Wed 2 Nov 2005
Working on Connections 2.o
Posted by Patricia Müller under Themes , WordPress | 7:20 pm[50] Comments
I’m starting to work on a new version of Connections. I’m making new color schemes and when these are ready, I’ll work on functionalitits with Sadish. So, if there’s something you didn’t like in the original version, or something you wish there was and wasn’t there in the previous version, now is the time to tell me. I’m taking into consideration some comments made about it in the past, there are things I already know I want to change.
So, leave your comment if you have any suggestions or fovever hold your peace! 
November 2nd, 2005 at 7:42 pm
I adapted your design to our needs:
1. styles for calendar were missing
2. color of links was too light
3. many places needed changes for German language pac to work
4. some smaller style changes (fonts, colors)
still the spirit of your great original is still there, I think…
thank you for your good work
rm53
November 4th, 2005 at 1:11 pm
Patricia -
Many thanks for your fantastic design. Wanted to give you a link to another off-shoot of Connections. It looks very different, but that’s all your code underneath.
Chris
November 5th, 2005 at 2:47 am
Hi there… this design has so much potential! It’s great work really. Here are some of my suggestions:
1. More white space
2. For the archives page, a list of links to entries instead of the entries themselves. (I know how to do this in MT but am a dud with WP)
3. A little more white and contrast
November 6th, 2005 at 2:05 pm
I have played around with your excellent theme and sort of got it to do what I want. I am horrid at php.
Although my theme switcher still says “Connections” it had been modified some. So I hope you don’t accidentally find it and think I stole it. I don’t know how to change the name of the theme to my own (just to differentiate it ion my themes).
Maybe add your own comments.php form? I was a little confused when I was trying to edit the comments page. oops! Or maybe I’m just that dim.
I love this theme, thank you! I look forward to the next one!
November 6th, 2005 at 4:18 pm
Wonderful design – I’m completely new to web design in general and PHP/WordPress in particular but I found it very easy to download WordPress and then Connections. I have modified it a little, but I have found the following things unworkable (likely it’s user-error; so any help anyone can suggest, please reply!):
- Archives tab at the top does not call out any archives – just a dead address
- Links tab – same as above
- Would love to be able to sort Links by Category and have the catgeory name show.
Thank you for a great template!
November 7th, 2005 at 7:44 pm
Hi..
Thank you Patricia for your wonderful theme..
I just achieved the translation in french..
You can see it on my blog.
http://jcordaro.phpnet.org/Blog/
Sorry..I’m not very good for speaking your language
Regards
Joseph
November 9th, 2005 at 8:55 am
I like your theme and am using Ajay D’souza’s modified version. My only suggestion is that this be a three column theme. otherwise its just too perfect.
November 10th, 2005 at 10:32 pm
Hi,
I like your theme too. Yesterday I did my first WordPress installation — and connections was a must have.
But — how do you think about i18n? As a german writer where is a strong need. Potentially I will do that.
Greetings
Valentin
November 11th, 2005 at 1:03 am
Thanks for making such an elegant theme for WordPress users, I can’t wait to see the new Connection 2.0.
I did some manual hacking on this theme in order to achieve certain feature:
- remove site name from page title for SEO
- gravatar support
- removed search button (kinda useless, enter key will do
- textbox font style (looks better in Trebuchet MS)
- previous, next button for pages
- added nicetitle.js
Regarding some of the issues others have brought out, I think the contrast is perfect the way it is right now, just to let you know the colour scheme works great, I love it! Good luck working on the new theme!
November 11th, 2005 at 5:35 am
Hi Patricia,
Thanks for the wonderful theme. I’ve been able to start up WP and and added your theme within a day. I’m in the process of making modifications to change some pics, etc. I’m not a CSS nor PHP pro at all, but it’s been fun working with Connections. When I’m done with it, I’ll definitely write you back and let you know when it’s up and fully functional!
In terms of thots for next version, I’ve only worked with it for a few days, but so far:
a) really like the top menu bar
b) not sure if there was an easier way to organize the sidebar (i guess the various sidebar items were split into various files)
um…i think that’s it for now. Keep up the good work!
