thanks Chris!
Chris Murphy said:
Hey Christina, glad you like the updated theme as far as jQuery goes — check out the header.php file in the theme folder; it should have the following:
[script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/Lemon_Twist/includes/js/jquery-1.2.1.pack.js"][/script] [script type="text/javascript" src="http://www.yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/Lemon_Twist/includes/js/ui.js"][/script]
Where “www.yourdomain.com” reflects your domain.
The jQuery $(document).ready() method runs once the page is ready to be rendered and applies the additional functionality in “ui.js”
madalin said:
Will be switching from my current theme to this one and as soon as i’ll remove windows and install linux on my computer i’ll start translating it. This will occur in the next two days. I am able to find the plugins but not the versions you specify. Can you make an archive with all of them please and upload it anywhere ?
Thanks.
madalin said:
I just installed the theme and the plugins (latest versions of them) and somehow my pages are beeing left out. For example i have a page that is called Omul (The man) with it’s slug set to /omul/ and when i’m going to that specific page i can see the latest post along with the small older posts list. Exactly on the main page. What’s to be done ?
Oh, and also, it looks like jquery isnt working to me either even if the location is set correctly…
Chris Murphy said:
Madalin, you will need to assign one of the templates - in this case, the “about” templates - to your new page. If you create additional pages you can duplicate the “about” templates and simply rename it to “page.php” as well as the templates title at the beginning of the page (in the comment block). Ensure that you do not change the location of the jQuery library. Those files are to remain in the lemon twist directory, and not wp-includes. Also check to be sure the path to those files are being set correctly in header.php.
Chris Murphy said:
You may want to disable lightbox for the moment as I have not tested for potential conflicts with other javascript libraries, which may also be the reason you are having issues. Try the “thickbox” plugins for jQuery which should be compatible with this theme (was on my todo list).
Blogging updates… | www.ChristinaWarren.com said:
[...] radical — I’ll just be updating to the latest version of Chris Murphy’s awesome theme. Because I’ve made modifications to the color, some of the sidebar elements and other minor [...]
madalin said:
I managed it. However, i do have some posts that contain some javascript - which actually is a flash player - that i would like it to be displayed. Can you tell me how i could do that ?
P.S: Check my main page and then look at http://m.tg-jiu.ro/2008/01/21/tom-boxer-ft-anca-parghel-jamusic-timberlake-ft-europe-final-love/.
Thanks!
Lemon Twist 2.0 » Tache Madalin said:
[...] the past three days i changed my blog’s design to Lemon Twist which was created by Chris Murphy, and modified by him to suit the latest wordpress version. This [...]
Igor said:
Chris, this theme looks great. Definitely my favourite one. However, I have a little problem. I’m new to Word Press so excuse me if my question is dumb. I’ve notice that this template does not support subpages in menu, does it? Take a look here (http://zagorowski.nazwa.pl/gkg/) and notice my upper menu. Is there some easy way to fix it? I would really appreciate anyone’s help. Thanks in advance.
madalin said:
Well, no this theme doesnt support submenus. I will try to add a feature to it tough..
Andy said:
Got to say I love the theme, I am currently using it as a starter with a few minor tweaks untill I get myself sorted and organised.
You’ve now put me in a bad place, do I tweak the theme more or redesign it. As if i do any major changes/updates and you release a updated version it will be a pain to integrate.. arrgghh…….
Good work tho .
In the begining-Captured4Ever said:
[...] and I wish I could take credit for the blog theme but alas I cant, its from here. A blog I will keep my eye on in the future for updates and ideas on themes and general info on [...]
Igor said:
madalin said: Well, no this theme doesnt support submenus. I will try to add a feature to it tough..
That would be great. Let me know if you come out with something.
Chris Murphy said:
Hey folks, sorry for not getting back to you until now (life/work and such); however…
Jen, you can download the Photoshop files from a link in the original article — I’ve included nearly all of the templates you might need to edit in one zip
Andy — I think I’m flattered? LOL — in any case, check out ChristinaWarren.com for an example of a successful mod of this theme. Please feel free to modify this theme at your discretion (a link back to my site is all I require).
