phocks

After a few days use and rigorous testing down in the lab and out in the wild blue yonder of the interwebs, this new species of WordPress theme we call “Darwin” has undergone the first tiny changes in its evolutionary and ever-marching journey towards a more perfect suitability to its environment.

A number of small alterations in genetic php code seem enough to warrant a revision release. These include:

1. Colours and wording in the footer
2. Footer css styling issues in ie7
3. Altered styles for code and blockquotes
4. Wide borders for images in posts, making 500 pixel images line up perfectly with text
5. Comment box now lines up correctly
6. Header moves in to meet text while viewing single page, and h2 text now aligns left
7. “Archive” text removed from single pages in the browser title bar
8. Reduced height on list elements
9. Other seemingly imperceivable changes

This post also serves as an excuse to use the Abduction! Firefox plugin, which allows full page exports straight from your browser.

View Screenshot | Download version 0.1.1 | Or Test Run Right Here

Install as per usual, as per the last Darwin post. And as before, feel free to use and modify at will, with or without credit under the GPL. Shout back any favourable modifications you may stumble upon.

I was searching for a very minimalistic theme, with a certain understated simple elegance, a theme that met with web standards, had widget support, and was easily customisable. Growing tiresome of wading through the sea of WordPress themes, looking for one that I could be truly happy with using, I decided it was high time I developed a theme of my own.

So here it is, entitled “Darwin” after the grandfather of evolution theory, good old Charlie. Still in very early alpha stages, the Darwin theme is based very heavily on the default Kubrick theme that comes with WordPress. I originally tried to develop the theme from scratch, without much luck, and also began to develop it as a K2 style, but found that I was stifled by the limited flexibility.

Features List

1. Very minimalist design, fast loading
2. Support for WordPress Widgets
3. Web standards compliant, valid XHTML and CSS
4. Wider content pane, suitable for displaying flickr 500px photos
5. Free to use and modify, no sponsored links
6. Lots of other cool stuff

Screenshot | Download version 0.1 alpha, released under GPL

Installation Instructions

1. Unzip the folder and upload to your wp-content/themes/ directory
2. Go to the themes viewer in your WordPress admin and click on the one that says “Darwin”
3. Enjoy!

I’m releasing Darwin into the wild using the General Public Licence to encourage others to use and work on evolving the theme over time. The GPL basically states that you can use the code, change and modify it — you don’t even have to link back to me if you don’t want to, although it would be appreciated — as long as you keep all derived versions or modifications under the same licence.

Through various tiny mutations, Darwin will adapt over time. Please let me know any genetic code changes you might make, so I can include them in the next release. I’m phocks at gmail.