Durable v0.2: A New Wordpress Theme
Durable is my first Wordpress theme and it’s a little different from other themes I’ve seen so far. It has been an enjoyable and educating experience constructing it.
Version 0.2 now available!
The latest version of Durable is now availiable and includes many fixes and enhancements from v0.1a. Visit Durable’s Home »
Check out the Durable Forums!
Durable puts site users in control of page colors, allowing them to create their own personal themes for the site. Each element of the page is editable in real time; the user can select the colors for backgrounds, text and links.
Administrators of the site can go a little further. Their color choices can either be saved as a personal theme, or saved as the site’s new theme so that all users will see their color selections.
The color selection is done via the “Options” menu, visible in the menu bar of every page, and colors update as soon as they’re selected thanks to the very cool ColorMod color selector.
Durable’s Features
- On the fly color scheme editing for you and your users.
- Live AJAX search for archives accessible on any page
- Drop-down menu sections for Archives, Pages, Links and Search, removing the clutter and giving more space for your articles.
- Dedicated archives page showing a “tag cloud” for Months and Tags/Categories.
- Fluid design, meaning users with larger monitors will benefit from extended reading space.
- The following admin options via the Wordpress administrator interface;
- Switching between the “Torn Page” effect or solid colors for page sections
- Text alignment of articles (left or justified)
- Number of posts to show on front page (3, 5, 7 or 9)
- Switching color changing on or off
You can check out a demo of Durable by switching the theme of this site;
This will give you an example of Durable running on a real world blog, and not just filled with “ideal” information.
I’d love to hear your feedback (email: andy at cssdev dot com), , I am working hard to fix up any bugs in these pre version 1.0 releases.
99 People Added Their Comments
Guess it does’t work with IE7? tried to do the live search.
It just pushed the top banner down.
just downloaded it.
will thoroughly test it in the next couple of days. 
this comment is made in durable preview. immediately noticed the difference on how the “Add A Comment” works from that of the original CSSDev theme. i like it better when the comment form simply pops up from below the page for better access. how can we make it to function as that?
on another note, can you also provide also the CSSDev original theme for download?
thanks and will wait for your reply!
Bill: I haven’t yet tested in IE7 as I spent most of my time fixing it up for IE 6 support. I am going to wait until the next IE 7 preview update (due in a couple of weeks) as there are quite a few CSS and DOM bugs in the current IE7 releases.
I’m confident that apon the final release of IE7, there will be no problem with support.
Seems the theme competition was a big con.
The site has vanished after some criticism of the stalling tactics.
Yeh Piggy, I’ve pretty much given up hope on the competition. It seems completely disorganized to me… the site actually got hacked and there were no backups (suprise, suprise)
Nevermind, I’m still glad I made the theme, it’s something I’ve wanted to do anyway, the theme competition was just an added bonus.
Andy, Durable is very lovely. I really want to learn something about scriptaculous, I know it’s something which makes your site more dynamic, but I don’t have any concepts on how to use it……
By the way, your current site’s look is very interesting and your live-comment-preview, coz it shows up the gravatar at the same time……
Not working very good for me
http://www.independza.com/maMartinique/
Bolo
bolo: Looks as though the theme is working as intended but with the “bleached” bug I mentioned in my update above.
Just follow those instructions and you will be good to go.
BTW: This bleached bug should be fixed in the current download above.
Thanks for all the feedback so far, I’m hoping to release a version 0.2 by this weekend address some of the major issues brought up.
andy
the link doesn’t work
ttp://www.cssdev.com/durable/durable_v0_1a.zip
Woops, I mixed up the file names when uploading some updates. Should be good to go now.
i got the error in durable when i clik the menu page and link here they are :
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/yuzef/public_html/wp-content/themes/durable/functions.php on line 96
Warning: arsort() expects parameter 1 to be array, null given in /home/yuzef/public_html/wp-content/themes/durable/functions.php on line 101
Warning: Invalid argument supplied for foreach() in /home/yuzef/public_html/wp-content/themes/durable/functions.php on line 103
whoa………….. ignore my message above . i solve the problem, that becouse i have no link created. after i create the link and link categorie its okey now.
yuzefaron: Yep, thats a bug fix coming in v0.2 … I need to check that there are actually links before trying to loop through them
Thanks for downloading!
nice and quick answer.. your theme is very advanced among all themes i ever seen.
Is there the themes that you have made with 700px wide?
and i love your comment page here.
