If you’ve been here before, you’ll notice that WhyPad has a new look. Hopefully a better look, but certainly new. The new theme is called Contender, and is based on the venerable Kubrick. I am releasing it here under the GPL for your blogging pleasure. There’s no need for a demo site. What you’re seeing here at WhyPad is pretty much what you get in the download.
Contender was built with SEO and speed in mind. A lot of the new theme platforms today give you tons of flexibility, but that can come at the price of extra includes and queries. Contender tries to give you what you need with a minimum of fuss. Check out the readme.txt file in the download for tips on how to further customize the theme.
Theme Highlights
- 3 Columns (2 right sidebars)
- Widget ready for 2 sidebars
- AdSense ready (just add your AdSense code to included files)
- Easy to switch to Gravatar for the top info box on the sidebar (just uncomment the code and comment out the other photo)
- Licensed under the GPL
- You can remove the footer link back to WhyPad, but it’d be nice if you left it.
Download
If you find any glitches, let me know. I’d like to keep it updated as much as possible.
Enjoy!
Byron
Hi Referaty,
This site itself is the working demo. There are a few customizations that are described in the ReadMe, but it’s using all the same code.
Thanks for taking a look!
Uh, I think this is it.
how to increase the width for 2nd sidebar?
Hi dynn,
You can easily tweak these two lines in style.css;
#leftbar{width: 135px; float: left; margin-left: 5px;}
#rightbar{width: 180px; float: right;}
total sidebar width is 335px, so can’t exceed that…you also have to take into account paddings and margins. Be sure to test against IE6 as well as FF if you tweak to a combined width of > 315px.
You could also change the width of the overall #sidebar and #content if you wanted to change that ratio. But I like the wide content.
Hope that helps,
BB
thanks for your prompt reply.
come si fà a cambiare lingua ?
Paolo,
Sorry…it’s English only at this point.
I would be possible to change the words that are hard coded into the theme, but a better solution would be for me to work it up so that it took .po files (or whatever the language files are). I don’t know when I would be able to get to that.
Byron
Hi,
Thanks for your comment on my article on WordPress and theme development. I really appreciate the in depth things you adressed on WordPress as platform, and I will look into my theme upgrading with a fix for IE6, big thanks for that one!
/Mattias
Hey Mattias,
No problem it was a good article. WordPress is a great platform to build on. But they could make a couple of things a little easier for people who want to go outside the Loop.
Thanks for dropping by.
Cheers!
Byron
This is a very nice theme, clean, not busy, light on the graphics and well laid out. I’m always a stickler for things lining up, and I don’t see anything I would change on this theme in that regard. Great work. My only suggestion would be to include a few different style sheets to choose from so you could have a darker gray background as an option.
Nice work.
Oh, and by looking at your other sites it seems that we both live in St. Louis, nice to know you! I read your review of the Garden, which is my current employer. Feel free to swing by fak3r.com and have a look around sometime.
Hey fak3r,
Thanks for the comments. I do want to try out some different style sheets as you suggest.
It’s great to hear from another St. Louisan. I don’t know many that are involved in the web community.
My wife is a photographer (peanutgrins.com) and she loves the Bot. Garden. We have 3 boys and they think the Trains at Christmas are the best thing in the world.
Thanks again for dropping by and the kind words. BTW, your site looks great! Congrats!
Byron
i can’t find readme file ??? so i can’t customize it
Arrrgh….sorry about that. I’ve got to update it and then I’ll post it out here for download.
Thanks for the heads up.
Ok…the readme is up in the download section. If there is anything else that would be good for the readme, let me know.
Byron
Excellent theme Byran. I’ll be customizing it to increase the width of sidebar. Simple, clean and elegant. Thanks for such nice theme.
Rajeev,
Thanks for the kind words! I hope it does what you need. Customizing should be pretty easy if you’re familiar with WP themes.
Let me know if you end up using it. I’d love to see what you do to it.
Cheers!
Byron
Hello Byron, first off thank you very much for that theme. Your work is greatly appreciated.
Just a question, it’s possible to display a number of posts from a certain category instead of Recent Posts? (e.g news category) Which code I do need to add/replace?
