Wordpress Modder is proudly using the Structure theme by Justin Tadlock. As an avid Wordpress user and self proclaimed Wordpress Modder, I am always looking for themes to use on various websites that I create. Because every theme I use needs to be modified in some way to fit the needs of whatever website I’m building, the first thing I do after downloading a theme is to jump right into the code to see how the author builds each individual theme. Although many core files are the same, I find it interesting how each theme developer seems to be easily distinguished from others in how they write and comment (or don’t comment) their code.
There are many things I love about this theme, the clean and well commented code, all the extra features added using custom fields, and the great support that Justin Tadlock offers on his site. I honestly don’t know how he finds the time to answer the number of comments he receives regarding the Structure theme.
From Justin’s site:
Description: A theme for news/magazine sites with a blog-friendly option too. It includes built-in video and image features that easily allow you to customize your site. There are content blocks that you can place virtually anywhere on the page.
If you’re new to using or modding Wordpress themes, the Structure theme may be a challenge, but if you stick with it, and take some time to learn some Wordpress specific code, you won’t be disappointed.
What are some of your favorite themes?
21 Comments
Hi,
dropped by here via the link on Justin Tadlock’s “Structure” page. I’m interested in (helping to organize/) organizing centralized support for the theme.
I’m in no way a programmer but have quite a bit of Expression Engine and some (beginner’s to slightly advanced) WordPress experience. I had quite a bit of exposure to WP as a (now ex-)member of the 9rules Network.
I love Justin’s theme and want to see it get continued interest and attention.
The link to the “Structure” version of my new livingwithmusic.com site is here. It’s in early stages of development and needs about 4 to 6 weeks of updating older posts, changing some basic stuff and integrating general niftyness.
I’d love to hear from you.
Cheers!
I’m using his older Visionary theme which is pretty nice as well. I’m going to use Structure on a blog I currently have under development.
@ Volkher
Sounds like a great idea, I’ve sent you an email:)
@Frank C
Visionary looks like another great theme, although I haven’t had time to dig into it yet, thanks for the tip. Also, very informative site you have in the link, I’m now an email subscriber;)
Hi , i use this theme but i can show the feature article the top
how can i do it ?
Hi Nickler,
This is listed in the readme.txt included with the Structure theme. You can check there for further details, but here’s a couple screen shots. You just put the tag “Features” in the tags area underneath your post when writing. Take a look at this…
Step 1: Presentation–>Structure Options…set Display Featured Article to “Yes”.
http://wordpressmodder.org/images/featured_article/step001.jpg
Step 2: Write Post…then add the tag “Features” underneath like this:
http://wordpressmodder.org/images/featured_article/step004.jpg
Hope that helps,
WPM
Modder,
I am searching for a little help with this theme and found you on the first page of big G with the search term “structure theme”, nice going.
Anyway, I am using the default theme style with the home page for its flexibility. One thing which frustrated me was trying to use code stops to keep from displaying the upper right box of tab menus but gave up after learning clearing the code from the tabs.php file worked just fine.
The thing I am unable to overcome is bypassing the excerpt screen from the category list on the home page. I’m not in favor of read the rest of this story, post, etc. type excerpts and would rather lead my visitors straight to the full post. I’ve torn the code apart and pieced it back together again several times, but heck I know about as much, maybe less, than a fifth grader.
Thanks Modder,
Jerry
Hey Jerry,
Thanks for the kudos on the big G placement;) I’m really glad you posted because this is something I started to modify, but for whatever reason I abandoned. If I understand your question correctly, you’re trying to get rid of the [..] at the end of the excerpt and trying to replace that with an actual link to the full post?
Good news, it’s possible, but it does require a plugin called “The Excerpt Reloaded” and some theme hacking. You can find the plugin here… http://guff.szub.net/2005/02/26/the_excerpt-reloaded/
As you can see it’s a rather old plugin and I have no clue why it’s functionality hasn’t been integrated into the core of WP, but that’s a topic for another day, let’s get to the point eh?
So the normal WP function, the_excerpt, puts in this [..] at the end of a post. “The Excerpt Reloaded” allows you to include a link to the full post and several other nice variables (read the docs on the plugin’s site). So, what I did was replace the call to the normal “the_excerpt” function with a call to “the_excerpt_reloaded” function. For now, I’ve only modified this for my feature article (it’s very late here, I’ll do the rest tomorrow).