A Lovely theme.. Look and feel is smooth and good..and all the ajax features just great. Will be testing out the theme on my blog soon..Thanks
Not working very good for me in http://www.duard.com.br/blog
but the font in categories is very big !!!
No good
I don’t see “Reset Original Colors” at the bottom of the options window.
I’m using http://www.cssdev.com/durable/durable_v0_1a.zip
Yuzefaron: You can make the design stick to 700px wide by altering “cssstyles.php”.
At the top of the file you will see this:
body {margin: 0;
padding: 0 0 10px 0;
width: 90%;
min-width: 760px;
Change it to this:
body {margin: 0;
padding: 0 0 10px 0;
width: 700px;
min-width: 700px;
That will keep the page width at 700px.
Carlos: I am aware of the bug with category sizes, it turns out my algorithm for the font sizes is a little off when categories have a large amount of posts. I have made a note of this and will try and fix it for version 0.2. Also, to get the “Reset Original Colors” link, you must be logged in as an admin.
Thanks for downloading guys!
great job on the theme. i diggin’ the comment form drawer.
Sounds very yummy! Thanks for a great theme. There is a lot of great AJAX included - although I almost missed the ‘Addcomment’ button.
I am just wondering when we will see a theme with LiveBlogging and LiveBlogging - so when new posts and comments are available they will be shown without the dreadful refresh.
I could use such functions for my groupblog at http://www.meckermotz.de and of course my http://www.orangeblog.net!!!
HOLY FLUCKING SNIT! What a beautiful theme.
Can’t wait to play with it.
Well done, man. Well done.
Quick question: How can I get it to show images in the posts?
Otherwise, this theme is fan-freakin-tastic.
Thanks!
hehe, thanks for the comments… monkeypup, it should show images in the posts just as any other theme would - with an <img /> tag.
Andy P, thank you very much guiding me, now i chaned it to my desire 700px, great and work..
Ett tema i tiden
Andy Peating har gjort ett Wordpress-tema vid namn Durable. Om jag inte hade snickrat ihop ett eget s?•pass nyligen hade jag testat det h?§r. Det verkar trevligtoch ligga r?§tt i tiden d?• mycket ?§r anpassbart av bes??karna. Dessutom Ajax-s??kning och…
I think…. that i found a “huge” bug. It made me laugh at least…
Here is a screen shot of it.
http://mj.barczyk.se/blog/wp-content/uploads/2006/03/lol.gif
great!
Hey Mickey, I’ve got a fix for that “huge” bug coming in v0.2 .. my algorithm for resizing the category names was a little off when there are a large number of posts. I will be placing a limit on the size of category names in the next release which should fix the problem.
Thanks for downloading!
I don’t see “Reset Original Colors” -> http://duard.com.br/blog/mariadagraca/where_reset_colors.JPG
I need change the default colors of the theme. I don’t like BLUE+Yellow … where I change ?
ps. Sorry my english !
Carlos: Log into your blog, then browse to your regular home page, click “Options/Colorir” and you should see the option at the bottom of the window.
You can change all the colors in this popup window, just hit save at the bottom when you’re done.
A very interesting theme, I’m using it on my test blog. The only problem is that it loads slowly…One question: where is the good old feed subscription icon?
how can the other posts aligned a line?
u blog like this.
i cannot how to do it.
Hi…
I’m using your theme. It’s really, really great.
But something strange happened. In one moment, first page was showing only the post tease (first paragraph), and then, without me doing nothing… it started to show the entire post
Do you have any ideia of what happened?
by the way, i’ve translated the entire theme to portuguese. If you wanna, i can send you the files
best regards
Great job man!
These theme is just… beautiful!
I got a small report. Have you noticed that one cannot view more than the 10 most popular categories in the footer?
Excellent theme Andy, using it currently in my blog site. I am testing things as I go, so far very well. Is there away that if JavaScript is turned off then the search stuff is still accessible making the site meet accessibility standards. I am thinking of developing a Rails CMS solution and considering using you theme as default.
Wery good theme, i would like to use it. BUT!!! Where is the ‘Recent Comments’? There are ‘Recent Posts’, but i can’t see ‘Recent Comments’, and this is also ‘must be’, i think.
+ on first page picture is shown only to last one article. is there any trick how to make it visible to all posts on first page?
Naseer: Thanks for the comments, you can alter the number of categories visible in the footer by altering line 20 of footer.php;
category_cloud(8, 24, 'pt', 10);Just change the 10 on the end of that function call, to the number of categories you want to show. I’ll be adding an admin interface option for this in v0.3 of Durable.
