Gridline Magazine

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Update

This theme has been updated and is now part of the Gridline Suite. Subscribers can download this theme, now renamed just “Gridline,” from their member page.

Gridline Magazine is a theme for WordPress 2.8 and up that makes extensive use of custom queries and custom fields to create an unique blogging format. Gridline can transform your blog into a full-blown Magazine or news Web site. Gridline utilizes Blueprint, a CSS framework that streamlines development by utilizing an easy-to-use grid and sensible typography.

Note: The demo site is currently being reworked. Click here to see a live site using a slightly customized Gridline.

Installation

  1. Unzip the downloaded file
  2. Upload the entire “Gridline″ folder to your “/wp-content/themes/” folder
  3. Log in into your WordPress control panel
  4. Click the Presentation tab
  5. Select the “Gridline” screenshot

Configuration

  1. GETTING STARTED: To get Gridline off and running, you will need a minimum of 6 categories to populate the homepage. The main section on this page is the latest article posted in category 1. The three posts at right are all from category 1, offset by 1 to avoid duplication. The other sections display the latest articles in their respective categories.
  2. YOUR CATEGORIES: In the “home.php” you will find a series of query_posts functions which refer to specific category ID numbers from my database.
    You will need to change the category numbers to reflect the ID numbers of the categories that you want to display on your homepage. Category numbers can be found in your control panel under Manage->Categories. There are a total of 6 spots in the home.php file to change to reflect the post categories that you want to display on the main page.
  3. YOUR PHOTOS: To have thumbnails in each post, crop the thumbnail to 150px wide by 100px tall, upload it to the web and copy the URL to the photo. Within WordPress’ Write Post page, scroll down towards the bottom and click on the Custom Fields section. Add a key called “small_photo” and then paste the link to the thumbnail photo into the key value field. Photos posted within each entry’s post will should not exceed 590px wide, otherwise, the images will bleed into the sidebar and make you site look icky. View a screenshot of the custom fields used for the Gridline Theme. Make sure your custom field values and keys match those in the screen shot above (but change the key value to the exact url to your images.) Custom fields are one of the most overlooked, yet powerful, tools in WordPress. Read more about using custom fields.
  4. YOUR AUTHORS PAGE: Gridline comes packaged with an author archive (authors.php), which will display some author specific info pulled from the Users page in your WordPress installation. In order for the author’s image to show up, you’ll need to place a jpg of the author titled by the author’s last name in the wp-content/themes/gridline/images/authors/ folder. For instance, mine is Allender.jpg, sized at 75px X 75px. Here is an example author page.
  5. STYLES.CSS: Unlike most WordPress themes which plug all the css in one file called styles.css, Gridline utilizes the Blueprint CSS framework to help separate positioning, typography, forms and what I’ll refer to as custom or gridline specific styles. To edit all custom gridline specific styles, you’ll need to edit the style.css file located in your wp/wp-content/themes/gridline/ directory.
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Posted by , at Graph Paper Press

Thad is the founder of Graph Paper Press. Previously, he produced online multimedia and documentary projects for USA Today including the inauguration of President Barack Obama and many others. He lives in Brooklyn, NY with his wife Abby.

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51 thoughts on “Gridline Magazine”

  1. Quick question: is there any other form of documentation included (other than what’s on this page already)?

    I’m not exactly a newbie, but then again I’m not writing themes like this either…

    Thanks in advance.

    Reply

  2. There is no other form of documentation. The theme uses custom fields, detailed here and categories to populate the homepage. Follow the instructions above and you’ll be set.

    Reply

  4. Is there a way to make the header/logo area larger (ie. in height)?

    Also is there anyway to add banner advertising in the header area? That top banner is imperative.

    I bought Gridline magazine last night and am VERY eager to use it on my new magazine project. Any help would be greatly appreciated and would probably help future customers like me! =)

    Reply

  6. Love this theme. Just starting to impliment it on my website at http://www.edhidden.com. I do have a feature request if you are “taking them”.

    Since I’m not going to the trouble of making thumbnails for my posts… how about adding them to the category display page and archive display page (if they exist).

    They could fit right down the left or right side and would lend a little more graphic look to those pages. Just a thought.

    Love the theme. Thank you for the great work.

    Reply

  7. hey,

    great theme but the author.php doesn’t work. i get the following error:

    Fatal error: Call to undefined function: get_header() in /www/htdocs/w0096518/wp-content/themes/gridline_magazine/authors.php on line 1

    And another question. are updates included in the price for the theme?

    cheers.

    Reply

  8. @Dom

    Delete all empty lines of code at the very top of authors.php. I think you have an empty line of code, which is causing the problem.

    Reply

  11. Hi,
    Great template. I am using it to replace the current http://www.lighting-essentials.com site for tutorials and such.

    I am new to WP, and was wondering if there is a way to add a right side column to the post pages?

    http://www.lighting-essentials.com/magazine/2008/02/07/tulips-on-a-large-format-camera/

    I would like to have an area for ads / options there. If that is a Plug In, would you kindly point me to that page. If not, I would appreciate any WP gurus out there helping me out.

    Reply

  12. Hi Don

    There sure it. The sidebar is “widgetized.” To add content to your sidebar, simply log into your WordPress admin panel, click on Presentation, then click on Widgets. You can add content to the Sidebar widget by dragging and dropping the content of your choosing. Plus, you can install additional Widget plugins that can do just about anything you want, including ad management.

