Towards the end of the Bubble Blitz developement I started work on my first Wordpress theme. The making of it kind of stopped and started for quite a while since there were things I wanted to do that I couldn't.
The idea behind the theme was to create a very simple to customise theme for the novice blogger. One of the problems with Kubrick is that it's the default theme for Wordpress but it is not straight forward to edit; therefore many sites use the default layout and don't change anything. I wanted something that looked equally nice but could be changed easily so that there aren't hundreds of sites out there using a single theme that look identical. Obviously I don't expect there to be hundreds of sites using Regulus since it's never going to be the default theme, but I figured I would make things easy to change anyway.
Regulus Admin panel
The main new feature that isn't hugely common (and the reason it took a while to complete) is an admin panel built into the Wordpress admin system that let's you edit the layout of the site without actually changing any code. To do this I used the wonderful Wordpress Theme Toolkit, developed by Ozh, from Planet Ozh.
The admin panel let's you edit the content of the sidebar so that you can show and hide the things you want to see. You also have the option to change the header graphic, and edit the colour scheme of the site. These edits are hard coded into the site but if (when?) I create another theme I think I will attempt to make it even easier to change things so you can use any colour scheme or graphics that you chose. Obviously more advanced users can change the colours themselves, but they're not who this theme is aimed at (they're welcome to use it if they want though 
).
Regulus Plugins
I also built in support for a number of plugins developed by other Wordpress developers. These plugins have been included in the core theme code so that no additional downloads are required. The plugins I used were:
- Wordpress Admin Bar 2 - by Matt Read (his website appears to be down at the moment but I'll leave this in case it comes back online)
- the_excerpt Reloaded - by Kaf Oseo
- Author Highlight - by Jonathan Leighton
These are all plugins I use here, on Binary Moon, and I really like them so figured I should include them as standard. I changed the plugin names so that if you already have any of them installed there should be no clashes.
How do you get it...?
The good stuff
Known Problems
The only bug I'm aware of is that in Internet Explorer (damn you IE) the label 'message' is listed twice when it should only appear once (it's only in the code once...). If anyone has any idea why this happens I'd love to hear from you.
Anything else?
Since this is my first Wordpress theme I'm pretty confident that there are things I have forgotten, or not done, so I will no doubt release a few updates in the next week or two. Let me know if there are any problems and I will do my best to fix them.
156 Responses to “Regulus – New Wordpress Theme released”
Carl - Not yet - it's been added to wordpress.com though... hoorah. I am looking into it, but the fixes I have seen so far remove the admin panel which was the unique selling point (erm... unique giving away point?) of it in the first place.
Matt - that's really cool. Thanks a lot - I've sent you an email to get the changes off of you.
Ben, great theme, I love it! Thanks a lot!
2 questions about the configuration panel though:
1. Your name and your e-mail address are used for comment highlighting, but what does that mean? Where can I see it in action?
2. The last option "Show all archive months" doesn't work for me (version 1.5.2). Checked or not checked, I always get all archive months in the sidebar.
Hope you can shed some light on these issues.
Uh, ignore that last post. I'll answer my own questions:
1. When viewing comments, your (actually, my) own comments are in a box, easily distinguishable and editable.
2. When the option is off, by default 15 months is the maximum, but this is adjustable in sidebar.php.
I really like the theme... and I just posted a modified version on my site. (I widened things to add a del.icio.us feed and changed the colors around a bit...)
But I'm having a problem with the search and it is probably the same thing that Matt alluded to. When I search from the home page, everything works fine, but when I search from within a particular post, I get errors. If you have any ideas on fixing this, I'd sure like to hear about it!
I just remembered one other thing I had to change...
You should probably call get_sidebar from within the index.php instead of the footer.php. This is because the page.php calls both the get_sidebar and the get_footer, so get_sidebar is called twice.
I really like the theme which has just been added to the list of available themes on Wordpress.com. One question - unbulleted lists appear in bold which looks odd. Is this intentional or a bug ? My blog exhibits the behaviour. Cheers.
