After receiving a few questions regarding the way I redesigned Copyblogger theme by adding leftbar and making it 3-column template, I decided it will be the easiest way to make it available for everyone to dowload from SharingMatters.com.
To customise the theme, just replace images/header.jpg (990×146px) with your own image. To remove text from the header, go to header.php and delete the following line:
<a href=”<?php bloginfo(’url’); ?>” title=”<?php bloginfo(’name’); ?>”><?php bloginfo(’name’); ?></a>
Let me know if you found any problems so I can improve it and please keep all the links in the footer (you can remove SITEMAP or add your own in the pages section and it will link to it automatically). Just recently I have fixed a few bugs that occurred in IE6.
Edited on 30/04/2008: Below is a list of basic plug-ins that I recommend installing in the first place:
- All in One SEO Pack - to make sure your blog structure is search engine friendly
- Sociable - automatically add links on your posts to popular social bookmarking sites
- Askimet - a must-have spam protector
- FeedBurner FeedSmith - FeedBurner tracking tool (only if you use FB for your RSS)
- Subscribe to comments - Allows readers to receive notifications of new comments that are posted to an entry
Buy Me a Coffee
If you enjoyed 3-column copyblogger template, you can say THANK YOU by buying me tasty Cafe Latte for $1.99 - just click here.
If you need professional help with your online business, you can hire me by getting in touch through a contact form on MightyWorkshop.com.
42 comments ↓
Hi there, I am using the 3col copyblogger theme and have hacked away a bit , I am 8months into working on WP platforms and i’m loving it…. However im getting stumped on how to create page templates easily. Everyone seems to be saying how easy it is… I know a long winded way but need it to be easy and quick ,if this actually possible!!!!
can you help… all I want to do is have the option of 3 col, 2 col and 1 col for my pages
Thanks Graham
I can’t get new pages to be added into the theme at all, right from fresh installs of both Wordpress & the theme, while the default theme installs them as normally … then they don’t show up in 3-col-copyblogger.
The page template in the theme just has the 3 default entires … there is no “list pages” code therein.
Did we forget something here?
Do you add them in the admin? Do you have any link to show?
Hi. Ive been trying to find and use the 3 column copyblogger theme. But unsuccessful. What Am I missing here. I downloaded your theme and then installed in . But it does not have teh blog. Only a left hand column exists.
I will be happy to help but I would need a link to the blog to have a look on it.
Hi. I love your 3 column copyblogger theme you have created. The only issue I am having is that the theme doesnt work correctly in Internet Explorer as it is, and I cant figure out what to do.
Please help.
thanks,
Jake
Jake, please provide me with more details regarding your problem - url, problem description etc.
Hi, I love the 3 column theme. It is not showing up in Internet Explore. The right column is at the bottom of the page, on the left side. If I adjust the font display in my browser to make it displays correctly. In Firefox it always shows up right. I tried making the font smaller in that sidebar and it didn’t affect a change.
blog.careerintervention.com
I would actually like to ammend my previous post. It seems that when I look at sharingmatters.com in the same IE Browser the same column issue happens. This didn’t happen when I used IE at home. So is it just a question of display resolution, or something else?
Allan, Thanks for spotting the problem. It appears under IE6. I fixed other problems for this browser and it should be fine now. Thanks for using the template and writing your feedback.
I have the same problem. It works fine under firefox but not under IE7
Thanks for your help!
Mario, there seems to be a problem with one of your first posts - Multifuntion Printer KX-MB271. Under IE, everything after the bullet points is much bigger (right bar as well). I looked in the code and I suggest to remove some extra tags.
Allan’s problem under IE6 is solved now, as I can see.
Excellent! Thank you very much!
Guys, I am working on the new version of this template and it will be ready in one month:
- two columns on the right and wider content space with a bit bigger margins
- font will be a bit different and smaller
- better graphic design and more customisation options
I want a new template to be less generic and more sophisticated.
I will be happy to hear any requests or proposals for the new theme.
Thank you for using the template.
