Zit Seng's Blog

A Singaporean's technology and lifestyle blog

Simplicity Theme

This is the Simplicity theme for WordPress. It is designed to be a cool, clean, simple theme that keeps the focus on your content. The main features for Simplicity are:

  • Fixed width or fluid width (configurable)
  • Two columns or three columns (configurable)
  • Widgets support
  • Gravatar support
  • XHTML and CSS compliant
  • Simple design
  • White/light coloured
  • Presentable on modern mobile devices

I created Simplicity because I could not find any existing theme that I was truly satisfied with. The greatest difficulties are that most themes are fixed width, and most authors could not care less about XHTML and/or CSS compliance.

This is my first attempt to create a WordPress theme. The features are quite basic at the moment, but moving forward, I hope to get these things done:

  • Much greater customizations through the Admin theme options page
  • Update to XHTML 1.0 Strict compliance (currently it is XHTML 1.0 Transitional)

This theme makes use of the Theme Toolkit, with a few minor fixes: 1 trivial bug fix, some updates to text, and HTML fixes for XHTML compliance.

Download Simplicity:


154 thoughts on “Simplicity Theme”

  1. Hello, mMany thanks fot the fast respons.

    I think it isn’t possibel that I ‘ve a corrupted Functions php file, because i tried many downloads of the theme and different WordPress installations.
    The problem is still persists even on different computers.

    I have one Simplicity theme that works very well: http://www.jomasoft.be/wordpress

    If a take de functions.php from the good working installation, the problem still excists

    The version is: 3.30

    Thanks,

    Johan

    Reply

  2. Hi Johan,

    On all the computers where you are having problem, is there some common thing between them? E.g. are they all Windows-based Apache/PHP installations? I presume you do have at least one installation that works, how is it different from the others that don\’t work?

    Offhand, one possibility that I\’m guessing is that the theme is breaking on Windows Apache/PHP setups. If it is only happening on such setups, I\’d try to get access to one to figure out what might be wrong.

    Reply

    1. Hello,

      I think you’re right. Al the computers have no link with each other, but there are all configured with PHP/Apache setups.
      The installation that works perfect is hosted by One.com and ik don’t now what these server use.
      http://www.one.com

      Indeed, there is a problem with PHP/Apache

      Thanks for the answer and excuse me for my bad english
      Greetings from Belgium

      CAn you fixed it ?

      mvg,
      Johan

      Reply

        1. Thanks Mr. Zit Seng, The problem is solved, youre right, the problem was php/Apache.
          Everthing ok and its works,

          If you ever come to Belgium, Youre welcome in mine house,

          Greetings ,
          Johan

          Reply

          1. Hello,

            I seem to have the same problem, I have this error : Parse error: syntax error, unexpected $end in D:\wamp\sites\placealasante\wordpress\wp-content\themes\simplicity\comments.php on line 84

            I have no problem in local but when I put it online there is this error.

            Laureys Johan, could you please tell me what you’ve done to solve the problem please ?
            If the problem is php/apache, what am I supposed to change/do ?

            Thanks a lot !!

  3. Hi there, I tried registering for the forum, but the email has not arrived and I checked spam filters, etc…
    Anyway, just wanted to say thanks for the theme. I really like the cleanliness of it, and aside from one minor little issue, I think this is the theme I’ll be on for a while.
    That one minor issue – I’d like the navigation links to stay in the hover color based on the page I am on, to behave more like “real world” tabs. If you can figure that one out, it would be nice.

    Thanks again,
    -Joe
    http://www.josephhoetzl.com

    Reply

    1. Ok this is something that can be done with the CSS styles. Agreed that’s something generally useful. I’ll do that in the next version update.

      Reply

  4. Thank you for a nice theme! One of the most useful features for me – is the ability to adjust page width.
    There’s only one problem for me: i’m using a 2-coloumn mode with the fixed with of 750px, in this mode the page is, sort of, alligned to the left, is it possible to center it? i tried editing style.css, but i’m new to it and not sure what to change. I would be grateful for any help. Thanks in advance.

    Reply

  5. Hello Igor,

    I just found the solution to center the page :
    In “header.php” you have to add (line 28) : margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;

    25-
    26- body { }
    27- option[‘width_type’] == ‘fixed’) { ?>
    28-#page { width: option[‘page_width’]; ?>px; margin-left:auto; margin-right:auto;}
    29-option[‘page_min_width’]) { ?>
    30-#page { min-width: option[‘page_min_width’]; ?>; }
    31-

    Enjoy !