Guido - well done, you got the answers correct - gold star to you
- glad you like it.
Dustin - that looks nice. The changes are interesting as well. It's good to see it being used for things like this. I'm not sure what the search problem is but Matt has fixed it on wordpress.com. I've emailed Matt asking what he changed but have yet to receive a reply.
Andy - Just had a look at your blog. The unordered lists are a different colour, not bold, and it's unintentional - I have some changes I want to make so I will add this onto the to-do list. Thanks for the feedback.
Great theme, Ben! One small change - i changed .widgets to add "clear: both". Now, if i have an image in my post that i float: right (or left), it doesn't flow over into the following post.
Hi Adam - I thought I had added that already, it's more than possible that I forgot though
Thanks for the heads up
Hey, I'm trying to use this theme with Measure Map and I'm not very good at code, so how would I put some code that is supposed to go into the post template into the theme, seeing how there is no post template?
The Instructions:
Step 2: Edit the "Post Template"
WordPress Post click to zoom
Next, click on the Post Template from the list on the right. Copy the code in the box below, and paste it into this template right above the line that reads:
Click in the Update File button.
";
//-->
mmdate: mmurl: mmtitle: -->
Thanks for your help, and your great theme.
Lol whoops that was supposed to be the code they tell you to put in but it's javascript, sorry.
Necrogeist - I haven't used Measure Map and since it's a closed beta can't look to see how to get it working. I'm guessing you would just add the code to the head of the document, which means putting the javascript into the header.php file. Add it just before the </head> bit of the code - that should (might) work.
Did you ever hear back from Matt? I looked around and noticed that the search problem is occurring on many of the sites using this theme...
Ben....I managed to get the blogroll split into categories...by duplicating the whole of the blogroll section, and then changing the category number in the get links statement - it seems to have worked on my site quite nicely.
', '', '', FALSE, 'rand', FALSE, FALSE, -1, FALSE ); ?>
If I didn't explain this well - then please let me know and I'll show you the full code.
Eeek - cutting and pasting that code was bad...
Dustin - I haven't heard back from him, no. However I have looked into it and I think if you change the action in the form tag (in sidebar.php) to
<form action="/" method="get" id="search">Then the problem should solve itself. I haven't tested this though so it may not work but I'm quietly confident it will fix things.
Matt - I thought I had changed the theme to use something similar. I guess since you have customised it you don't want to download and overwrite things. Don't worry about the comment. Wordpress strips out all code and javascript to prevent evil code from running. You have to change the tags so they use html entities (eg < - btw I have to use the ampsersand entity to render the less than one
)
Hi very nice template but I think there is a small url bug in the "oldest" and "newest" link at the end of the page... There is a "/" at the end of the link and we don't need it...
On my blog you could see it
http://www.2803.com
henri - I think that's a server setting. The page links are a part of Wordpress itself, and I don't have anything to do with how they are set. The links work fine on Wordpress.com and I'm not sure what a solution would be I'm afraid. Maybe if you ask on the wordpress.org forums someone more knowledgable would be able to come up with a solution.
yes I change the template and you're right...I'll post to the forum
Thanks for this nice design
I found the problem a .htaccess rule....
Excellent - glad you worked it out
I ben could you explain to me hox to put the trackback link on your template?
Thanks
henri
Henri - The trackbacks should just appear. You need to get someone to link to one of your posts in their own blog post and then it will appear in the comments. You can see this in action on my wordpress blog
I like it at first sight then activated it at my http://sfong15.wordpress.com/ I will also play around with it at my other hosted WordPress installations. I think all themes should come with admin panel type customiziation such that coders and users can make full use of the robust database at the backend. Everyone likes to demonstrate their own characters by showing their their unique blog outlook.
This is Great. I apply this theme to my blog. i think i got the solution to split the blogroll into categories.
Hi, I have it also activated at another hosted WP installation.