Thanks in advance and…
Keep up the good work!!!
Hi George,
I’m glad you like Contender. Thanks!
At this point, in order to show some posts from a specific category, you’d need a plugin. I think some of the other theme “engines” out there like Justin Tadlock’s Options (of which I’m a fan) might have the ability to show that as well.
That could be a nice feature to add to Contender. I’ll put it on my list.
Cheers!
Byron
bonjour
je voudrais personal un peu ce theme. peut u vous m aider; (plusieurs positions de adsense merci
Pardon, mais je ne parle pas le francaise. Ici une Google translation comme Adsense:
À la position adsense, il suffit de placer le comprennent des énoncés de l’endroit où vous souhaitez la diffuser des annonces.
Hi Byron,
I love the Contender blog template and have started working with it. The problem I have is that I can not for the life of me get a picture in the welcome box. I have tried many hours. All I get is the original image removed and a blank there. I have my images uploaded. If they are a little to big does that make a difference? Can you make it simpler to put a picture there? I’ve tried everything.
Thanks,
Charles
Hi Charles,
I’m glad you like Contender. Hopefully we can get it working for you.
Here are a few things to try:
1) First, make sure that you have placed your image in the images folder inside the Contender theme folder. This will make it easy to reference through CSS. If you’re doing an FTP, the full folder path would be: [blog root folder] /wp-content/themes/contender/images/
2) If you haven’t changed the code in sidebar.php, it should be as simple as naming a jpeg image: infobox_pic.jpg (this image should be in the images folder in #1 above). Of course, if your image isn’t a jpeg, we have to do some tweaking….
3) If your image is a GIF or PNG (or something other than jpeg) then you can change the code in sidebar.php. Here’s how:
– somewhere in sidebar.php around line 6 or 7 (may be different if you made alterations), you should find the following code:
echo “<img alt=” src='”.get_bloginfo(‘template_url’) .”/images/infobox_pic.jpg’ />”;
– just change the file name from infobox_pic.jpg to whatever you image name is
– again, be sure your image file is in the images folder in #1 above.
I haven’t tried images that are much larger, so I don’t know if that would have any impact on visibility. If the above suggestions don’t pan out, try shrinking your image down to about 115 x 115 pixels and see if that fixes it. If it does and you need the image to be bigger, let me know and I’ll take a look at how you might tweak the code to get it to fit better.
Let me know how it turns out.
Byron
hi byron,
I would like to use the template but sad to say that it’s an error when I used it. This is the error:
Fatal error: Unknown function: the_title_attribute() in /home/dingexx/public_html/travelsandtours/wp-content/ themes/contender/index.php on line 21
I wonder where is the problem? in my blog or in the template it self..Please visit my blog and leave some reasons why it make an error..Looking forward on it..:-)
Hi Byron,
Great theme. I love the simple clean design and layout.
One problem I seem to be having and it appears you also have the same issue on this site is that the relevance of the adsense ads are not right (although your adsense ads are more relevant than mine because this page is about a blog theme).
What I mean is that my adsense ads are basically the same as yours… they are all targeting blogging and wordpress (except for the one ad about Rachael Ray’s diet). One of my niche blogs is about health, wellness, yoga, etc. and all of the adsense ads are about wp, blogs, and blog themes (except for RR’s diet… why is that even in there?).
Is there a way to make the adsense ads more relevant to the theme of the blog?
Thanks.
Hi dingexx,
The WordPress Codex indicates that the the_title_attribute() function is new as of WordPress version 2.3.
I probably should have indicated that this theme is built and tested on WordPress 2.6.3, so it may not work in prior versions…probably fine with 2.5, but I think you’ve stumbled upon something that indicates it definitely has to have 2.3 or higher….maybe even 2.5 or higher.
If you’re already running the latest version of WP, then this is a real mystery. Otherwise, the fix might be as simple as upgrading to the latest version:
WordPress Download page
Instructions for Upgrading
Hope that fixes it for you.