Binusha: Hey, this sounds great! I’d love to see this Rails CMS, I’m a big fan of the framework myself. As for non-javascript accessability, this is something I need to address. The issue right now is that the menus need JS to drop down. I may end up moving the search functionality out of a drop down menu, but this won’t be too soon. If you have any ideas, feel free to email me!
Artus: Recent comments would be a nice touch, I’ll add that to my list of wanted features. As for showing an image in all posts on the front page - the mini posts are just showing the post “excerpt”, if you put an image in there, it should show.
Thanks for downloading the theme guys!
excellent work! I’ll try this later…
Wicked theme! Going to try it for sure. Great UI design and layout.
Andy,
I want change in CSS the original colors of theme … where I change this ?
I don’t like BLUE+YELLOW … I want change in original colors !
thanks
the other posts are not tidied. but in ur blog, they are tidied.
how can i do that? short my posts?
I really like the function of the theme. I’m new to Wordpress . . .
Is there a way to customize the topmenu? I’d like to have a login button somewhere to go to admin.
Also, is it possible to replace the colored area at the top with an image? I’m not a css programmer and the complexity of this theme makes it a bit difficult to guess how to do things.
Thanks andy for the update about the competition. Strange that Justin’s site has disappeared!
Excellent theme
great work !
best regards from switzerlland
check also Hemingway the administration panel and the “blocks system” for the sidebar are very great.
This a really unique, useable, and well-design theme. Thank you so much.
I wonder if it would be possible to have standard pages in the nav bar. I would like to have a link to “Portfolio” and have that wonderful drop down effect reveal my graphic design work. Is that possible?
This is such a great theme that it needs a forum! How about starting a forum over at Flickr?
Cheers!
Giulio
The categories dont look to have a uniform style! Can you fix that?
Thanks!
Excellent theme !!!!!
Congratulations !!!!!
Great Theme thanks for the hard work.
Reset don’t work.
I changed my default colors in functions.php … header is green now … but, it show my header in RED …
ps. I want green+yellow because is the year of World Cup
Brazil 6CUPS !
hi andy. is this theme the same submission you have for wordpress arena? good luck.
Andy, I nedd help, with de default colors of theme.
You can see my screenshot here : http://duard.com.br/adsense_position.jpg
I need help with adSense position too
duard: Make sure you have deleted your cookies, and have selected “reset original colors” from the options menu. You can put the adsense in ‘index.php’ find this line (around line 18):
<div class="postMeta">** code **
— put adsense code here, before closing div…
</div>
Polybuzz: Yes, this is my submission for the Wordpress theme competition.
Giulio: A forum for questions is a good idea, I’d like to get one started, anyone got any ideas on what the best software/site to use is?
ei andy, forums would be nice. how about punbb (http://www.punbb.org/about.php)? maybe you can integrate it with wordpress?
i have suggestion, in 0.3, we should have a option to control the other posts length.
love the look and feel of this theme - viewing it in FF
will definitely try and use it on my site. been looking for something different from the normal themes and it shouldn’t be ‘heavy’
kudos!
Polybuzz: The punbb forums look good, I’ll try and get a Durable forum up and running for people to discuss within.
I see that Kyle Neath who made ‘Hemingway’ has had some success with using this software, so I’ll give it a go!
I’ll post the link when it’s ready.
The new Durable forums are available at:
http://www.cssdev.com/talk
Go check ‘em out!
beautiful work…..
asasasasasasas
Whoo! Too great your site and that theme of yours, I’m going to download it implement it directly. My blog is a new fresh one and I’ve many time changed from different theme as I could’nt find the one that fit me. But now surely find something rocking especially those nice colours splashing around. Think going to visit here more often since I would also love to be one of those web developers that truly rocks like you
Thanks for the hard work you put in that theme making many people(including me) look at their blog with another eye: that of an enjoying, enthusiam and rocking one 
Hmm, I love your theme but I can’t play around with the top navigation bar. Not to mention gaining access to my links, archives or change the colours. By the way, I also love this cssdev theme.
Great work!~ 
Bad error on durable after update to v0.02
http://duard.com.br/faculdade/durable02_error.jpg
My menus not open !
now i unstand the optional excerpt is good,haha.
it can tidy my posts.orderliness them.
every post i dont write optional excerpt ,so my blog is very disorder.
