New Release - Featuring Widget Support! | Cutline Theme for WordPress

New Release - Featuring Widget Support!

September 21st, 2006 · 43 Comments

Vintage ticket that says Featuring Widgets Sure, but does it support widgets? Yes it does! Not only does this new, revamped version of Cutline support widgets, but it also contains a fix or two coupled with FlickrRSS and Google AdSense (or YPN) support.

Improvements, Fixes, and Updates

Here’s a list of what’s been changed in this release of Cutline:

Support for WordPress Widgets: Those of you who use widgets to control the content in your sidebar will appreciate the clean, consistent styles that will be applied as a result of this killer upgrade.
FlickrRSS Plugin support: Cutline was crafted so that you can apply maximum personality and style through the incorporation of your own pictures. Now, this theme features plug-and-play support for the FlickrRSS Plugin, so you’ll be able to bring those pics to the forefront with ease. Simply activate the plugin, adjust the settings per your liking within the Options panel, and boom!
AdSense and YPN support: Essentially, I’ve added two classes that will allow you to style your ads within posts. Because this topic is of particular interest to so many of you out there, I will address these changes in a separate post.
Individual comment links: Some of you may have picked up on this, but in the first release of the theme, the individual comment links didn’t work properly. I was lucky enough to stumble on this, though, and I fixed it up in time for this shiny new release.

Before you upgrade…

If you haven’t made any changes to your theme files, then you have nothing to worry about. Just overwrite them and have a good day.

If you’ve changed your header images, don’t overwrite the images folder within the Cutline directory! Don’t do it! Stop already!

If you’ve made a bunch of changes to your theme files, then your best bet may be to only replace the files that have changed for this release. Unfortunately, two of the files are the most commonly changed ones — sidebar.php and style.css. The third file is comments.php, and you likely won’t suffer at all if you replace that one.

The changes to the first two files are extensive, and I highly recommend that you overwrite both and start anew.

Pick up the latest version

You can get Cutline version 1.01 from the link in the sidebar, or else you can grab it right here.

Enjoy! Please hit me up in the comments if you spot any new bugs!

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Tags: Release Notes

43 responses so far ↓

1 Beth Cole // Sep 28, 2006 at 2:13 pm

Hi,

Love the theme. Quick question, I get an error on my ftp client when I try to upload the .DS_Store file. What is this and is it essential? Thanks a ton.
Best,
Beth Cole
2 Chris // Sep 28, 2006 at 2:54 pm

Beth,

The .DS_Store file is a hidden file that is used only by your system. You don’t need to (and shouldn’t) upload it to your FTP server.
3 Sean // Oct 2, 2006 at 11:48 am

So, about this Adsense/YPN support - assuming it’s just the ‘entry .ad’ and ‘entry .ad_left’ additions to the stylesheet?

I’ve got to track down a few header images to personalize it a bit and do a personal tweak or two here or there, but so far, a great looking theme, btw.
4 Emre // Oct 4, 2006 at 1:32 pm

Nice template but what about the translation to other languages? If I want to translate Cutline into Turkish, what should I do?
5 Chris // Oct 4, 2006 at 1:34 pm

Emre,

I’ve never translated a theme into a different language, but I would suggest that you start at the WordPress Codex.
6 leyna // Oct 17, 2006 at 2:39 am

can someone show me how to add widgets to the sidebar besides the provided widgets by wordpress.. like i want to put ClockLink.com in my sidebar.. please HELP.. thank u

I am so clueless, please provide me with step by step instructions
7 Philip // Oct 19, 2006 at 11:56 am

Hi Chris,

Love your work. Thanks for a great theme.

I’ve installed widget support and that’s working cool, except I much prefered the original “SEARCH IT” option, with the text “To search, type and hit enter”. The new “search” widget is a bit dull, it’s just an open field with a search button underneath it.

How would I go about restoring the original search option?
8 Chris // Oct 19, 2006 at 1:14 pm

Philip, this is precisely why I don’t like widgets.

At any rate, you could simply copy the original search block from sidebar.php, and paste it outside of the PHP-conditional that toggles the use of widgets.

To put it another way, insert the search block of code (including the <li class="widget"> lines) right after this line in sidebar.php:

<ul class="sidebar_list">
9 Philip // Oct 20, 2006 at 8:04 am

Thanks Chris, that worked a treat. This is a very minor point but my perfectionism is getting the better of me. It appears to be padding or adding one or two extra lines underneath the search bar i.e. there is extra spacing when compared to the other sidebar widgets. Any good ideas?

Ta,

Phil.
10 Chris // Oct 23, 2006 at 6:11 am

Philip, your sidebar.php file now contains an extra <li class="widget"> that encompasses all of the “widgetized” sidebar elements.

Remove that wrapper <li>, and that will fix your problem.
11 brian // Oct 26, 2006 at 5:36 pm

Hold the laughs. I’ve FTP’d the widget folder.. how do I activate widgets in Cutline?