In order to get this to work in my featured article, I opened the features.php page and replaced standard function with the call to the reloaded function. I’ll write up a full post on this and the various pages to edit as soon as I have a chance, but this should point you in the right direction.
Feel free to post back with your results as I’m sure others would benefit from this.
Take care,
Modder
It’s been a while.
I finally got done with my site based on the “Structure” theme. I tweaked it in to submission (and produced validation errors), but it seems to work.
Look, Ma, it’s got a header …
Cheers!
Volkher Hofmann’s last blog post..Version 2.0
Hey Volkher!
Nice to hear from you again:) Great implementation, really nice! Your hard work has really paid off! I’m sure your Structure hacking will be an inspiration to many.
Glad you’re feeling better;)
Thanks!
Now I just need to figure out how to get different sidebars on the single posts and “pages”, err, pages.
Off to close the site down for an hour and transferring 30 comments that hit my old site these past two weeks or so and which I now have to pull out of the old DB by hand. I should’ve planned better …
Have a nice (continued) Sunday!
Volkher
Volkher Hofmann’s last blog post..Version 2.0
That should work fine and is closer to what I’m trying to do.
What I’m after, if possible, is to skip the excerpt all together and go straight to the full post from the category links. Right now if you select a category from the home page you are taken to excerpts of posts and only after clicking on the title or read more you arrive at the full post. Am I making sense?
Jerry
Jerry, I’m sorry but I’m not sure I understand completely. Let’s figure this out though. You said…
…if you select a category from the home page you are taken to excerpts of posts…
Are you referring to the “Sections” tab in the tabs area on the upper right? If so, then instead of it showing just the excerpts of the posts in whatever category you clicked on, you’d like to see the full posts on that page?
I tried a few thing to try and accomplish this, basically I changed the_excerpt to the_content on various pages including category.php, tabs.php, tab-categories.php, and excerpts.php and a couple others, but couldn’t get it to work the way I described above. I’m sure there’s a way, however, I couldn’t find a quick solution. This might be one for the Structure theme forums.
http://justintadlock.com/forums/forum.php?id=1
Modder,
We are at an understanding. Let me clear up one point of confusion. I have removed tabs from my home page and replaced with a categories widget.
I edited category.php doing as you suggested, and presto, exactly what I was after all along. It is easy to make things more difficult than than actually are.
Kudos to the Majestic Modder
Now I need help finding your tip jar.
Modder,
Oops,
Now that visitors are lead to the_content instead of an excerpt from my home page there is a duplicate content issue since the content is exactly the same on category.php as single.php.
So it seems this may be a bad idea.
The end results I want to achieve are out of the ordinary so some critical thinking is in order. I’ll let you know how it works out.
Jerry,
Thanks for the kudos, I’m really glad I could help. Tip jar coming soon;)
Great news on it working out for you, not so great on the duplicate content issue perhaps. You’re right time for some critical thinking…the answer will most likely come in the middle of the night;)
I sure would like to see the site you’re working on. If you don’t want the world to know, you can contact me through my contact form and share the link if you’re willing?
Looking forward to future updates on how things work out!
i still using justin visionary themes. However, will going to change structure theme in future.
km’s last blog post..Free 148 Vector Icons for Personal and Commercial Use – Bright! Vector Icons
@ km,
Thanks for commenting:) Please feel free to post back with a link when you get Structure up and running.
Hello WPM, I like this theme and most likely I am gonna use it on one of my business article site. However, there is this sentence
“There are content blocks that you can place virtually anywhere on the page.”
Does he mean that this can be done easily in the admin page, or I need to learn some coding to achieve the result this?
I am just wondering how can this possible. Anyway, I am new to modding themes too. So far I am familiar with style CSS and header.php.
BloggerOfTheWeb’s last blog post..SEO & Blogging: BloggerOfTheWeb Has Its Own DoFollow & CommentLuv Directory
Hey Blogger of the Web,
Don’t worry, no coding involved. All of the content blocks come in the form of widgets or options that you can turn on and off. You should download it and give it a try:)
I was looking for a simple theme which I can modify. Don’t know much about coding but this one looks good. I like the way sidebar is designed. Its clean and looks good too.
Davids last blog post..New Business Venture
I really liked your blog!
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