November 11th, 2005 at 11:12 am
I would love a purple or dusky rose coloured version of Connections, or possibly a kind of gentle reddish brown one. I think I’m one of many hanging on for the new colours because they don’t feel confident enough to modify the template themselves
Any ideas when it will be available?
Thanks for a beautiful design. (I’m already using it on my blog by the way, with a different header image…)
Vicky
November 13th, 2005 at 2:06 am
Learned how to install and get a weblog running and it wasn’t exactly a no-brainer but somehow I did it.
Then I came upon your theme and was amazed that all it took was a download and an upload and bingo my blog had a new look.
The velum background and decorations give the blog a classy look. Now all I need is classy content.
November 14th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
The comments on this theme have been excellent, until I used the old “mom” test. And wouldn’t you know that my mom broke it.
She runs her browser, IE 6.0, with the fonts turned to largest to help her see things easier. The Kubrick theme works just fine as we ran some tests, but sadly Connections didn’t adapt. You can see this if you go to view -> text size, and choose either Larger or Largest.
I of course ran the same litmus test in Mozilla and it handled it up to 120% but after that it broke quite easily.
By Broke in both cases I mean it was hard to read and follow.
November 14th, 2005 at 6:15 pm
Just some things:
- sort links by category
-comments of the blogs author should somehow be different from other commentors
-page with no sidebar
-maybe a comments.php file instead of using default
-color switcher?
Keep up the good work and thanks!
November 15th, 2005 at 3:27 am
[...] s fine in Firefox) Anybody else using Connections experiencing the same issue? Evidently Connections 2 is on the horizon, so maybe that will patch things up for me, if a Safari update doesn’t be [...]
November 16th, 2005 at 4:26 am
Overall, it’s an outstanding design. Very clean and elegant. I’ve gotten a number of compliments for my blog because of your theme. I have few items that I would add to a wishlist for any updates:
A search box on the top menu bar would be nice. It would be good if the search function returned summary results with the search terms highlighted.
I prefer bulleted lists in the sidebar by default rather than on subcategories only. I think it looks nicer and is easier to read. It would also look nicer if the bullet was flush with the first line of a multi-line list item, rather than centered vertically on the multi-line item.
That’s all I have. Thank you for your wonderful contribution!
November 16th, 2005 at 8:44 pm
I forgot to mention this in my previous comment but there’s a bug with connection theme. When several images are used in your blog entry, some “cut off” near the bottom of the page will occur. This “bug” happens in Firefox very often if you did not specify the “height” value for your image. Firefox load the page very quickly, i.e. before the images are even loaded, thus when the loading of images are done, other content will be “pushed” out of the available layout space. In that case, you won’t be able to see some of the text and there’s no scrollbar that you can use. Refresh in Firefox will fix the problem.
For my site, I solved this irritating problem by specifying the image height for all the images used, thus Firefox will “reserve” the space for the image while it’s loading, and this successfully prevented the “pushing” of content.
November 16th, 2005 at 8:54 pm
Patricia: Por ahora estoy publicando en Blogger, pero estoy trabajando en la adaptación de tu grandioso tema y su correspondiente traducción al español para poder migrar a Wordpress (Cuando lo termine, te paso los archivos). Muchas gracias por brindarnos tu creatividad.
November 18th, 2005 at 1:56 pm
This web-design is toooooooogood! I’m in love with it, have implemented in my website.
Suggestion: Most of the place on the left and right is wasted. Can there be a way to customize the margin on left and right?
Thanks again!! This is really cool stuff!
November 18th, 2005 at 8:22 pm
I love this theme, so I can’t wait to see the updates and different color schemes!!
November 19th, 2005 at 10:42 am
[...] stand connections anymore. Guess I’ll change to an adapted blix theme or to the new connections 2.0. Guess I’ll also need some nice plugins for podcasting/flickr/miniblog. So long… an [...]