The files are there, but widgets are not accessible within my dashboard anywhere.

I’ve seerched the site to no avail before asking..

help!
12 brian // Oct 26, 2006 at 5:42 pm

Right there.. finally moved the files around to their appropriate folders.. the sidebar widget is showing up in my plugins.

Thanks, I don’t want to waste your time since I found the answer.

Brian
13 Chris // Oct 26, 2006 at 5:43 pm
Brian,

The widget folder needs to be uploaded to the plugins directory.

Once you’ve done that, all you need to do is activate the widgets, like so:
1. In your WordPress Administration panel, go to the Plugins tab.
2. Look for the plugin called “Sidebar Widgets,” and activate it.
3. You can configure your widgets (ha ha) by visiting the Presentation tab and then clicking on the Sidebar Widgets sub-navigation tab.
14 Chris // Oct 26, 2006 at 5:44 pm

Ha, I shouldn’t try so hard next time
15 brian // Oct 26, 2006 at 5:50 pm

I just experimented with the widgets, and they seem to go “in place” of whatever was in the sidebar by default. For instance, I pulled over the calendar, and changed nothing else, and the calendar was the only item displayed in the right sidebar. When I remove the widget, it goes back to display (the right sidebar) SEARCH IT! RECENT ENTRIES and LINKS

?????
16 brian // Oct 26, 2006 at 5:53 pm

I’m really not this dumb, but I just saw:

“Your theme will display its usual sidebar when this box is empty. Dragging widgets into this box will replace the usual sidebar with your customized sidebar.”

I need to do some reading apparently..
17 Chris // Oct 26, 2006 at 6:03 pm

Shoot first and ask questions later!

That’s my style, too
18 Cutline 1.03 is Here, Upgrade Today! | Cutline Theme for WordPress // Oct 30, 2006 at 12:03 pm

[…] Two AdSense classes were introduced in Version 1.01 — ad and ad_left. I realize that many people will want to center rectangular ad blocks, so I’ve just added a new class called ad_center to handle this task. […]
19 Glenn Hubbers // Nov 4, 2006 at 7:55 pm

Chris, love the Cutline theme. I am a novice when it comes to and coding. I just pick away until it works.
I can get the sidebar widgets to work except for the King Widgets.
http://www.blog.mediaprojekte.de/wordpress-widgets-plugins

They all seem to go haywire. The widget title appears right but the links beneath end up floating to the right of the sidebar.
Any thoughts?
20 Chris // Nov 5, 2006 at 10:06 am

Glenn,

This is the first I’ve heard of the King Widgets, and apparently, they’re not coded up the same way that the default WordPress widgets are. If they were, then they would display properly.

Heck, not even WordPress has been able to fully implement a coding standard. I had to add about 2kB worth of junk CSS to the style.css file just to accommodate the inconsistent WordPress code, and unless everyone can agree on a standard, there’s no way I can build in support for an ever-growing list of special cases.

Sooo, maybe you could suggest that to the author of the King Widgets!
21 Glenn Hubbers // Nov 5, 2006 at 11:08 am

Thanks. Makes perfect sense. I had been using the King Widgets only in order to get the expandable menus in the sidebar, but it really was not what I wanted anyway.

I have now switched gears and am trying to implement a multi level dropdown menu for the links bar which appears above the header image in Cutline.

As I am new to CSS this will be a challenge!

I’m keeping track of my steps and if it is successful I’ll send you a note.
22 Dave Butler // Nov 22, 2006 at 1:09 am

Chris can you quickly notice why I’m getting that message and I get the folloing error message now when I log into the admin panel.

widgets.php [weird error text that won’t display properly]
Warning: Cannot modify header information - headers already sent by

I’d love to figure out how toa dd the widgets so I can throw in some adsense.
23 Chris // Nov 22, 2006 at 1:16 am

Dave,

There is likely code at the end of your widgets plugin file that sends <head> data back to WordPress. This information is already being sent by the template, so there’s no need to send it again.

If you find out that this is true, simply delete the <head> code from the end of the widgets plugin file.

If this is not the case, then perhaps you can tweak the available options for the widgets that you’re using.

I know from experience that the regular Widgets Plugin from Automattic works like a charm right out of the box with Cutline, so perhaps you should try disabling all other plugins and see if that works.

Also, if you want to throw in some AdSense, I don’t recommend using the widget to do so. Instead, use the AdSense Deluxe plugin, and you’ll get better results by including ads within your content.
24 Dave Butler // Nov 24, 2006 at 12:40 am

Chris,

Just to follow up it seems my old Mac was causing the problem. I think it was corrupting the files when I unzipped them. I used another unzipper program looks like it solved the problem.

Next question-

META and keywords descriptions - recommend something??? Not just the tags per post. How to you add it to the page code so its grapped by the search engine bots?