    Reply

  6. Hey 🙂

    Just wanted to thank you for your great theme (while popping in for an update). Customised it a bit to fit my site as a whole, but every without much tinkering it’s an almost seamless fit. I’ve yet to find anything anywhere near as good, including paid ones like Thesis.

    ~ Paul

    Reply

  7. Thank you for a nice theme! One of the most useful features for me – is the ability to adjust page width.
    There’s only one problem for me: i’m using a 2-coloumn mode with the fixed with of 750px, in this mode the page is, sort of, alligned to the left, is it possible to center it? i tried editing style.css, but i’m new to it and not sure what to change. I would be grateful for any help. Thanks in advance.

    Reply

    1. Hi, I thought this “bug” is already fixed. Are you using the latest Simplicity theme? If so, could you point me to your website where you have the theme running so that I can understand what is broken? Thanks. 🙂

      Reply

  8. Hi,
    I really like the simplicity theme, very clean display and easy to work with (altho I’m a newbie to php).
    My site displays well on Firefox and IE7 but on IE6 the left sidebar displays in the middle of my text. I can fix it by using fixed rather than fluid page width, and disabling the left sidebar,
    but I hate to reduce usability and appearance just for IE6. The only mod I’ve made is addition of two if-else statements in the page.php file to alter display for one of the subpages.
    Could I have done something that works in IE7 but not 6? (A friend said I may have omitted an HTML div but I can’t find an error like that)
    Any input you can provide will be much appreciated.
    Thanks!

    Reply

    1. Hi Robert,

      It looks like the mangling happens when the window is too narrow. Something on your page wants the window wide. It turns out your table fixes its width at 488.8pt 🙂 If you view your other pages, it isI believe one way to solve it is to set the minimum page width in Simplicity options to be large enough. Let me know how it goes.

      Reply

  9. Zit,
    Thanks very much for the quick reply and suggestion, much appreciated! So far no luck yet, here’s what I’ve done:
    – restored defaults by replacing my altered page.php with the original that came with the template
    – increased minimum page width in Simplicity options to 800
    – removed the table from the “pretty good requirements” post entirely.
    Unfortunately after each step the left sidebar remained in the text area (with the search box aligned with the word “row level” in my first title).
    Again I appreciate your help and this problem does not occur in IE7 or Firefox just IE6.
    Thanks!
    Bob

    Reply

    1. Ok. I will take a closer look. I’ve got an IE6 machine stashed somewhere… good thing you have a live example so I can see what is wrong. 🙂

      Reply

    2. Hi Bob,

      There is a very long “word” on your page. It is the link to books.google.com. It makes the page wrapping muck up. Other than fixing the page width to be very wide (which I guess you’ve tried), you could try making this link text shorter. It seems to work when I copied/modified your HTML to test. Let me know how it goes. 🙂

      Reply

      1. Zit,
        I deleted the link and it worked like a charm, now my friends at my client still running IE6 can go to the blog and have a good user experience. I appreciate your help, as an HTML newbie I would not
        have known where to start.
        I’m happy to be using the Simplicity theme, very accessible and clean for the reader.
        Thanks!
        Bob

        Reply
  10. Pingback: Ackadia’s Blog » Blog Archive » Changing the Simplicity Theme

  11. Howdy! I just installed this theme on WP 2.7.1 and I really love it! I am having difficulty adjusting the center column where my posts go. I need it to be some where around 540 px and I cannot find the coding to make the change. I also need my column on the left to be 270 px.

    The column on the left is fine but the graphic on the left, which is 270 px, is hanging over and covering the post in the center column — hence the problem.

    I do not have the theme running at the moment because of this issue. Can you help me figure out how to adjust the center column width? Many thanks!

    And if it’s not asking too much … how do I make the avatars on my comment section larger. I’d like them to be around 40 – 60 px. The default is smaller than I would like.

    Reply

  12. Hi there. I don’t know if my other comment is awaiting moderation or if the internet ate it. I did figure out the width of my center column, but I’d like to add a bit of a margin between the middle column and the far right column (the right sidebar). I can’t seem to figure that one out.

    Secondly I’d like to make the avatars larger in my comment section, somewhere around 60 px as I think they’re a bit small. How do I do that?

    Love the theme and it’s active at my site. Thanks in advance!

    Reply

    1. For the first item, you can try hacking the style.css a little. Look in header.php, at line 43. There is a CSS expression “-8” which determines the pixels between the middle column and right column. Change it as you need. 🙂

      I don’t have a quick answer for your second question at this time. Will try to look at it when I have the time.

