The whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts... ~Bertrand Russell
01 December 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on December 1st, 2007 @ 04:49:27 pm, using 442 words, 26312 views
Feeling winter coming on and living in a semi-urban area, I got to thinking about lush green landscapes and warm waters, and set about building a new b2evolution template which reflected my mood and my longing for a warmer, greener climate.
[click the thumbnail for a larger view]
I found a beautiful stock photograph of a sprawling beach and, quite by accident, covered the partly completed design with a green hued overlay which I was using for a photo-manipulation project in another open Photoshop document. The coloration gave the photo a uniquely living feel, and I set about finalizing the overall color scheme of the blog template.
The Lush b2evolution template is another release in the ‘Smoothe’ series of templates. Like the previous releases in the ‘Smoothe’ series, this b2evolution skin is 100% compliant with the XHTML Transitional specification and uses valid CSS 2.0 stylesheets. It has been designed with a static layout for 1024x768 monitor resolutions.
This skin contains the following:
- This b2evolution skin contains a revised _lastcomments.php file and accompanying CSS styles for smoother display of most recent comments.
- The skin contains customized icons for delete, edit, and permalink
- It contains pre-built styles for the Search Cloud plugin for b2evolution
- It contains a custom icon and styles for blockquotes
b2evolution template Lush released for download
This b2evo skin is being released for download under a Creative Commons License 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
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30 November 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on November 30th, 2007 @ 05:54:51 pm, using 466 words, 40011 views
Got a car modding or auto enthusiast blog? You might like the new template for b2evolution blogs called Wheelz… I was going to use this b2evo layout for my own Acura ITX project journal, but decided it would be more fun to release it to the public instead. Check it out!
[click the thumbnail for a larger view]
The header of this b2evo skin was designed to show what might be the one most commonly customized part of any vehicle… the wheels… rims… dubs… whatever you want to call them, they’re a popular customization amongst vehicle modders.
The Wheelz skin for b2evolution is another release in the ‘Smoothe’ series of templates. Like its predecessors, this skin is 100% compliant with the XHTML Transitional specification and uses valid CSS 2.0 stylesheets. As with previous ‘Smoothe’ releases, this b2evolution skin has been designed with a static layout for 1024x768 monitor resolutions.
This skin contains the following:
- This b2evolution skin contains a revised _lastcomments.php file and accompanying CSS styles for smoother display of most recent comments.
- The skin contains customized icons for delete, edit, and permalink
- It contains pre-built styles for the Search Cloud plugin for b2evolution
- It contains a custom icon and styles for blockquotes
b2evo skin Wheelz released for download
This b2evo skin is being released for download under a Creative Commons License 3.0 (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/).
Read the full text of this post...
23 November 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on November 23rd, 2007 @ 06:31:30 pm, using 1322 words, 29835 views
I’ve been using b2evolution as my blogging platform for several years now, and have always found the default template switcher located in the sidebar to be, well, boring. It’s a text-based list that shows the various skins available on a b2evo blog from which that blog’s readers can select to customize their reading experience. The operative words here are “text based list". Clever skin names aside, it does little to show the reader what a template actually looks like before being selected, and eye-candy is always welcome, right? With this in mind, I set about putting together a more visually intuitive way of displaying to the user what b2evo skins look like, without that user actually having to switch to that skin in order to see it.
What I came up with is a small piece of PHP code which renders a tiled list to display thumbnails of each b2evo skin, replacing the boring, and uninformative, text list. At the time of this writing, the tiled list can be seen in action in the sidebar of each skin on this blog.
If you’d like to implement a similar list on your own b2evolution blog, you’ll need a few things first… Since I’m providing you with the code here, you’ll need the ability to copy and paste text from one file to another. Simple enough, yeah? Second, you’ll need some kind of graphics editing program, such as Adobe Photoshop or the free GIMP software, which is actually a pretty powerful piece of software. In any case, you’ll need some kind of graphics program in which to create the thumbnails to be displayed in the list…
Alright, on with the show…
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21 November 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on November 21st, 2007 @ 03:52:46 pm, using 581 words, 47832 views
EDIT: The ‘Underground’ skin has now (read: finally!) been ported to b2evo 2.x, and is available for download at the following location: Blog Skin ‘Underground’ Released for b2evo 2.x
Lately I’ve been listening to a lot of old ska music in my collection and was inspired to create another custom b2evolution skin design, this time reflecting more of a British theme. Perhaps British bloggers will find it a pleasant template design to use with their own b2evolution blogs. ;)
While searching through my favorite stock photography website I soon located a photograph of a British subway tunnel entrance sign, taken in what appears to be early evening and from an interesting angle. The color-scheme and name for this b2evolution template design became immediately clear and I set about putting it together in Photoshop. I’m calling this b2evo skin “Underground", named after the British subway system, and colored to match the deep burgundy and blue reminiscent of the British flag and the Underground sign itself.
