Hi there,

I've been working on my website for a couple of weeks now. I'm using Wordpress and Bluehost. I uploaded a free theme (from an independent designer website, not from wordpress.org). I'm trying to use the KISS principle to start out with and pretty much liked the theme exactly how it is EXCEPT for two main things.

1) I really like the header as it is and, of course, it fits really well with the rest of the theme. The only thing I wanted to do was change it to add my own font and arrange it the way I want (you could type in the title and change the color, but you had to use their font). So, I was able to bring the header into inkscape and create my own "logo" with the font and arrangement I wanted to use. AND, I was able to upload it ("WOOHOO!" for me...LOL). The only thing is that the header is a bit small for the placeholder. So I have to play with it a bit more.

2) Here's the bigger issue I'm having and I'm afraid I know the answer, but I thought I'd throw it out to see if I may be wrong. The theme came with 2 sidebars and then, of course, the center area for the posts. I only really want a right sidebar. I figured out how to remove the left sidebar completely, but now I need to figure out how to move the right sidebar back over to the right (it shifted in line with the content block) and widen my content block. Does anyone know of a way to do this? I can't find the code that seems to affect this area. I'm afraid that that may actually be an image and impossible to widen without me creating a new background image. If I have to use two sidebars, I will, but I really prefer the one sidebar look the best.

I want to keep my website as clean as possible. If I do use 2 sidebars, any suggestions of what to put in each without making it look cluttered. Also, is it a good idea to have a search box all throughout your website or is it only really needed on your blog page?

Just as a bit of background explanation: I decided to go ahead and operate as a sole proprietor for the time being. I know that I should really go LLC (and I will eventually - once I really get going), but I honestly think this is the best thing for me to do right now because it's very low cost and that's basically how I'm operating now. This is why I'm just using my name and "job title" instead of a true business name. I was bogging myself down way too much with trying to make everything ab-so-lute-ly from the beginning (LLC, Logo, business name, etc.) and realized I was just overwhelming myself and holding myself back. So as I said, I'm trying to use the KISS method as much as possible and will change/improve/add things little by little.

Here's the link if anyone wants to check it out and any suggestions are greatly appreciated. Just please keep in mind that this is very, VERY rough right now...LOL

www.suitesuccessenterprises.com

Oh...speaking of which. That domain is what I set up Bluehost with and I do plan on using it down the road (when I go LLC). I set up the domain name I want to use for now as an "add on". From what I understood, this should allow someone to type in the new domain name and have them sent to www.suitesuccessenterprises.com (I'm thinking this is what a redirect is, but not sure if I'm mixing up the terminology or not) without actually seeing that url. But, it doesn't seem to be working. Am I doing something wrong?

Thanks,

Stephanie

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy:

Originally Posted by StephanieP

2) Here's the bigger issue I'm having and I'm afraid I know the answer, but I thought I'd throw it out to see if I may be wrong. The theme came with 2 sidebars and then, of course, the center area for the posts. I only really want a right sidebar. I figured out how to remove the left sidebar completely, but now I need to figure out how to move the right sidebar back over to the right (it shifted in line with the content block) and widen my content block. Does anyone know of a way to do this? I can't find the code that seems to affect this area. I'm afraid that that may actually be an image and impossible to widen without me creating a new background image. If I have to use two sidebars, I will, but I really prefer the one sidebar look the best.

Hi Stephanie,

In your CSS file (style.css) find this code:

Code:

/* begin LayoutCell */ .contentLayout .content { position: relative; margin: 0; padding: 0; border: 0; float: left; overflow: hidden; width: 531px; } /* end LayoutCell */

Try this: change the 531px by to 631px and see if that makes a difference (make sure you save/update the file after your changes ). If this works for you, you can increase the width further, but make sure not to go more than approximately 940px total between the width of your sidebar (207px) and whatever you change the content width to (max would be 733px for the content area).

If you look at the CSS file, and the code above and below 'begin LayoutCell' is where you can change the width of your sidebar1 and sidebar2.

The theme you have is a "stripped" version of an Artisteer theme. Artisteer is software you can purchase online at www.artisteer.com, and build your own themes.

I would suggest you get rid of the annoying creditreport advertisement at the bottom of the theme you have - the person that stripped this Artisteer theme must have added it.

Hope that helps a bit. I will say that there may be other areas of the CSS that might need to be changed, but try this first and let us know if this helped.