I have optioncount turned on for categories but it looks a bit crowded for 2 columns on sidebar. Can you make it selectable in Admin panel in your next release for number of columns in sidebar? How do I manually make it one column now?
Also where about in the CSS that I could indent children categories? Thanks in advance
Hello Ben,
first of all: Thanks a lot for this awesome WP-Template!!!
I'm a beginner both with WordPress and all that sourcecode editing/hacking and I achieved some things with the Kubrick-Template, which are not working with your template:
1. Not working: Formating text with for italic text in the 'About your site'-field at 'Configure Regulus'.
It even not works if I put the text into the sidebar.php between the lines and inside the text normaly hides the text behind this command tag, but it is not working with your template.
3. Not working: Link Categories for the Blogroll.
All the links appear in one list and not sorted into the groups (a.k.a. Link Categories) I had defined.
You see, that I'm a newbie with a strange approach to solutions for the appearance I have in my mind.
But perhaps you can help me with telling me, where and what for I have to look in an Tutorial or at the WP-Codex because I'm not so familiar with the exact names of most of the entities etc.
Thanks and greetings from Berlin,
Oliver
My mistake:
This 'more'-Tag is working, when you turn "Post Display"-Options to "Full Posts" instead of "Post Excerpt".
Now its working as I want to have it working
Further to my earlier post, I managed to customizied a bit futher. See details here http://sfong.net/fun/2005/12/03/regulus-customization/
However I'm puzzled as to why optioncount (?) is still wrapped to the 2nd line, any hints?
I've been playing with the regulus theme for a while and can't seem to figure out why images are not displayed in the blog posts. Every other theme handles them perfectly but regulus is stripping the code from the posts.
You can see it here
Any thoughts?
sfong - optioncount is wrapped because the a is made a block which makes a nice big clickable area. Changing the display mode for a to inline will let the optioncount show on the same line but will mess up the padding and margins.
Oliver - glad you got it working )
Dave - you are using the post excerpts which removes html tags. If you change to full posts (through the admin panel) then the images (and blockquote) will be displayed properly.
Everyone who is waiting for a wordpress 2 version. I now have the basics working. I hope to have a beta released by next weekend.
Ben, my problems No. 1 and No. 3 are still not working - I only managed to solve problem No. 2 (which is not visible in my comment, don't know why).
1. How can I format normal text style to italic style in the ‘About your site’-field at ‘Configure Regulus’, when HTML-Entities seem not to work?
3. How can I let the Blogroll be sorted with the Link Categories I defined before?
Your help is needed, because I don't find any hints and I'm new to CSS and PHP, thanks!
Oliver
Oliver - oops, sorry
1. Don't know. I'm pretty sure it should just work. Will have a look.
3. This one has already been mentioned in the comments. You can see the solution above
Ben, thanks for the tip about post excerpts...feel pretty dumb for missing this.
One more question...do you know of a way to force the button highlight on the navigation bar? My photo album page is using the Redirectify plugin to forward the page to my Falbum-wp.php file. Wordpress doesn't believe I've left the home page so the navigation bar highlight does not change to the Photo Album button. Any suggestions on forcing this change?
You can view my home page here.
Ben, thanks for the hints. I have now put it back to your original. I have added templates for "archives" and "links" page. The one for archives appears to be working but the one for links is not. See that the sidebar has been driven down for no reason as I don't even have sidebar called in the code, see below. Grateful for more hints.
[?php
/*
Template Name: Links
*/
?]
[?php get_header()?]
[div id="content"]
[h3]Links:[/h3]
[ul]
[?php get_links_list(); ?]
[/ul]
[?php get_footer();?]
[/div]
Sfong, can you share your sidebar code for adding the login/out fields? Many thanks.
Dave, see this post http://me.sfong.net/2005/11/21/login-box-at-sidebar/
I have acknowledged the source of the code, follow the link there. You'll have to do minor adjustment to suit the theme you are using. The only thing I did to suit Regulus is the use of the button class and changed the width of the button to 80px to suit the text I preferred.