    Reply

  14. Hi

    how can i exclude a category from the drop-down menu bar (department).

    For ex: i have 4 cats: one, two, three, four. i want that only the cats two, three and four are displayed under department.

    Tks for your help

    mau

    Reply

  17. Can I turn off comments (not showing, not allowing them to be added)? Also, can we turn off the posts listing the author?

    Thanks.

    Reply

  18. Whats the best way to postition/edit the header graphic? I replaced your “gridline_logo.jpg” with my own but it’s incorrectly positioned. Thoughts?

    Reply

  23. Hello,
    I happily purchased the Theme and using it with WordPress for a new site I’m working on.
    I’d like to know if anybody knows is there is any forum or somethin where I could ask questios about CSS changes asnthings like that.
    Also I really need to know what should I do about the Word Press 2.5 update. WP is asking to update but I don’t know if I’d have problems with my website or even losing what I have so far… can someone please advise??

    Reply

  25. thx thad I’ll try to find answer to my questions there.
    Is there an update of the gridline magazine template on the way?? cause I just made a test with the updated version (2.5) of WordPress with the template and it’s just not working, totally not configurated at all.

    Reply

  26. Hi Jose

    All of my themes work with WordPress 2.5, but you will first need to configure the home.php file with your categories, as described above in the install instructions.

    Reply

  27. do they? I’m new using themes and don’t mean to sound rude but the last thing I read in the forum was:

    “I plan to update all themes. I don’t, however, think that WordPress Core will change in a way that causes any major problems to the themes. As a theme developer, I have to recommend that you don’t upgrade until you are positive that your specific theme is compatible. Once you know that it is, upgrade.”

    So, should I upgrade without worrying about problems with the template?
    Because this is how my site looks now: http://www.bogota-2600.com
    And after exporting it to use with WP 2.5 looks like this: http://www.bogota-2600.com/wptest

    Reply

  28. Hi Jose

    Please double check that your home.php file in your new wordpress install contains the same exact categories that you have configured in your old install. Remember that there are a total of seven numbers to change in four different wp queries. I made the projection before WordPress 2.5 was officially released that my themes would all work. I have tested them, so have hundreds of other users and they are wp 2 5 compatible. If you are having trouble with customizing or configuring your theme, please visit the forum, http://www.graphpaperpress.com/forum

    We’ll get you rolling, promise.

    Reply

  30. Hi,

    First of all, nice theme, you did a great job.

    I have two questions: how easy or difficult is it to…

    Place a permanent frontpage header/picture above the last post and underneath the menu bar?

    And second…

    I want to change the cat. 3 – 7 with 5 pages (with title, picture and a bit text), is this doable?

    Reply

  33. Hey just picked up the package, I’m a total noob and trying to use your templates to get familiar with WP. Anyway, right out the gate I somehow dropped my categories, even though they show up in the admin panel, and your note about changing the ID # is somehow losing me. Any help would be much appreciated, and thanks for the killer themes.

    Reply

  34. Hello,
    I like this theme but before I make a purchase, I would like to know up to how many categories (at the bottom of the page)can I add?

    Regards,
    Leemei

    Reply

  35. wp_fancyzoom works great in gridline_magazine in single.php and home.php but it will NOT work in archive.php. Any suggestions for a fix would be appreciated.

    Reply

  37. Thad,

    Good evening, and a quick question I’m hoping you can help me with.

    I’m a licensed user of a couple versions of the Gridline theme. I’m currently using Gridline Magazine at http://www.dantrimble.com, and just recently went live with the theme.

    Unfortunately, my Archives page doesn’t work. I created it simply by creating a Page under WordPress called Archives. But it’s loading a blank page on all browsers. How do I configure Gridline to show the Archives “By Month”, “By Category”, etc. break-down like on your demo site?

    Thank you kindly,
    Dan

    Reply

  38. Hi Thad –

    Love the theme. The site is going to look great, once it’s done finally!

    One suggestion: Add a control panel to the dashboard to easily allow changing of categories displayed on the home page. This would make using the theme going forward MUCH easier. Requiring users to understand, and edit, code seems to be asking a lot. If I weren’t a programmer, I’m not sure I would have known how to do it.

    Thanks again for the wonderful theme!

    -Bob

    Reply

  39. hi thad –

    a couple of months ago i purchased gridline lite (i think). anyway – its been a while since i fiddled with it and now i cant find the files anywhere. if you have a record of my purchase, would you mind sending me the theme files over again? or letting me download them again?

    thanks,

    mike giambattista

    Reply

  40. Wow I just love this theme. It is so, how shall I say this, woody! Ha! But no for real I love the website and since I have my own I am going to sign up for the affiliates thing for my other website. Thank you so much for the hook up!

    Reply

  46. The demo isn’t available but I’m really interested in this theme – any chance of getting it fixed? Please! ASAP… 🙂

    Reply

  47. Wondering if there’s a way to have the Gridline theme auto-generate the 150/100 px thumbs. I’m tired of going into Photoshop just to complete a post.

    Reply

      1. Thanks for the reply Thad… my install of the theme has been modified. Is there a way to update it without starting over again?

        Reply

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