Byron
TJ
Glad you’re trying out Contender. Getting the best out of AdSense is an art, and I don’t to profess to be a master at it, but I think WhyPad gets pretty relevant AdSense ads most of the time. I have been plagued by Pizza Hut ads over the past week or so, but that may just be Google pushing those ads out at random.
This particular page (the Contender page) should get a bunch of blogging ads because that is what the content revolves around. My other pages get pretty relevant ads as well. If you look at my front page, right now, you’ll see several ads for IFRS (an accounting standard) and a BPC Implementation ad. I do have an article that is still on the front page that discusses IFRS and SAP. My BPC article is listed in my most popular posts section, explaining why those ads are there.
The Rachel Rae ads we’re seeing are probably due to the advertiser bidding on Key Words that are showing up on this page…they may want to target Bloggers, so they bid on blogging and wordpress keywords. That may or may not be a good strategy, and it may or may not be the reason it’s showing up…just a guess on my part.
The bottom line for getting the right ads on your pages is KEYWORDS + CONTENT. You have to figure out what Keywords advertisers are bidding for on Google (some pay more than other), then integrate those words with your content. It is really important to get those keywords into the title of your post as well as the Heading tags in your posts body. This tells Google what your content is really focusing on and Google will serve appropriate ads….usually
It’s pretty hard to get ads for the “theme” of your blog on pages that are not related to that theme…and really you shouldn’t even try. Just let your content and on-page SEO determine the ads. There are tons of great resources on the net for helping you optimize your adsense posts.
If you’ve not already discovered Problogger, it is a great place to start. Here is a video series done by some SEO bloggers that walk you through the basics of Adsense…really worth your time in the long run:
How To Optimize your Adsense Performance Video series
Hope that helps.
Cheers!
Byron
Hi Byron, great theme! It incorporates several things I was looking for. There are a few things I’d like to change though. Forgive me if any of these are obvious, I’m not very familiar with editing themes and successfully made a few changes by simple trial and error. But now I’m stuck on how to get the following things to work the way I want them to.
1. How can I make the posts in the archives a summary (say 5 lines with a “…” at the end) instead of the full text? You can see what I mean at my old blog here: http://dougpretorius.wordpress.com/2008/11/
2. Is it possible to change the background color of the page? I’d like to have it maybe a solid blue or something, instead of the very light “lined” background it is now.
3. I’d also like to change the way the archive page is laid out to something more like this: http://www.stevepavlina.com/blog/archives/
Hi Doug,
I’m glad you’re trying out Contender. On your questions:
1. I use a plugin call Evermore that puts the excerpt on my front page and archives pages. Here’s the link for Evermore. The author also lists a bunch of other similar plugins…there’s plenty for you to choose from there.
2. Changing the background is pretty simple…open up the stylesheet: style.css
In the Body {…} section, look for the background styling…the code looks like:
background: transparent url(images/bg_page.gif) repeat scroll 0 0;
You can delete that to get rid of the background image, or you can come up with your own image and replace bg_page.gif with your image name – just make sure you put the new image in the Contender theme’s “images” folder.
To do just a color, you can replace the above background line with something like:
background-color: blue;
Or whatever color you want….hex colors like #006600 give you lots more options.
3. To get an archives page like Steve Pavlina’s, you’d probably need to tweak the archive.php file in the Contender theme folder. You will notice a line of code in there that says:
the_content();
That is the WordPress template tag the puts the post’s content on the page…removing that would get rid of the content and you’d have just the title info. You’d have to play around with that file a bit to get it to do what you want.
A better option would be to Google around to see if there are any WordPress plugins that will do what you’re wanting. There very well may be. I’m personally wanting to create a Page that is dedicated to a single category. That may require me to write code, but I might find a plugin that does it too. Haven’t looked yet.
Hope this helps!
Cheers,
Byron
Thanks Byron! I’m heading over to thunderguy now to check out the plugin you mentioned. Changing the background was easy with your help, thank you!
About the archives, I had searched around but didn’t find anything to my liking. Then I stumbled on the answer, staring me in the face all along. At the bottom of Steve’s archive page is a “Powered By” link to http://www.idunzo.com where the plugin is, called SRG Clean Archive. Turns out it has some nice optional features like collapsible months.