Igor, I am working on a sub/category/menu system (most of it is CSS), along with a handful of other components which I will release in an update later this month. I know that doesn’t help you at the moment, however, you can provide your own default styling for the sub items and still contain them in your own sidebar box for the moment
Chris
Christina Warren said:
Jorge,
I’ve pretty much got widgets working, the only problem I’m running into is getting WordPress to recognize that widget works. What I mean, is that if widgets are enabled on a different theme, those widgets will show up once you load Lemon Twist — but the widget option comes up “this theme does not support widgets” blah blah blah, I’ve got to play with it — but once that is figured out, yeah, it is pretty easy to enable. The difficult thing is setting the ul classes for formatting.
Jorge Prieto Jr said:
Is not that functions.php thing is it? I had that problem with another theme where Wordpress wouldn’t recognize that the theme could use Widgets and I just had to make a functions.php and add some function there. After that, Wordpress recognized that the theme could use widgets without problems. Getting the widgets to work was another problem altogether.
Where could I get you widgetized version of the theme, Christina?
Christina Warren said:
No, the functions file has been edited, that’s not the problem. The only thing I can think of is that the function that controls the various sidebar elements (like widgets, but not) in the new version of the theme is conflicting with WordPress being able to “recognize” the theme as widgetized. As soon as I figure out how to get widgets working, I’ll e-mail Chris and see if he can post a link on his site with the info (I’ll be happy to host any of the files myself) and post a comment back here.
Chris Murphy said:
Hey folks, I’ve been seeing a fair amount of chatter regarding widgetization for this theme — and as of the last version I have not included it for a couple of reasons; chief amongst those reasons is what I feel is WordPress’s in-elegant implementation of widgets in general. Christina Warren was kind enough to provide me with the basis of the widgetization code and I’ve been building on an implementation that works with this theme. To be clear, it will be an optional include in this theme until it is stable enough to be released as an integrated feature. I’m not going to go into too much detail about it, but suffice to say that it may have persistent Drag’n'Drop capabilities for your users.
Jorge Prieto Jr said:
Well, I was able to widgetize your theme with a bit of tinkering. I think the main thing to do, now would be to format everything properly. Check out how it’s looking, so far, at my newbie blog: http://www.noggaddicts.com
Jorge Prieto Jr said:
I ended up taking off every sidebar element except for Search. Every item below that is a widget after formatting and whatnot. It needs a little more tweaking and that calendar is hideous but I think it’s coming along nicely.
Jorge Prieto Jr said:
After getting the widgets working and formatted a little better, I noticed that, somehow, the single article page was broken. I narrowed it down to the “Recent Posts” widget. After a lot of troubleshooting, I found that the single.php needed some tweaks.
I also made a sidebar.php that all the pages include to keep the same sidebar throughout the site and make maintenance easier. Although I realize that you probably made the sidebar different for each page deliberately.
Now, keep in mind that the extent of my experience with coding for Wordpress is about two days of just experimenting and reading. So, I’m sure more experienced folk can come up with cleaner and more efficient ways of doing what I’ve done.
Just let me know if you want my code.
Jam said:
Hi!
I’ve been looking for a good theme for my health blog (http://healthblog.jammedph.com) for months now but couldn’t find one. Gladly, I saw your theme lemon twist in Smashing Magazine. And I think this theme suits perfectly for my blog. I will definitely use it. My problem though is the header. I want to change the text to The Health Blog, instead of Far From Fearless. Could you make me one, if it’s not too much to ask.
Thanks!
Jam
Jam said:
By the way, the contact form is not working. It keeps saying that a malicious code is detected (HTML is not allowed) when I did not put any html code in my message.
consam said:
Very nice!!! Ths!!! Waiting for the 2.0 download link