Dave - unless you're linking through to a page I don't think the button highlights are going to work I'm afraid. I don't know how falbum works so can't really suggest anything.
Sfong - The get_sidebar is in the get_footer. I would guess that if you close the div and then get the footer, rather than the other way around, it will work.
Adding a BR tag after the Message label fixes the IE display problem.
Bryce - that sounds interesting. I'll give it s go when I get home later. I'd love to know why it happens, and why that fixes it, though.
Thanks
Dear Ben, I'm lost. Because to follow the discussion here in the comments and looking at all the websites that are linked with the commentators names is not easy, if you are new to PHP, CSS and all that stuff.
How about using a Wiki to organise questions and answers/solutions?
Other users could help you with answering all the questions and that would reduce the amount of work you need to put into support.
Isn't there a well known WordPress-Wiki allready online? (codex WP?)
Just one example: My question No. 3 again ("How can I let the Blogroll be sorted with the Link Categories I defined?")
The solution you offered Val Dobson and me is going in the right direction, but one is loosing the layout (or style?) with this solution, have a look at Val's or my Weblog and compare the bullet list of the blogroll with the categories or archive - it looks different.
With the solution the Link Categories of the blogroll get bullet listed, but not the links anymore
Shouldn't it be the links and not the link categories styled with bullets?
Yeah, Newbies are always asking too much questions
- so where is your PayPal-Donate-Button??? 
Thanks again, I really love the design and I wish, I could change the code by myself instead of asking so much questions and demanding for your precious time
Oli
Ben--nicest theme I've seen yet. loving it.
Has anyone figured out a way to get the footer to show up in Safari? I hate that this looks right on every computer but mine.
Oliver - I am working on Regulus version 2 for Wordpress 2 and this takes care of the blog roll link categories, as well as adding a few new features and generally tidying things up a bit.
I'm not going to make a wiki for Regulus. I developed the theme for fun and don't want to turn it into a job. This is why there is no paypal donate button.
Michael - Thanks
Unfortunately I don't have a Mac so can't solve the safari issue but if anyone knows of a fix I would be happy to implement it. I must admit I was only aware of a problem with the rss feeds in Safari, I didn't know the footer was messed up was well.
nice job Ben. I'm using ur theme as my primary theme. Any update please keep me informed!!
Hey dude, absolutely loving the theme!
One problem.. I've installed it, but no matter what I set my about message it, it doesn't change. Instead, it seems to be pulling up an old post?
Any ideas what might be causing that?
Check my site, you'll see what I mean.
Cheers
Ben - That's incredibly strange. It certainly shouldn't do that, and no one else has complained of this problem. I wonder if there are some variable name conflicts or something. You haven't changed any of the code in the theme have you?
Are you using any plugins? Maybe if you try disabling them.
I'm guessing the problem is in the wordpress function apply_filters. It seems to be using the last post on the page as the content of the about box, and that is what would have been put through the apply_filters function before the about code.
If you don't mind playing with the php open up functions.php, find the line
$tempVar = apply_filters( "the_content", $tempVar );and delete it. This will mean the formatting may not work properly but hopefully it will stop this from happening.
OK, found the plugin that caused the conflict...
It was SciptyGoddesses "Content with show/hide javascript for "more" " plugin....
Is there any way to get them working together? I find it to be a very useful plugin, I don't really wan't to lose it...
http://www.scriptygoddess.com/...de-more-with-wordpress/
Thanks for your help thus far
Ben C - I've never used that plugin but I'll have a look at the weekend and see if I can work out why it's happening.
Hi there,
I am French and I use your skin on my WP Blog : http://www.leblog2bubu.com/
I am trying to install it on another one but it shows me an error : Fatal error: Cannot redeclare writeabout() (previously declared in /homepages/2/d147387020/htdocs/wp-content/themes/Regulus/functions.php:61) in /homepages/2/d147387020/htdocs/wp-content/themes/Regulus/functions.php on line 59
Do you ow to settle this problem ?
Please advice !
Best regards
Oo Bubu