      Reply

        1. Hi! Thanks for the fix.

          I want to show how many comments are on each post underneath the title of each post. I was able to make that happen when three posts are showing (when you click on my header) but not when just one post is showing.

          Do you know where I need to place the code so I can see how many comments are already there — just under the post’s title — when just one post is showing.

          Thanks!

          Reply

          1. I’ve not tried, but I imagine you can copy out the code from comment.php:

            <h4 id=”comments”><?php comments_number(‘No Comments’, ‘One Comment’, ‘% Comments’ );?></h4>

            and put it where you need it. Give it a try?

  13. Hi and thank you for a simple theme! I am new to wordpress and would like to ask a couple questions, if you don’t mind.

    I have the two sidebars one on the left and one on the right. How do I change what is in the sidebars? For example right now there is Meta and categories in both sidebars, how do I delete from one of the sidebars?

    Also, how do I move something down or up? For example, in the right sidebar, how would I move tags down and categories up?

    Your help would be greatly appreciated!

    Thank You!

    Reply

    1. Hi Lailani,

      This is not part of the theme settings. You should look under Appearance -> Widgets. Hope this helps.

      Reply

  14. Thanks for the patches. I really do love this theme and I am having so much fun tweaking what I want.

    Did you ever get a chance to investigate how to make the avatar itself larger in the comment section? I figured out how to make the border wider, but the avatar is the same size inside the box.

    Thanks for your help. Another WordPress friend suggested it could be found in the functions.php file but I have no idea what I’m doing.

    Reply

    1. Hi cardiogirl,

      Ok, I’ve gotten a chance to look at the avatar size issue. A clumpsy way to do it is to change the WordPress default by mucking the code a little. It’s straightforward though. Look in the file wp-includes/comment-template.php, around line 1288, there is a definition of the $defaults array. Change the number associated with ‘avatar_size’. Hope this helps. 🙂

      Reply

  15. I have been using your Simplicty theme for my alask journal website. This is my first experience with WordPress.

    Right now I am stuck. I can insert a picture into a page without word press bringing me to login page which just loops.
    I also can’t change the settings page.

    I had wordpress set up in directory in my hosted account for a virtual shared hosting environmen at Godaddy. After getting the page up, I changed the setting for where wordpress is located to a subdomain.
    When I ran into the media problem, I looked at teh wordpress and blog setings. They look ok except they don’t end with a /. When I tried to change the setting, It brought me to the login page where I couldn’t login and I was in a loop.

    3 days ago, on a differnt wordpress install, I ran into this same media update probale. Godaddy rep asked me to have a new setup of wordpress installed. I did and all was ok until an hour or two ago,

    Is this a problem with your theme?
    Have you an idea of what could be wrong.

    I have made no mods to PHP.

    Thank you in advance
    Fred

    Reply

  16. Hi Zit Seng,

    I really appreciate you answering all of my questions. Believe it or not, I have everything the way I want it except for one issue. For the last week or so I have noticed that the search button on the top right sidebar is directing my searches to my Twitter account. I have deleted the widget from my sidebar and re-added it and that has not fixed the problem.

    I have no idea why this is happening because I have not had that problem since I started using this theme (roughly five or six weeks ago). And initially the widget worked just fine. I do have my link to Twitter on the left sidebar but prior to the last week or so that link worked just fine (still does) and did not force the search button to go to Twitter.

    Do you have any idea why this is happening? I’ve also noticed the Subscribe heading — which is just below the search box and just above the billboard graphic — has become a link to my Twitter account as well.

    Strangely enough, the billboard graphic is still working the way it should. It’s sending readers to my RSS Feed.

    Thanks for your help. I still love this theme and will be using it for the life of my blog.

    Reply

    2. Sorry for the long delay to reply. I just visited your site and the search seems to work for me. I suppose you might have fixed it already. I don’t see how the Simplicity theme could have interfered with how the search works anyway. 🙂

      Reply

    1. Hi Zit Seng,

      Thanks anyway, but I found the answer on your second comment page. When I first asked the question, I wasn’t aware there were any other comments than the ones on this page.

      Thanks again, great theme.

