Long time no post! I’m sorry about that. I’ll hopefully be able to turn the silent-streak around in the coming days and weeks.

I just quickly wanted to let everyone know that ThesisReady.com relaunched today! I’ve totally overhauled the payment system to allow more flexibility and cleaned up the skin information pages. In addition to the infastructure changes, there will be a lot more content, a lot more often.

Please got check it out and let me know what you think about it. If you have any questions about signing up or buying a skin, don’t hesitate to email with questions!

Thanks!

-Adam

After a long time spent searching for a great magazine-style skin for Thesis, I finally gave up and built my own. I’ve decided to keep the styling pretty basic for now, though making changes is easy (and upgrade-proof) by means of a skin-specific external stylesheet. In addition, it’s got a ton of great features, perfect for any magazine site.

And did  I mention configuration is super easy? Set a few variables and you’re good to go! No need to dig through the code.

Features

• Free Product Support
• Easily configurable front page
• Built in social media links
• Author pages
• Full width custom-template
• Fully widget-ready footer
• Breadcrumb Navigation
• Super SEO friendly – no extra plugins required
• Upgrade-proof design – don’t worry about losing customization for version 2!

You can see the skin in action at http://printisdead.adambarber.tv/ and buy it at http://thesisready.com/skins/print-is-dead

UPDATE – I’ve just released a new skin called “ThesisReady Pro” which can be found at http://thesisready.com/skins/thesisready-pro/. If you’re looking for a great, stylish skin with an awesome options panel, check it out.

I spent the afternoon working out a few ideas I wanted to use in my next Thesis build. As a result, I came up with a super-simple skin free for you to use, called SimpleOrange! I did include my Thesis affiliate link in the footer though, so I do ask that if you do use my work, you keep that in there.

SimpleOrange Thesis Skin by Adam Barber

Skin Features

• Widgetized media box.
• Widgetized footer (4 seperate areas)
• Bright orange color scheme
• Simple organized layout

Installation Guide

• Download the SimpleOrange (You’ll be redirected to the signup form on ThesisReady.com – don’t worry it’s free and only takes a second)
• Download Thesis 1.5.1
• Copy the orangeskin custom folder into your Thesis directory
• Enable “custom code” for the media box on the options page
• Set column widths to 580/180/180
• Set “full width” framework

If you have questions, or suggestions, leave them in the comments below!

FOR EVEN MORE STYLE AND FEATURES, CHECK OUT…

PRINT IS DEAD

CLASSY OPERATION

DEEP BLUE

As you can see on this site, I am using Thesis hooks to insert adsense boxes both above, and below the content on single post and category pages.

Adsense above select category headers.

In addition to being able to quickly inject the boxes, I wanted to make sure I could exclude the adsense from particular categories, like anything Thesis related, for example. There are a couple steps to do this.

Step 1 – Add the following to custom_functions.php

/* Custom Adsense Insertion */
function custom_adsense_insetion(){
 if (is_single() && in_category('thesis')|| is_category('thesis') || is_front_page() )
{ }
else { ?>
<div class="adsense">
#### YOUR ADSENSE CODE HERE ####
</div>
<?php
}}

So we have a couple of things to look at. In order to select which categories we want ads on, I’ve used an if statement. In my particular case, I knew I had only a few instances where I didn’t want the ads automatically inserted, so I decided to go with a negative-case setup. Within the “if” brackets, I define which pages I want the function to display nothing on. The fist is single post pages for anything in the Thesis category. The second is the Thesis category listing its self. The Last is the home page. Each case is separated by “||” which denotes “or.”

Any case in the else area will automatically get the adsense. Depending on how many pages you are applying the code to, you may want to reverse this.

Step 2 – Add actions! I decided to simply use the before and after content hooks. It isn’t 100% what I was going for, but it gets the job done for right now. You can experiment with which particular thesis hooks work best for your setup.

Copy and paste the following into custom_functions.php

add_action('thesis_hook_before_content', 'custom_adsense_insetion');
add_action('thesis_hook_after_content', 'custom_adsense_insetion');

Step 3 - The last thing we need to do is style the div to ensure the positioning is correct. I just added a margin to the top and bottom, and an “auto margin” to the sides to ensure it stays centered. The style code goes in the custom style sheet.

.custom .adsense { margin: .3em auto; text-align: center}

That’s it! If you have any problems getting anything to work, leave a comment, or follow me on twitter at http://twitter.com/adambarber. And please let me know if you would like to see any particular tutorials!