This is another release in the ‘Smoothe’ series of template designs available on this site. This skin is a static width, and is designed for 1024x768 monitor resolutions. The template code is XHTML-Transitional compliant, and the CSS 2.0 is valid as well. This skin displays the sidebar on the right side of the content. The stylesheet contains pre-built styles for blockquotes (a blockquote icon is included with the download), and pre-built styles for the “Search Cloud” plugin available for download from the b2evolution website. Additionally, the download file contains custom icons for ‘Edit’, ‘Delete’, ‘Permalink’, and the contact email envelope icon.
b2evo skin Underground released for download
The version of the Underground skin available for download here is more current than the version available in the skin repository on b2evolution.net. This copy contains a revised _lastcomments.php file and associated stylesheet entries for smoother display of most recent comments.
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07 November 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on November 7th, 2007 @ 10:10:27 pm, using 559 words, 18944 views
For those of you who are avid music listeners, you may want to have the ability to easily include a text box beneath your blog posts in which to quickly list the music to which you're currently listening. This can be quickly achieved by adding a small block of CSS to your b2evo skin's stylesheet, and a small piece of javascript to the toolbar code in the b2evo core.
The CSS block shown below is the one used for the "Contemporaneous Auditory Narcotics" DIV which lives under the post body and which can be seen in most posts on this site. Add a similar block to the stylesheet in your b2evo skin and adjust the color and text to suit your b2evo skin:
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10 October 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on October 10th, 2007 @ 11:57:25 pm, using 290 words, 10332 views
tec·ton·ic (těk-tŏn’ĭk)
adjective
1. pertaining to the structure or movement of the earth’s crust; “tectonic plates"; “tectonic valleys”
2. of or pertaining to construction or architecture
3. Medical term denoting plastic surgery or the restoration of lost parts by grafting.
This is the second image I designed in the Kybernetik series of cyberpunk graphic designs. This image is more closely representative of the typical elements found in cyberpunk art. It calls to mind those dark futures where meat and machine are merged in wetwired biotech, hardware implants, and the advanced grafting techniques reminiscent of the Matrix or the black clinics of Chiba City in William Gibson’s novel Neuromancer.
[click the thumbnails to view full-resolution swatches from the design]
This photo-manipulation project was carried out entirely in Photoshop CS2. It makes extensive use of high-resolution stock photography which has been layered atop the background image to add the impression of organic skin-graft textures. The photograph of the model making up the background of the composite is 2657x4000 pixels. The finished graphic design has a resolution of 100dpi and prints at approx 2.25 x 3.5 feet. Total time for this project is approximately 12 hours and was developed during my spare time in the evenings over the course of a week. The .psd file for this project is 335Mb.
Other images in the Kybernetik Series:
kybernetik: interstitial
Leave me a comment and let me know what you think… all opinions are welcome!
Contemporaneous Auditory Narcotics:
or, What my speakers are currently pumping…
Nurse With Wound - Spiral Insana
This post is the creative work of Yours Truly and is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 License.
05 October 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on October 5th, 2007 @ 01:47:35 pm, using 525 words, 39192 views
The Hirideyo series of b2evo skins was originally developed alongside the ‘Smoothe’ series of blog templates which I designed for b2evolution 1.10.2. The Hirideyo series was designed for my friend Iris Watts Hirideyo’s blog site. She needed a place to publish her short writings and screenplay ideas, and we decided a blog might be the most favorable forum for her to do so. (Now that she’s learned more than just the basics of blogging, I think she’s becoming quite addicted to the medium.)
The Hirideyo series of templates reflects an Eastern motif, using such elements as rice-paper fans, cherry blossom branches, and stylized flower patterns. Since Iris is running her site as a single-blog system, these blog skins were designed for single-blog use, but can be altered for multi-blog use quite easily by adjusting only two lines of code in the CSS Stylesheet.
Click on the thumbnails to view larger versions of the skins, or visit Iris’ Journal for yourself and explore some of her writing and her thoughts.
Blue Fan (skin for b2evolution 1.10.x)
This was one of the first b2evo skins in the Hirideyo series which used a rice-paper fan in the header. I reoriented the stock photo of the fan, resizing and rotating it to a more interesting perspective, before layering a blueish hue on top of the original image.
Alright… so the color-scheme is a little more sea-green than blue… ;)
Flower Fan (skin for b2evolution 1.10.x)
This design also uses an image of a fan which has been resized and reoriented. The fan displays images of flowers, though I don’t know exactly what kind of flowers they are. This design is, I think, my favorite in the Hirideyo series for its several shades of blue contrasting with the black background.
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Feeling winter coming on and living in a semi-urban area, I got to thinking about lush green landscapes and warm waters, and set about building a new b2evolution template which reflected my mood and my longing for a warmer, greener climate. 
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