November 19th, 2005 at 1:55 pm
Put some font size into the CSS body statement so that when you rescale the font-size in IE, it gracefully enlarges, but doesn’t go very wild.
An example is your theme here. In IE6, when you rescale from ‘medium’ to ‘larger’, the font sizes become very very large.
Of course, I could just do it on my own, which I’ve done, but it would be nice to have it already pre-defined in the CSS. A font-size of 79% or something like that.
November 19th, 2005 at 4:34 pm
[...] ctly, IMHO. So I have a different headline image now. All these changes before anyone sees the original (or go to the Vanilla link at the bottom of the page).
[...]
November 19th, 2005 at 4:45 pm
Thank you Patricia
The theme created by Patricia at VanillaMist.Com is really classy. For all the little buggies that I’m running into with WordPress the installation of this theme was bugless. It just woiked!
…
November 20th, 2005 at 4:50 am
how about pink color? *blushes* btwm the preview thing is the coolest thing ive seen in this modern blogging. cool.
November 20th, 2005 at 5:07 pm
dkaufman1 – You can do the same thing by pressing CTRL + and CTRL – in Firefox.
On Connections,
One of the things I’ve noticed is that when leaving or viewing comments, if you click on “Home” or site name it takes you to the same page, rather than back to the front page.
November 20th, 2005 at 11:13 pm
I ported ‘Connections’ to Blogger and am currently using using a mildly modified form of the theme (different header image, non-italiced blockquotes and so on), and believe me, it is a hit. Almost everyone who’s seen it loves it. Thanks a lot for creating such a cool theme. Can’t wait for Connections 2.0.
November 22nd, 2005 at 12:54 am
hi!! you doing great one, oohhh I can’t for new look of new version Connections.
welldone…
November 25th, 2005 at 12:07 am
Just installed wordpress because I was tired of blogger, and then decided I needed to jazz it up some, and your theme was the greatest looking one out there. Thanx for your wonderful work.
November 25th, 2005 at 9:08 pm
Strixy – my point was not that I didn’t know how in Mozilla, but rather that this theme is not friendly to large typefaces in either browser. Hopefully that will change shortly.
December 17th, 2005 at 12:51 pm
Hi Patricia,
I love your ‘Connection’ theme and I’m looking forward to v2.0
At the moment I’m trying to adjust Connection to a gettext version. I liked the idea of having a german version but still need the English version as my family speaks only one language or the other.
I’m still in the middle of translation but you can get a pretty good overview at the temporary homepage.
I would like to see a gettext’ed version 2.0 because it would make it so much easier for everyone who likes to have wordpress/connection in their local language. Just upload the according [lang].mo file and start blogging in a different language.
Can’t wait for the update.
Best regards,
Martin
December 20th, 2005 at 1:52 am
Patricia:
One small request: please move all the sidebar stuff into the sidebar.php script. I just got finished with it myself so I could shift a few things around and hide some others temporarily. Other than that, it’s a beautiful theme. Love it!
January 15th, 2006 at 6:47 pm
I’d like it so you can add boxes to the sidebar more easily – like you have done with Skype, Webcam, “etc” and so forth. Could you email me how to do that please? I emailed you a few weeks ago to no avail, although I’m sure you’re busy.
Thanks!
January 20th, 2006 at 3:14 pm
Yes, please:
1. could you give the option of where to place the Comments section? Traditional blog visitors expect it at the end.
2. Make the links darker.
3. Give some color options.
3. Er … more image options?
I really like that you DONT use grayscale font. I hate grayscale font. It says “IGNORE ME.” Why do designers use it and not give any options otherwise?
February 6th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
I love the connections them but am Having some issues on the Index, Category, and Date pages in WP2.0 At the end of each page just before the footer I am getting this error message:
WordPress database error: [You have an error in your SQL syntax. Check the manual that corresponds to your MySQL server version for the right syntax to use near '' at line 1]
SELECT COUNT(DISTINCT ID) FROM
It appears to be coming from this line of code:
any ideas on the fix. I am sort of losts with it. Normally I cna find the fix but this one has me perplexed.