Hope that’ll be of use to someone else too.
Doug,
Hey, thanks for the tip on the Clean Archive plugin…I took a look at Pavlina’s archive page and it did look very nice. I’m going to bookmark that for future reference.
Have uploaded filesand get the following error message
Using Version 2.6.3
Broken Themes
The following themes are installed but incomplete.
Themes must have a stylesheet and a template.
Name Description
Contender Template is missing.
Dud I miss something on the download
Hi Perry,
That is a real stumper, but it appears that a few other people had a similar problem over on the WordPress support forums…they solved it by using the FileZilla FTP Client (if you’re using Windows). Appearently, whatever method they were using to upload the files wasn’t doing something right.
You might check out using a different FTP client like FileZilla. Here’s the WordPress forums link that discuss this same problem.
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/181295 (see the very last entry where member “angdoss” finds a solution.
People were having it with all sorts of themes. The Contender should be in tact and usaable if you download from this site or the WordPress Themes directory. If you discover otherwise, please let me know.
Hope that gets you going.
Byron
i want to share my free wordpress theme here.
Preview:
http://www.elegantthemes.com/preview/eVid/
Download:
[removed by moderator] visit site for download
Hello Byron , i would like to thank you for the great themes you offer , and I’m using it on my site for about month right now , it was going great until yesterday , I have make some modification on my Media.php according to the following :
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/166977?replies=18
the original problem have been solved , but i discover new one , no link in my blog work now !!!
If i press any category , or recent posts i get the following message :
This webpage has a redirect loop.
I know it is not a mistake by the theme it self , but i tried to get help through wordpress forum , but no one care to answer , then i think that you can help.
You advice is very important and valuable to me.
Thanks
Hi Yasser,
Thanks for using Contender. I hope it’s working out well for you.
As to the problem you’re having with the Media.php, that really gets beyond my WordPress knowledge pretty quickly. As beardedknight in the support topic says, changing the Media.php file (or any of the core WP files) is risky. The biggest problem with doing that is that you hurt yourself when it’s time to upgrade.
I’d really recommend not modifying the core files. I just noticed when I went to approve your comment that WordPress is wanting me to upgrade to 2.6.5, so there’s a brand new version of WordPress out there. You might be best served by just doing the upgrade to 2.6.5 and work around the original problem you were trying to solve.
I’m sorry I don’t have any real good answers here. There are so many dependencies in the core WordPress code that stuff can break fairly quickly.
Byron
Dear Byron :
thank you for your quick response .
I solved the problem , now i have a question about the theme it self .
i would like to make the header only the photo , with out the subscribe , and can i make it full size , so it take all the area of header , with out gray area ,
please have a look at my site
http://www.daily-ads.com
Hello, thanks for your theme. I’m using this on my blog now. It looks great!
Hi Marlene,
Glad it’s working out for you! I checked out your blog, and I really like what you’ve dong with the theme. Looks really great. Thanks for kicking it up a notch
Cheers,
Byron
I have also started using Contender on my frugal living blog. I haven’t customized it much, partly because I wouldn’t know how, but also because I think it looks pretty good the way it is. I like it because it is clean, uncluttered and easy on the eye.
Thanks for making it available.
Brian,
Thanks for giving it a shot. Hope it works for you.
Cheers!
Byron
It may be have a blogger template too.
How can i change language to french ?
Zaarco,
Sorry, but I don’t have languages supported yet. As a stop-gap, you could go into the code and change the spots that you’re wanting to be in French.
Byron
Hi Byron
Thanks for the theme.
I think your header image looks really cool.
How to insert a HEADER image like “WHYPAD” like yours? Because it looks way better than the text insert. I’m totally a newbie to wordpress, so your help will be much appreciated.
Thanks
Max
Hi Max,
Thanks! I found a spacey font on one of the free font sites and thought it might go well with the spartan look of Contender.