You are the bomb! I have been messing with this darn theme for wayyyyy tooo long. Any you, young man, you have given me just what I wanted.
Thanks for sharing………
Deb
Hi guys have you seen Chris P’s new 3 col theme Neoclassical http://pearsonified.com/theme/neoclassical/ very clean crisp and ripe for hacking. Ive just started to develop with this theme and find it really easy to work with.
all the best
G
Graham,
it is nice, especially if you want to tweak it. I learnt a lot from Chris on his themes. But I am not a big fan of Neoclassical, especially in terms of font types. I just don’t find them interesting although I like simple solutions in design. The good thing about it is that you can set up a random header.
Deb,
Sharing matters, young lady. I like your movement. Good luck.
Hi Chris, thanks for the great theme. Can I ask your advice? When I try to add an image to the left sidebar it appears at the top of the middle column. You can see this has happened with the technorati link. This also happens with any other images I try to add. Can you help me out please?
Thank you
Helen, if you look in the code you will see the link is after but should be before (just below del.icio.us link). Nice design, Helen. Have you taken this pictures?
Hi, Thank you for your help. yes I did take the pictures but can’t get them right! Thanks for your suggestion and it worked except the buttons that I add appear too close together. Do you know how I can get a gap between them? I feel I am missing something really obvious.
Thanks again.
Hi Helen I use Windows live writer to edit all my pictures. Its a great blog post and page editor and its very easy to use. well recommended . This will sort all your picture layout, size and positioning problems in one go.
G
Hi there - thanks for a great theme!
How do I make the header graphic smaller? I have a new one that’s 990px by 104px (I like mine a little shorter). But when I put it in place, it just centers it in the old dimensions.
thanks!
Liz, do you have a URL to show it?
Hi, thanks for creating this theme as well as helping out with support.
My issues on (www.reclinergm.com):
1. My blog has two authors and this theme doesn’t have an author designation, do you know how I can add that to identify who the author is on each post?
2. When I went to import my old blog posts, comments etc., the left hand side bar got all screwed up, suggestions for correcting that as well as managing that left side bar since it isn’t a widget inside of my wp dashboard.
3. Can I move the search function that is on the right side bar down below other widget functions?
Again thank you so much for the support.
@Dannie:
1. All you need to do is to add the following line:
in the files: archive.php, index.php, page.php, search.php, single.php.
2. Can you please let me know how would you like left sidebar to look like? All the changes can be done in leftsidebar.php. I have emailed you so you can send files if you have problems.
3. To do that, go to sidebar.php, cutplease put:
and paste after the last .
Please let me know if you were successful with the changes.
Hello,
I am proudly using the 3 column copyblogger theme. My site appears great in IE and FF but not in Safari, where the right sidebar drops down to the bottom left of the page.
I’m having trouble keeping up with learning html as it is and I would be really grateful for any advice on how to fix this problem. I’m just not there yet…
Thanks
Helen, I validated a site with: http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.helengraves.co.uk%2F&charset=%28detect+automatically%29&doctype=Inline&group=0 and found some HTML tag problems, like: <p </p>. Please review it. It is weird because things usually looks good in Safari. I checked CSS and it looks fine so the problem must be somewhere within the HTML parts you modified.
Thanks for your help. I’ve sure got some problems there. I’ll try working through it to fix the issues but I’m no coder…..
Thanks again for your help, it’s much appreciated.
Helen.
Helen, the best way is to go to leftsidebar and try to compare it to the original file, before your changes. Step-by-step. I will drop you a line on email and if you don’t solve this issue, you can then send me a zip with the template.
Regards
Wow that would be brilliant thanks, I’m having lots of troubles with it.
hello
i was looking for a 3 column copyblogger theme and i saw your website.
i was wondering if yiu could please answer a couple of questions.
1. some of the websites using your sharing matters theme have seo friendly urls, and some dont, does the download install seo friendly urls >
2. does it come with a header image at the top, or is it just text that is the same as the page title, the same as copyblogger ?