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Jules, SunRise Virtual Solutions - WordPress Customization & XHTML/CSS Web Sites

You're a peach! Thanks so much. I'll try it out this evening.

Getting rid of that link is something else I did want to work on. I was able to get rid of some other annoying links (for the plugins), but I haven't figured that one out yet or the one for the Wordpress SEO. I'd like to give credit where credit's due so I don't mind a couple of subtle links, but I definitely want to get rid of the credit report one.

Thanks again

Stephanie

P.S. I couldn't wait and went ahead and tried it and it worked exactly the way I wanted it to! Thank you, thank you, thank you

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy:

Originally Posted by StephanieP

You're a peach! Thanks so much. I'll try it out this evening. ...but I definitely want to get rid of the credit report one. Thanks again Stephanie P.S. I couldn't wait and went ahead and tried it and it worked exactly the way I wanted it to! Thank you, thank you, thank you

Way to go, Stephanie! So glad you were able to follow the directions I gave (it was late ), and they worked for you - your site looks much better!

Try looking in the footer.php file for that string of code for the credit report link.

Now I better feed my three kitties and get back to work.

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Jules, SunRise Virtual Solutions - WordPress Customization & XHTML/CSS Web Sites

I was so excited last night because I felt my website coming together and was figuring out what I wanted and making it happen (especially with Jules' help on widening my content block). I was on a roll

Then....THEN....I decided to tackle the links in my footer (removing some of the ad stuff) and I totally screwed it up. I though I found something in the function.php file. I copied the original code before I did anything (I'm not that stupid...lol), but when I made the change which was basically just deleting some of the code all the way at the bottom, I got a parsing error that wouldn't even let me go back into my Wordpress admin dashboard. It was late and I was tired and the only thing I could think to do was go to my last backup which was on March 9 ... BEFORE I EVEN UPLOADED THE NEW TEMPLATE!

I probably should have slept on it and tried to tackle it again today before I went to an old backup but, like I said, it was late and I was tired and it wouldn't even let me get back into my admin area.

So, I'm back to square one, but I'm hoping that I'll be able to redo in a couple of hours what it took me a week to figure out before. And, lesson learned... backup, backup, backup at least once a day while I'm working on my website.

So.... back to the drawing board... LOL

Oh, and Jules, before I started messing around with the function.php file, I did go into the footer.php file but it had a bunch of gobbledygook in there and, if I tried to do anything (changing it or deleting it) it completely removed my footer, including my website copywrite information. I have a sneaky suspicion that they've encrypted the footer coding so that you can't remove any of that without paying them for the key. So, I may have to do that even though I really didn't want to for my first website. it's only $29, so it's not like it's that much.

Stephanie

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy:

$29?! Oy. Stephanie, if it had encrypted code in the footer I would NOT use that stripped Artisteer template. Who knows what is in that file. There are thousands of free 3.x compatible themes out there to choose from. Maybe think about going that route?

I have to get to work here, but when I have some time later I'll pop back in here and give you some links to great templates. (Maybe others could jump in here with their faves?) Oh! One off the top of my head that is pretty easy to customize is Flexibility theme: http://www.flexibilitytheme.com/ (they have a paid version too, but this one is free and VERY user-friendly and highly customizable right "out of the box").

So sorry you had so many problems! Oh - don't edit your function.php file unless you really know what you're doin', LOL. As you found out, one misstep and your site is down.

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Jules, SunRise Virtual Solutions - WordPress Customization & XHTML/CSS Web Sites

Actually, I misspoke. It's only $20.

I really like the design of this template, but I think I may play around with some other more versatile templates to see if I like customizing them better. I'm pretty good with figuring some of the coding out (with the help of Google and here) to achieve the layout I'm after, I'm just not very good at the "making it pretty" part...LOL

I've got a busy, busy weekend ahead of me

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Stephanie
New VA in the research phase :daisy:

I have to agree with Jules, it seems like this might be a theme you want to stay away from. There are so many amazing free themes available, I especially love the ones that provide lots of customization and options, often called frameworks.

You can check out the list of great frameworks, I haven't played or used this one yet, but it does look pretty good as well. I also just created a site for a client using this one called Weaver, tons of options and looks available, really simple and straight forward as well.

Hopefully that can give you a few ideas and save you purchasing something that I'm suspecting wasn't built well.

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Renee Shupe, Become a Techie Virtual Assistant
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