In the header.php file, somewhere around line 26, change the text:
<?php bloginfo(‘name’);?>
to
<img src=”<?php bloginfo(‘template_url’); ?/> /images/logo.gif” alt=”” style=”border:0″/>
You’ll need to put your logo image in the Contender theme folder in the images folder. Make sure your image filename and the name in the image tag above match up. If there’s a logo.gif in the folder already, just delete it.
Note: if you copy and past the code above, make sure the < and > don’t come out as & lt; and & gt; (without the spaces)….replace the with less than and greater than and you should be good.
Thanks for trying out Contender!
Byron
Thank a lots, Byron
One other thing, what font did you use in generating the WHYPAD logo
Max
Contender looks good, Byron.
Question: do you’ve a 2-column version that is 750px wide, maximum size?
In other words, everything within one screen without horizontal scrolling!
Thanks – AB
Max
I honestly don’t remember…it’s probably still in my PhotoShop on a different computer that I don’t access to right now. Check out these SciFi fonts…I don’t remember if I got it from here or one of the other repositories…but this is a good spot to check:
Sci-fi fonts
AcaiBurn
Hi, sorry I don’t have a 2-column version right now, but I am playing around with different layouts and will release the results down the road. The current layout works well for 17inch monitors set to 1024 X 768…everything on one screen and no scrolling. This seems to be the most common monitor setup these days, though they are definitely trending larger, not smaller. So, if you used Contender as is, it would work for most people. It aims to maximize screen real estate for your blog.
I’ll post here as new layouts are released.
Cheers!
Byron
HI Byron,
I really like the clean, straight forward look of the Contender Theme.
I’m a total novice at blogging and not much better with coding as PHP and CSS are foreign languages to me.
I did manage to get my picture as the infobox_pic but used your post here to do so.
Now, I’d like a colored background in the header area and another type style and type color in that area, also.
Am I asking for too much?
Many thanks,
Tom
Max,
I found the font….Space Frigate. Don’t remember where I got it, but I’m sure Google does!
Hi Tom,
Glad you’re liking Contender! Hope it does what you need.
To tweak your header background, open up the style.css file and search for:
#header {
Probably around line 320 or there abouts depending on how much modification you’ve made to the file. There should be a few css items in there like height, border-bottom, margin…
Add these two before the closing }
background-color: #a0a0a0;
font-family: Arial, Verdana;
You can change to whatever color and font you want, but that should do the trick for you.
Cheers,
Byron
Hi Byron,
Those instructions did the trick. Many thanks.
I found information about changing the header in Max’s inquiry. I may consider doing so.
Not sure yet as I like the clean look.
But, in case I get inspired, what are the size limitations on the header?
Best Wishes,
Tom
Hi Byron,
Back again. A few more questions.
I took the instructions you had given Max on 2/26 about changing the header but when I attempted using it, I get a “parse error” as follows:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘?’ in /home/hwhetcco/public_html/samtom.net/blog/wp-content/themes/Contender/contender/header.php on line 26.
I had used the instructions as follows:
In the header.php file, somewhere around line 26, change the text:
to
<img src=” /images/logo.gif” alt=”” style=”border:0?/>
And, I get this error message:
Parse error: syntax error, unexpected ‘?’ in /home/hwhetcco/public_html/samtom.net/blog/wp-content/themes/Contender/contender/header.php on line 26
There are 3 “?” in that string of code. I’ve tried eliminating them, one by one. And, then get another parse error for line 30 of the code.
At one point, part of the code appeared in the header but not the image I had uploaded. And, I have changed the title of the image to logo.gif to see if that would work.
So, not knowing about PHP am stumbling in the dark. And by naming my file logo.gif has not helped with the original coding either.
I’ve copied and pasted to eliminate any risk of a coding error.
What can you suggest that may help?
Many thanks,
Tom
Tom,
Uggg…sorry I haven’t gotten back to you sooner. I hadn’t checked the comments on this page lately.
Your line of code should look like: <img src=’/images/logo.gif’ alt=” style=’border: 0;’ />
Let me know if you’re still having problems.
Byron
Woww, Thank you brother . Very good theme .
Hi Byron
I love the Contender Theme and it is really simple to use and edit.
I have one problem though. The menu works properly with firefox but not with Internet Explorer. Can you help?