The tutorial below is a quick and easy guide to adding a fancy box containing links to all of your social media profiles.

Step 1 – Open your custom_functions.php file and add the following. Make sure to adjust the links to the correct social media profiles, and don’t forget to change the name!

// Social Media Links Function
 
function social_media_links(){
 ?>
 <div>
 <ul>
 <li><a id="twitter" href="http://twitter.com/##YOURUSERNAME##">
 <span>adam barber</span>
 <span>on twitter</span>
 </a>
 </li> 
 
 <li><a id="facebook" href="http://facebook.com/##YOURUSERNAME##">
 <span>adam barber</span>
 <span>on facebook</span>
 </a>
 </li>
 
 <li><a id="linkedin" href="http://linkedin.com/##YOURUSERNAME##">
 <span>adam barber</span>
 <span>on linkedin</span>
 </a>
 </li>
 
 <li><a id="rss" href="##YOURRSSFEED##">
 <span>adam barber</span>
 <span>rss feed</span>
 </a>
 </li>
 </ul>
 
 <div></div>  
 
 </div>  
 
 <?php
} 
 
// Add the function to the proper hook
add_action('thesis_hook_after_multimedia_box', 'social_media_links');

Step 2 – Open your custom.css stylesheet and add the following. Look over the comments and make adjustments to fit your style, including regular and hover background colors, and the links to your icon images.

/* Define the clear div to offset the link floats */
div.clear{
clear: both;
height: 1px;
width: 1px;
}
 
/* This is the style for the container */
div.socialmedia_sidebar
{
background: #eee;
margin: -18px 0 5px 0;
/* If you are using this below the media box,
use a negative top margin to raise it up. If not, adjust accordingly */
padding: 5px 0 5px 10px;
border-top: 1px dashed black;
border-bottom: 1px dashed black;
}
 
div.socialmedia_sidebar ul li{
float: left;
list-style: none;
text-align: center;
}
 
div.socialmedia_sidebar span.name{
font-size: 2em;
display: block;
}
 
div.socialmedia_sidebar span.service{
font-style: italic;
}
 
div.socialmedia_sidebar ul li a{
width: 200px;
padding: 5px;
display: block;
border: 1px solid #fff;
}
 
/* Non-hover profile links */
#twitter{ background: #FEF9BF url('##PATHTOTWITTERICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat; height: 35px; text-indent: 35px;}
#facebook{ background: #FEF9BF url('##PATHTOFACEBOOKICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat; height: 35px; text-indent: 45px;}
#linkedin{ background: #FEF9BF url('##PATHTOLINKEDINICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat; height: 35px; text-indent: 40px;}
#rss{ background: #FEF9BF url('##PATHTORSSICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat; height: 35px; text-indent: 45px;}
 
/* Hover profile links */
#twitter:hover{ background: #999 url('##PATHTOTWITTERICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat}
#facebook:hover{ background: #999 url('##PATHTOFACEBOOKICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat}
#linkedin:hover{ background: #999 url('##PATHTOLINKEDINICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat}
#rss:hover{ background: #999 url('##PATHTORSSICON##') 5px 5px no-repeat}

Step 3 – This is how it will looks when done.

Thesis Social Media Links

Have you ever wanted to be able to quickly modify the Thesis media box, and turn it into a widget-ready area? The tutorial below outlines the steps you need to take to make that happen. This is especially useful if you use NextGen Gallery and want to be able to display random image from the gallery, directly in the media box.

Step 1 - Open your custom_functions.php file and add the following.

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if ( function_exists('register_sidebar') )
register_sidebar(array(
'name'=>'Media Box',
'before_widget' => '<li class="widget %2$s">',
'after_widget' => '</li>',
'before_title' => '<h3>',
'after_title' => '</h3>'));

Step 2 – While still in custom_functions.php add this.

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function mediabox_widget() {
echo '<ul class="sidebar_list">';
if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar') || !dynamic_sidebar('Media Box') ) :
echo '</ul>';
 
endif;
}
add_action('thesis_hook_multimedia_box', 'mediabox_widget');

Step 3 - Enable “custom code” for the media box, under the Thesis Options admin panel.

Step 4 - Go to the widgets admin area, select “Media Box” and add your widgets.

That’s it! Easy, right?