blogsimplified.com

I just added an extra sidebar to blogsimplified to create a three column WordPress theme. The second sidebar is actually to the left of the first sidebar because the sidebars use float: right for placement on the screen.

The sidebars should make it easy to add your own Google Adsense ads simply by dropping the script into a sidebar text widget right from within WordPress without ever touching a line of WordPress theme code.

When you are in WordPress, Go to Design and then Widgets, and select that you want to show Sidebar 2. Add a text widget, and then cut and past your Google Adsense script right into the text widget. It is laid out nicely for three 160×600 skyscraper ads, which you can put one on top of the other in the same text widget.

If you are not using widgets, be sure to change out the sample ads in sidebar.php with your own Adsense script, because the ones in the sidebar.php code are mine and they are just there to show you where to put them if you don’t want to use a widget.

The left sidebar is really intended for skyscraper adsense ads and not for the other widgets, because I took out the bottom border that separates the widgets. I might find a better way to do this later, but for now this is just fine if you want to run adsense ads in the left column rather than other widgets.

Go to the WordPress Themes page of blogsimplified.com to download the new theme files compressed in either zip or tar format.

Since the 0.9 version, I fixed the issue where the sidebar column height couldn’t keep up with the height of the blog area for long blogs. Now you can use as much vertical space for the blog as you want, but if the sidebar goes over 1800px it will start to look messy.

Does anyone knows how to match up two arbitrary length columns using CSS, when either column can be longer than the other, and both have different background colors and borders? I did it using a min-height of 1860px, greater than a reasonable sidebar, and then optimized the overall height based on the blog area, which now can go as high as you want, but there must be a better way.

In the 1.0.1 update. I removed the Google analytics code from the footer so that you can add your own.

In version 1.0.1, I added some things required by WordPress.org in order to share the blogsimplified WordPress theme in their directory. In particular, they require the screenshot to show the actual site, and the theme must make use of the tag line.

Version 1.0.2 is a slight change after I tested the theme on Firefox and Internet Explorer 7. The image color didn’t match the background color anymore on Firefox, although it matched perfectly on Safari. I just made the background image repeat in order to fix this and be consistent on all browsers.

The tag line was showing up in mysterious ways and getting clipped in IE. The behavior on IE always seems slightly different than expected and never quite according to what the standards say, so now I am starting to understand all the discussion on that subject. On the other hand, it might be something I am doing wrong in the CSS.

Let me know if you find anything that needs to be fixed.

If you are using the blogsimplified WordPress theme for your blog or website, or if you know of someone who is using it, please leave a comment here let us know. We will be happy to list the site on our Example Sites page.

You are free to use and modify the blogsimplified WordPress theme with attribution. By letting us know who is using it and by giving us feedback, we will promote your site as an example and we will continue to create new themes with your input and feedback.

This is my first blog post using my first WordPress Theme, blogsimplified 1.0.

I decided to make this theme from scratch after fussing with Kubrick and finding too many things that I didn’t understand and didn’t want to use. I went back to the classic theme and deleted the CSS and started from scratch, building only the classes and sections that I really wanted.

I hope you like it! Over time, I will add helpful tips and ideas as I learn them. I also may post some updated and new themes depending on the feedback.