Thanks for all your hard work.
Robert.
Hi Robert,
I’m glad you’re liking Contender!
You’re exactly right. the menus don’t drop down in IE, which is definitely a problem. Unfortunately, that is not something I’m going to be able to fix with the current version of Contender. I am planning on designing a Contender II which will be similar, but with some important differences: child themes (so you can upgrade without blowing away your modifications – upgrading the current Contender would wipe out your modifications), threaded comments, Suckerfish or some other menu system that works with all browsers, and an options page that will let you do some additional customization without fiddling with the files.
Unfortunately, my 2 plugins (PhotoSmash and Supple Forms) are eating up all of my development time right now. But I’m hoping to get Contender II out in a couple of months.
Cheers,
Byron
I was waiting for long for such type of theme for my website blog. thx
Tthis is very cool theme. it would be great if you could add site wide banner space and google adsense. Any way it is a nice one.
Have you seen any good themes for real estate agents? I do Real Estate SEO for Point2 clients and they are always asking me about good real estate themes
thanks you ,now is my themes on my french blog.
this is really simple and beautiful.
To all above,
Thanks!
It’s getting about time to update it for WP 2.8. This blog is running on 2.8, and there are no problems with theme so far, but it doesn’t do all the cool stuff 2.8 provides yet.
BB
Thanks Byron. Theme looks great. Ive been looking for a decent adsense ready theme.
Will give it a try.
Hi Byron, Thanks for the Contender theme! I like it a lot, but was wondering if it’s possible to increase the sidebar width? When I try, funky things happen… Thanks!
Thanks Byron. Theme looks great. Ive been looking for a
thanks admin
Hi, Byron. Contender is great !
I want to make Popular Posts section like on the WHYPAD homepage.
Could you share to me how you make it ?
thanks in advance !
Hi bermandt,
Thanks!
I use a plugin called Popularity Content…here’s the site: http://alexking.org/projects/wordpress
The next thing to do is to add a little code to the theme file: adsense_front_centerbox.php
Here’s what mine looks like:
<div class=”popposts”>
<h3 style=”margin:0 0 10px 0;”>Popular Posts</h3><ul>
< ?php akpc_most_popular(7,”<li>”,””); ?>
</ul>
</div>
<!– Adsense Content –>
<div style=”text-align: left;”>
— adsense code here —
</div>
<!– end of Adsense Content –>
<div class=”clear”></div>
Hi Byrom, thx for quick reply.
I just implement the code, but i have to change :
< ?php akpc_most_popular(7,””,””); ?>
to
the problem is all the popular post and adsense move to center. how can you make popular post and adsense side by side ?
another issue..can i slightly move up welcome box at sidebar.php ?please have a look at my site:
http://tinyurl.com/ycs8nqu
have a great day
Contender is a great WP theme. I love this theme because SEO friendly and has high CTR!
i can’t find readme file ??? so i can’t customize it
Is there any link/section to edit the Disclaimers? Sorry if I am missing something.
There ought to be a link, but there isn’t…You’ll need to edit the sidebar.php file (I think).
BB
Thanks Byron .. found it while waiting for your response. I guess Contender II will have all such stuff taken care of.
Byron,
I’m determined to use Contender but I would like to change/move what appears to be hard coded widgets. Is this possible? How?
Regards,
Dan
i can’t find readme file ??? so i can’t customize it
Thanks Byron. Theme looks great. Ive been looking for a decent adsense ready theme.
Will give it a try.
I love the Contender blog template and have started working with it. The problem I have is that I can not for the life of me get a picture in the welcome box. I
Thanks, Byron – I’ve been searching for a new theme. This looks great! I’ve downloaded it and am hoping to give it a try this week. The ReadME text looks like it will be really helpful in tweaking the theme…thanks so much!
Hello, I just use contender themes, this is great themes. But I found problem.
The plug in popularity contest is no more support WP 2.9, I got big error when I try to activte the plug in, so I try 468×60 in “adsense_front_centerbox.php” Is there any plug in similiar to popularity contest that support WP 2,9?
Thanks for the Contender theme! I like it a lot