      Jimmy Jones

      Reply

  18. Hi Zit,
    Thank you for this nice and easy to customize theme.
    I have though a problem using tables in posts. Actually is the visualisation of the page content which troubles me. I have activated the widgets in both side bars and included tables in the main page. In maximized window of the browser all looks OK, but while resizeing the window, the main body of the post overlaps the side bars giving an unpleasant mix. Is there any way to fix this problem?
    Thank you,
    Cristian

    Reply

    1. Hi Cristian,

      Is there a specific URL where I can see the problem you’re describing? Off-hand, I think the most likely reason is that the table (or something else on the page) is really too wide for the browser to wrap, so it renders the main column the way it did. I’m not sure what is the best way to fix this at this time too. Would you prefer horizontal scrolling for the entire page in such instance? Or just horizontal scroll bars for the main column?

      Regards -lzs

      Reply

      1. Hello again,
        Thank you very much for the quick answer. The site’s URL is linked under my name here. I’ve just found out that a related behaviour could also emerge from another kind of contents in the main column, like comments box here. As a fixing ideasthat you mentioned earlyer I think that horizontal scrolling for the main column will be much convenient for me.
        Regards,
        Cristian

        Reply

    1. Hi Armins,

      My “external links” are links outside WordPress but they are actually still within my site. I create a page, no content needed, and set the “slug” to a name matching the actual directory within my site. Hope this helps 🙂

      Reply

  20. Our website has the same problem with MSIE6 as someone had a year ago – the comment form is slighlty broader than the middle column and as soon as one character is entered in the comment-form it spreads out to the right side. Did you solve this problem?

    Reply

  21. First, as with everyone else, I really appreciate you putting this theme together – it is exactly what I am looking to do for my site – http://kalooz.com.

    I am have only 1 issue and I was wondering if maybe I was just doing it wrong. When tabbing over my categories, I was hoping to be able to see the child for that category, but as it is, I cannot.

    For example, I have created a child template called Athlete Sightings (seen here: http://kalooz.com/what-ive-seen/athlete-sightings/) for the page What I’ve Seen (seen here: http://kalooz.com/what-ive-seen/).

    Is it possible to see the dropdown menu for What I’ve Seen when passing the mouse over it? Or is it already capable and I am just doing something wrong?

    Thanks for the help!

    Mark

    Reply

    1. Hi Mark,

      Unfortunately the navigation links in the header were only meant to show major page links. I had not planned to do anything fancy with it, so no drop down menu as such. I will KIV for future updates. Thanks for your interest in the Simplicity theme! 🙂

      Reply

      1. Zit,

        No problem – I wasn’t sure if maybe I was doing something wrong. Actually, I figured it out – did some researching and changed some of the code around – http://www.kalooz.com. If you need any help with it for your update, let me know and I’ll pass it along.

        Again, I really appreciate you putting this together – great theme!

        Mark

        Reply

  22. I tried some modifications but am still stuck. Tried to set #commentform textarea {width: 100%;} to auto but then the textarea was expanded to the right in all browsers. And in IE6 the comment thread itself seems to be 20 px narrower than the post!? Any ideas? Your help would be appreciated, thanks in advance!

    Reply

  23. Hi, about time someone designed a basic theme with left AND right sidebars WITH a theme option menu…. Thank you! I’m trying to add a simple home button next to the page button under the logo but can’t find anywhere in the theme to edit. Help please and thank again bro,

    Louis

    Reply

    1. HI Ares,

      I suppose one solution is to simply set the Blog Title to blank (Admin -> Settings -> General -> Blog Title).

      Reply

      1. Not the best solution. We don’t want the Blog Title completely removed from all the places it goes, for example the footer. We just want it gone from the header. Seems like it would be a variant of the code that’s used to remove the Search box from the header while leaving a Search box in the content area. We need something like that for the Blog Title.

        Reply

    1. The blog title of the page itself is a link to the home. When you say home tab, do you mean to have the link to the homepage listed as one of the pages tab in the header?

      Reply

      2. I have same problem.. Yeah I know the title is linked but just like this very site I’m commenting on now.. how do we add the HOME tab to the menu bar? Seems so empty without a home tab.

        By the way your theme has beaten many other premium themes and I’ll be writing about it shortly brother.

        Reply

        1. Thanks. I’m working on the home tab thingy for the next update. On holidays now till the new year, so… look out after the new year! 🙂

          Reply

  28. hello,
    thanks for the topic, this being very useful to me,
    but made the mistake of erasing the home page and now when I go to another page I have no way to go to the home, you can return to retrieve the page in some way ….??

    thank you very much ……

    Reply
  29. Pingback: Wordpress Plugin to Show Excerpts On Your Homepage | College Fall Out

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