Hey Andy I’ve implemented the theme but do you have any idea how to implement the gravatar plugin successfully. It works very well when activated but the problem is with the layout stuff : the gravatar doesn’t show well on the blog. Do you have any CSS style that could fix this and work both for Internet Explorer and Mozilla Fox. Thanks
The JavaScript create error messages on Internet Exploder !
In console javascript of firefox too !
Hey all!
Thanks for the theme!
Have started a new project with it
http://scruffynews.com
Once the 0.3 version comes out I plan some developments on the theme, but going to run the basic until then. It fits the idea of my new site perfectly though so thank you!
And hope you all enjoy the content on Scruffy News
Dave
There is something odd with the comment system. I just left the first comment on a post on my ScruffyNews.com website and it said that it was posts 50 mins ago, when it was actually a few seconds.
Is it perhaps going on the post date of the story rather than the comment? No clue.
Dave
In fact, just after I posted the comment above your post on the theme reads:
Last comment was posted 2 weeks, 6 days ago.
Next to it
Dave
Thanks for reporting this Dave, I will add that to the list of fixes for 0.3… I’m not sure why this wasn’t noticed before, strange, as it’s a taken straight from a well known and tested plugin.
This is one of the best themes I’ve ever seen!
I have it installed at http://www.fitnessfacts.org and it looks great! I was able to integrate Adsense very easily.
Thank you! I’ll anxiously be waiting for the next version.
Hi Andy P , I use it in my wordpress ,but it seems doesn’t work good with Chinese characters.
When I post a long article,continue reading label doesn’t work.
http://www.home4love.com/wordpress
@ duard - Carlos Aquino : hey man is there any way to get in touch with you for the stuff of gravatar. I’ve visited your site but can’t find any contact page. Thanks for the help you are proposing
In your Theme the more tag doesn’t work……
Andy,
I definitely think your theme should go into the WP 2.0 theme competition. At least this time we have Terry (Kineda) and a bunch of well knowns judging (and of course, nice prizes I donated… heheh…). Love your work.
When I download and then upload this theme to my server — and activate it. I get a blank style and I can’t figure out how / why my CSS is not working. Anyone else having this problem?
Are the Durable forums no longer working?
Sorry Guys,
Yes, the forums are still there, but I moved hosts to mediatemple as my old host couldn’t handle the extra bandwidth.
The forums are at: http://www.cssdev.com/talk
I’ll try and get the subdomain working again.
Same problem as andy, everything is blank…
Any solution ?
Just checking for the ajax comments.
good
Hi, I apologize for not taking the time to sign up for the forums. I’m having a problem with Durable (which, in general, is a fab site, and I thank you for it, Andy).
I don’t know how or why, but when I click on a permalink to access a single post, it always shows me my About page. Even if I try to click on an archive link, again it shows me the About page instead. It’s using the single post formatting (instead of the page template), but it’s accessing the About page content and links. I’m using the original single.php file. Any thoughts at all, from anybody?
Thank you so much.
Loved the theme, been using it in http://freewaremac.net since the 0.2 release, but I still feel it’s kinda heavy, even on my 4MB connection.
A great a original theme like no other! Kee up the great work!
How can i show articleimages in posts number 2 and three as well?
right now it only show the image in the top article.
hoyd
Nice, well designed, publisher friendly site! I think the only think that you could add to it would be to be able to resize text on the fly like the Lush theme does (small, normal, large main text fonts). Love the live commenting and the collapsed content button. Kudos.
Durable continue SLOW !
Awesome theme! Do you think it is possible to port this to movable type?
hi, why i can’t access the durable forum at http://www.cssdev.com/talk
MC, the forums are at: http://talk.cssdev.com
can we use on serendipity?
http://www.downtr.org
http://www.grafikci.org
Hi Andy!
This is Patricia, from Brazil. I LOVED Durable and I developing a blog project from a local host using MAMP and translating it to Portuguese.
The problem I found, though, is that the theme is only visible when accesing with Safari. I tried with Firefox 2.0 and an old version of Explorer for Mac and the content is there but with no theme.
I asume you would not develop such an incredible theme that would be invisible for most users so I wander what could I be doing wrong.
HELP PLEASE!!!!
i have installed durable theme. but it is not displaying the headertear.png image. now the page looks ordinary without main image. any instructions to upload properly?
Durable – Widgetized and ready to go:
http://howtobewebsmart.com/durablewr/
good theme?
it’s very good. I’m added my archive thanks
I Like This Theme Thanks Guy
Is it possible to get the color selector to show up in the admin and not the front end?