3. are both the sidepanels fully adaptable, so that you can put anything anywhere ?
i.e. you can put text or banners etc anywhere on either of the sidepanels, and put the categories, entries etc etc anywhere on either of the panels ?
many thanks
@Rob: Thanks for stepping by!
1. To have all SEO friendly stuff, you should install “All in one SEO pack” - http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/03/24/all-in-one-seo-pack/. In the latest Wordpress version (2.5.1) you have SEO friendly URLs, post titles in meta, but this plug-in have a few small advantages that are worth installing.
2. It comes with a text, but as many people did, you can replace it with your own image, as I have in my blog. Instruction included in the post above.
3. You can fully customise both sidebars. I have been playing around with them and it works for me. I don’t use widgets, I change things manually. Just make sure you don’t insert anything wide so the widths of sidebars are preserved.
Feel free to ask more questions. I will update this post to list all of my plug-ins.
Regards
many thanks for your response.
i think you covered everything.
but about the plugin,
http://wp.uberdose.com/2007/03/24/all-in-one-seo-pack/
this is in the “plugins” (usually in the top right of the administration isnt it ?)
if it is its just a matter of clicking the link etc, and the copyblogger i have used was already set up for seo friendly urls, (although its the only copyblogger i have used)
so the seo friendly urls is just a matter of a click or 2 in the admin panel ?
about the header, am i right in thinking if i do not upload a image etc, then the page title is reprinted at the top of the page ?
(as this is what i want)
many thanks
Rob,
When you download a plugin like All in One SEO Pack, you need to place it in the ‘wp-content/plugins’ folder. Then you click on plugins in the admin and activate it.
If you had user friendly urls in your copyblogger it might be because of the latest WP version or because this plug in has already been installed.
If it is the firest reason, then it is still worth installing All in One SEO Pack as it places post titles at the beginning of the browser titles not at the end as it is default for the WP 2.5.1.
About the header - as a default you have a page title reprinted at the top. You can still change the background of the header by replacing images/header.gif. Try to play around with it and see result. Also, you can pass a URL so I can have a look.
thanks,
that was highly informative, i need to check a couple of things in the admin panel, after reading your response.
many thanks
One of the beauties of the original Copyblogger theme was that it came packaged, not only with excellent typography, which you did a great job of capturing, but it was also SEO friendly. For instance, on the original CB theme all the page titles, i.e. blog entry titles were locked inside tags, which is the second most important tag, and is also google recommended, for page titles. For some reason with this redesign, the page titles have been demoted to , tags. I’m no SEO expert, so maybe you could clarify why you chose this method for the redesign. Anyway, all in all, a beatiful redesign, but I’m just not sure about the hierachal data structure chosen for it.
Thanks
Beau
Sorry about the above post that should read “locked inside h1 tags” and “demoted to h2″ tags.
Beau, you mean that post titles are in h2 not in h1?
Yes, Paul. At least it appears that way to me when I view the source code of this page. All the post title show up in h2 tags. I use the updated copyblogger theme on my web site, and all the post titles are nested with h1 tags. Chris set the original theme up this way by Google standards.
Again, I’m no expert, and I see a lot of stuff about SEO on this page, so I was wondering what the reasoning was for restructuring the hierarchy.
Here’s Chris’s article about SEO structure and such.
http://www.pearsonified.com/2007/04/definitive-guide-to-semantic-markup.php#more-255
Beau, if you have a look on pearsonified.com or copyblogger.com you will see that all blog titles on the homepage/archive are in H2 (H1 on the post’s single site). The same is with my template. I know what Chris wrote in his post but I don’t know he doesn’t implement it in his templates…
I prefer using H1 for a blog’s motto and H2 for titles on the homepage/archive.
Wow! I learned something today. First off I can’t read. I completely misunderstood Chris’s post on the subject of h1 and h2 tags. Thank you much for the clarification. Now, since this theme does in fact live up to the original I am free to use it! You are the best!
Beau
Screen Printer for the Blogosphere
No worries, I need to re-read Chris’s post as I forgot a lot of stuff from it. Good luck with your blogging, Beau!
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