February 6th, 2006 at 6:53 pm
okay the code did not go in, lites try this instead: I took out the arrows.
p align=”center”
?php posts_nav_link() ?
February 6th, 2006 at 8:44 pm
OKay never mind it was an update thing. I hade to change code in the wp-includes area. Nothing with the template itself.
February 10th, 2006 at 12:37 am
I love the theme, but wish it were full width 8-(
February 15th, 2006 at 12:47 am
I agree with the last comment about using grey for a text color. That is too hard to read, and in fact http://www.goodexperience.com says that it should “NEVER” be used.
I’m very happy with the design; however, the CSS does not validate as it should as there are many duplicate definitions and missing foreground and background color warnings when you run it through the validator at w3c. A valid design shouldn’t throw any warnings or errors.
March 13th, 2006 at 12:56 am
I love your theme in general. However, I don’t love the width and the difficulty in changing colors.
I like to change my site’s colors seasonally. I also think a lot of space is being wasted on the left and right margins. For long posts, that causes an awful lot of real estate to be used for scrolling. People dont like to scroll when they go to a website.
Keep up the good work!
March 16th, 2006 at 5:31 pm
Nice blog, I’m also considering using your theme. But the times I’ve tried it I’m not able to get the about & Link links to work correctly.
Thanks,
John
March 21st, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Hi! I love your theme! It is the ONLY one I am willing to use, out of the wordpress defaults. A couple things:
1) BAD HEIRARCHIAL DISPLAY: If you go to http://clintjcl.wordpress.com, you can see that the heirarchial categories don’t quite display right. The “>” symbol appears in the wrong place sometimes.
I think some NOBR tags could probably fix that, or some table modifications. NOBR would be easier.
2) The category links on the right go to MY pages for that category. But in the actual blog post, where it says: “Filed under: Comedy, Politics, etc”, THOSE links just go to the wordpress.com page for those links.
I’d rather they behave the same as the category bar on the right, only going to MY posts.
And of course, 3), I’d like the option to use a custom image. But I think that’s my fault for not being a paying user.
April 5th, 2006 at 3:12 am
i agree, could you make connections 2.0 allow for users to pick their pictures like other themes?
April 5th, 2006 at 3:14 am
I think it would be nice to be able to have that option…I use wordpress without a web host, so I can’t add my own touch…yet.
But I think it would be awesome to have the choice to change images!
May 25th, 2006 at 1:43 am
Go on. I support you!
June 22nd, 2006 at 5:27 pm
The “>>” that appears next to each cateogory — PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE make it valign=top.
Just look at the sidebar on my blog, http://clintjcl.wordpress.com — it’s hard to tell what the arrow is really pointing to, especially for some of my categories with longer names.
Best..theme..ever, however.
July 25th, 2006 at 4:33 pm
Hey there,
I just wanted to say Thanks. For the fabulous blog layout, that is. It is truly amazing.
I am very new to WordPress, and well, know nothing of HTML or PHP, etc.
There are some pretty nice layouts available for WordPress blogs, and I had a really hard time choosing one. But I finally settled on ur design. Its neat and serene and has so much scope for customization. I love it!
I don’t know how much of what I am about to suggest is possible, given my very limited knowledge of web designing. I think a built-in shoutbox or chatbox would be really nice, if possible.
Thanks, and good job!
~Prags
August 7th, 2006 at 5:19 am
Hello Patricia and Sadish, first of all thank’s for your effort and hard work to create and maintain some of the best themes.
I tried as well to take the original vanillamist and change some colors but did not succseed. What about a darker version with some strong colorful accents?
September 12th, 2006 at 11:02 am
I really have to agree with
that’s the only fault with your theme.
December 31st, 2006 at 4:38 pm
The theme has a great look and feel to it. My only suggestion would be to incorporate a sidebar widget to make it easier to move around and choose which sidebar pieces go where. Is this possible with your theme? I have a sidebar widget plug in that worked with other themes but I guess is not compatible with Connections 1.0. Thanks!