I do not consider it an insult, but rather a compliment to be called an agnostic. I do not pretend to know where many ignorant men are sure--that is all that agnosticism means... ~Clarence Darrow
10 September 2005
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on September 10th, 2005 @ 07:23:45 pm, using 1758 words, 13624 views
This PHP hack for b2evo skins gives the ability to designate a particular post in each blog on a b2evolution system as a "sticky post" (i.e. that post will always appear at the top of the blog, and will not be listed chronologically). This is useful for creating a post which describes the contents of the blog or category, or which contains some other information which would be useful to have shown always on the entry page to a specific b2evo blog.
First, modify your "blogs" table so you can assign a post ID as 'sticky' for each blog. You will be able to set this in the b2evolution back office later. Assigning a value of 0 (zero) will mean no sticky post. I altered the b2evo blogs table via phpMyAdmin with the following mySQL command:
ALTER TABLE `evo_blogs` ADD `blog_stickypost_ID` INT( 10 ) DEFAULT '0' NOT NULL
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23 November 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on November 23rd, 2007 @ 06:31:30 pm, using 1322 words, 29072 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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29 March 2008
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on March 29th, 2008 @ 02:29:41 pm, using 713 words, 44687 views
Updated 12 April, 2008 (New Download Release)
At long last I’ve gotten around to porting my original b2evo skin designs which I dubbed the “Smoothe Series” to b2evolution 2.x. I know many people had requested that I port my skin designs to b2evo 2.x and I didn’t intend to take so long to actually do the development on these but, with so many other things going on in my life, it was difficult to find enough free time to sit down and do it.
[click the thumbnail for a larger view]
This is the first redesign release from the original series of ‘Smoothe’ templates. I’ve done my best to duplicate the layout and style of the original 1.10.x b2evo skin as closely as possibly. Since the core of the b2evolution application and the manner in which the blog itself is now handled has changed somewhat (to a more modular configuration), an exact port of the skin was not entirely possible but I think I’ve managed to very closely maintain the original design. This b2evo skin was ported on a clean installation of b2evolution v2.41 though it should work with any 2.x release.
I’m releasing this first ported b2evo skin, entitled “Underground", for free download with the same restrictions as the original release, namely that the credits in the header and footer and those in the CSS stylesheet file remain intact. Additionally, as this is my first attempt at porting one of my skins to b2evo 2.x, I have a request to make of anyone who downloads and uses it:
I need feedback on this skin…
I need to know if you encounter any difficulties with it…
I need to know if I’ve overlooked any necessary elements in the stylesheet…
I need to know if anything *gasp* breaks in the template file.
So, once you’ve installed it and used it for a few days, just pop back over here and share your thoughts. Does everything work? Does anything need to be looked at and adjusted? I’d appreciate any feedback offered.
Ok, on to the good stuff…
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21 November 2007
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on November 21st, 2007 @ 03:52:46 pm, using 581 words, 43315 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, 17723 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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21 August 2005
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on August 21st, 2005 @ 05:15:07 pm, using 556 words, 16851 views
I've been working on this thing on and off for a couple days when I had a few spare moments here and there. I call it darkling. It's starting to come together now. I think it's a pretty nice, minimalistic skin for the b2evolution blog software. I've incorporated a lot of hacks found around the b2evo forums, and put that all behind a customized css layout. There are still a few bugs I'm working out, and still some things to add, but it's getting there.
If you've been to this blog using another skin, you can switch to the darkling skin by clicking here or, as always, you can select the skin of your choice using the skin switcher in the sidebar on the right. (Skin switcher has been removed). (This skin was designed for a now obsolete version of b2evo and has been removed. Check back for an updated release. If you need a custom skin design built for a current b2evo release, leave a comment or send a message)
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10 September 2005
Written by
Yours Truly (
)
Published on September 10th, 2005 @ 06:41:28 pm, using 539 words, 16149 views
This hack allows you to avoid the annoyingness of exiting to the first blog/stub after creating or editing a post in a sub-blog. In short, it saves a mouse-click and a little confusion... This hack for the b2evolution 0.9.x admin interface only works for people who use stubfiles to access their b2evo blogs, and who have correctly configured their stubfiles in their server's .htaccess file.
In /admin/_menutop.php find:
<div id="headfunctions">
<?php echo T_('Style:') ?>
<a href="#" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('Variation'); return false;" title="Variation (Default)">V</a>·<a href="#" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('Desert'); return false;" title="Desert">D</a>·<a href="#" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('Legacy'); return false;" title="Legacy">L</a><?php if( is_file( dirname(__FILE__).'/custom.css' ) ) { ?>·<a href="#" onclick="setActiveStyleSheet('Custom'); return false;" title="Custom">C</a><?php } ?>
•
<a href="<?php echo $htsrv_url ?>/login.php?action=logout"><?php echo T_('Logout') ?></a>
•
<a href="<?php echo $baseurl ?>"><?php echo T_('Exit to blogs') ?> <img src="img/close.gif" width="14" height="14" class="top" alt="" title="<?php echo T_('Exit to blogs') ?>" /></a><br />
</div>
and change it to:
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