Oct 20 2011

New theme for WordPress: Arctica

A new WordPress theme has been submitted to the official WordPress theme directory, where it is currently in the review queue. It is called Arctica, and it has a 2-column layout with a light-on-dark colorscheme with a touch of purple. As soon as it is approved by WordPress.org, I will add it to the WordPress themes page, but until then you can preview it on the theme demo site. Click the screenshot below to see what it looks like live. If anyone wants to try the theme before its official release, let me know and I’ll send you a download URL.

By Andreas • Build • 4 Tags: , ,

Oct 20 2011

Asokay theme passes 5k downloads

Yesterday, the Asokay theme for WordPress passed 5.000 downloads from the WordPress theme directory, since it was released there in mid-September. Thanks to everyone who has provided feedback and suggestions for it, I have got some great ideas for the next version.

Support for uploading own background images (with a set of sample backgrounds included), built-in fancybox support for galleries and a 3-column page layout template are among the suggestions I am considering right now – but I would still like hear more ideas from those of you who use the theme. Including the images from the header image pack and offering an easy way to change the accent color (like in the Tumblr themes are also on the “may do” list.

If there is something specific you think should be added, please post a comment here or send me an e-mail.

By Andreas • General • 2 Tags: , ,

Oct 19 2011

N.nu now featuring templates from andreasviklund.com

N.nu - Free website builder featuring templates from andreasviklund.com

N.nu with the andreas03 template

The quickly growing website host N.nu is now featuring three of the templates from andreasviklund.com. N.nu is a free online website builder which offers the ability to build high-quality sites for free, with a set of useful premium services available. If you are looking for an easy way to build a website, it is well worth a try.

I will post a review of N.nu before the end of this week, with a short tutorial on how to set up and organize a N.nu site using one of the andreasviklund.com templates. At the moment, the templates that have been made available are andreas03, andreas08 and andreas09. The creator of N.nu, Swedish web developer and SEO professional Jim Westergren, has joined the andreasviklund.com forum. If you have specific requests for templates that you want to use with N.nu, feel free to post your requests in this forum thread.

By Andreas • Build • 3 Tags: , , , ,

Oct 17 2011

WordPress theme and plugin vulnerability: timthumb.php

Have you noticed strange things happening with your WordPress websites lately? Are spam links appearing in the theme HTML output without being visible when you view the page? Or are you using plugins or themes that have not been updated lately? Then there are a few articles you need to read.

There are a lot of themes and plugins that include a thumbnail generator script called timthumb.php, in which a serious security vulnerability has been discovered. It makes it possible to take control of your site by allowing files to be uploaded to your site by anyone familiar with the exploit. This can be abused to insert spam links on your site, and such links can go unnoticed since they can be hidden from plain view while still being visible for search engines indexing your site. This has happened to a lot of sites (the blog on the official website of the Swedish Green Party is one high-profile example here in Sweden). For a list of some of the themes that include the timthumb.php script, see blog.sucuri.net. It is in no way a complete list, and it does not include the many WordPress plugins that include the same script. But it shows the scope of the vulnerability.

Recommended action: Scan your site!

If you haven’t done so already, I recommend that you install the Timthumb.php Vulnerability Scanner from WordPress.org and run it on your site. I am a bit late on this topic, but it is worth repeating since there are obviously a lot of WordPress users who are still not familiar with this security issue.

If you find that you are affected by the vulnerability, you should immediately upgrade the timthumb.php file to the latest version to secure your site.

About the WordPress themes from andreasviklund.com

I have never used timthumb.php in any of the WordPress themes I have released, but I still ran a scan on the theme demo site where all my themes are installed – and the scan didn’t find any problems. But even if you are using one of my themes, you may have a plugin that may include the script, so I still recommend you to check your site.

By Andreas • General • 1 Tags: , , ,

Oct 13 2011

How to select the grid width in The Grid v2 template

The new version 2.0 of The Grid template includes two separate grid layouts, one that is 960 pixels wide and another that is 1200 pixels wide. Both grids use 12 columns with 20 pixels of spacing, but the column widths are diferent. The 960 pixels grid use a column width of 60 pixels while the 1200 pixels grid use a column width of 80 pixels. Since both the included grids have a similar set up, you can use any of them with the layouts created with the template. The only thing that needs to be modified to switch between the two width options is the <body> tag.

Using the 960px grid

The 960px grid is the default setting. To use it, keep the <body> tag free from additional classes, and just let it be written out as:

[html] <body>
[/html]

Using the 1200px grid

The wider grid is applied by adding a class to the <body> tag. The class, named “wider”, activates a part of the CSS which changes the grid width and all the relevant parts of the layout that are affected by the width. To switch to using the 1200px grid, modify the <body> tag to make it look like this:

[html] <body class="wider">
[/html]

No matter how the columns and rows are set up in the template, the layout and the background image will adjust to the width thanks to the body class. The exception is the header image which needs an additional edit of the HTML code. Change the header image filename by adding “-1200″ to the file name, like this:

[html] <div id="headerimage" class="col c12">
<p><a href="index.html"><img src="images/header-1200.png" alt="The Grid template" /></a></p>
</div>
[/html]

…and you are ready to use your layout in a wider format!

By Andreas • Learn • 5 Tags: , ,

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