Thanks again
db
25 mrugesh shah // Nov 24, 2006 at 1:46 pm

respected sir,

I am new user of wordpress.org and also cutline.

In one of the above comment you told that “The widget folder needs to be uploaded to the plugins directory.” but where i get that wideget folder.

i just uploaded wordpress on my domain and activated cutline theme. now i want to show CATEGORIES, RECENT COMMENTS etc but when i go into presention menu, i am not getting any “sidebar wideget menu”

please guide me sir.
26 Chris // Nov 29, 2006 at 4:46 pm

Mrugesh,

In order to activate widgets, you need to install the Widgets Plugin.
27 Drew // Dec 4, 2006 at 1:34 am

Love the theme! I just installed it tonight. I am amazed that it can be this easy to work with a theme and wordpress. Beautiful.

When are you adding the post on Google AdSense? I am quite interested, as this will be my sites main profit center.

Thanks!
Andrew
28 Stan // Dec 5, 2006 at 2:23 pm

Total Newb question:
I’ve installed cutline - but my sidebar doesn’t show up at all on the frontpage.
It’s on the Archive page - but not on the front.

Can you help?
29 Faith // Dec 12, 2006 at 4:19 pm

I know you will want to probably ignore this question…I’m really new to all of this (just learning about different things here and there). I’ve downloaded cutline, but I have no idea what to do next?! Do I need to sign up for hosting and a cpanel outside of the free hosting that wordpress offers? Do you have step-by-step training on what to do after you download the cutline theme?

Thanks.
30 Updating Web Site | // Dec 18, 2006 at 4:18 pm

[…] I am updating some new features on my Word Press Theme. Blog Cam, Blog Poll, will be missing for awhile. I am adding some new cool stuff, that I hope makes the site a bit better. […]
31 James Kent // Dec 30, 2006 at 5:26 pm

Hi Chris

I really love the Cutline theme, having chosen it as the theme for my free WP blog - http://clubketchup.wordpress.com/

However, I have now got my own hosted version (via Bluehost) and really want to use Cutline with it.

But it is extremely important for my readers to be able to choose from categories - as I blog about entertainment marketing and its various forms.

I’m completely new to all this so is there a simple way for me to do it - appreciate any help and time you can give me, as I really do want to stick with Cutline!

Kind regards
James
32 jonathan // Dec 31, 2006 at 1:30 pm

chris,

i am having a small issue.

not all of my installed and activated plug-ins show as available plug-ins on the “sidebar widgets” management page.

do i need to code my sidebar by hand?
33 Chris // Dec 31, 2006 at 1:56 pm

Jonathan,

As long as you’ve installed the WordPress Widgets plugin, things ought to work fine. Not every widget has received specific styling treatment, but that should not affect whether or not a particular widget is displayed.
34 jonathan // Jan 1, 2007 at 1:17 pm

everything is installed fine.

here are some screen shots that show the issue:

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/148/340941640_ee195ab9b3_o.jpg

http://farm1.static.flickr.com/144/340941666_6802e010cb_o.jpg
35 SFGary // Jan 12, 2007 at 8:00 pm

Hi Chris

I have the WP sidebar widgets installed and activated and it shows up in yr. themes page. But I am unable to drag and drop any sidebar widget. All it does is highlight the word on the widget box when I click, hold and try to drag? What am I doing wrong, these are just the std. WP sidebar widgets…

Gary
36 Mitch // Jan 23, 2007 at 11:18 pm

Chris - First, thanks for your great theme.

But … do you know if there is an issue with Cutline and WP 2.1? I’ve upgraded to 2.1 and everything seems to work fine, except everything on the Links sidebar widget displays without the proper styling. Everything was working fine under WP 2.0.x.

Mitch

See http://mitchlewis.net/blog for example.

Thanks again …
37 Dave C. // Jan 28, 2007 at 3:38 pm

Hi Chris,

I love Cutline. I’m just getting into making it more customized, haven’t touched the templates at all, but as I was setting up the widgets, something happened. Everything was fine for awhile, but now all of a sudden, my sidebar is down below my posts. Please check http://www.daveconrey.com for reference.

My luck is you’ll go there and it will look fine to you, but if you have some input, it’s greatly appreciated.

Thanks for all your hard work here.

D.
38 Dave C. // Jan 28, 2007 at 7:50 pm

Nevermind Chris. I figured it out. I forgot the closing ” on a link and it made the whole page go nuts. Very strange, but I got it cleared up.
39 Drew // Feb 3, 2007 at 8:02 pm

Chris

When will you be addressing the Cutline and Google AdSense issue? I want to use some ads on my site, in the actual article, but haven’t a clue as to how.

Thanks
Andrew
40 Tom // Feb 8, 2007 at 2:04 pm

I installed the cutline plugin, how come when I try to use the search feature in the sidebar it just takes me back to the home page ???
41 Katherine // Mar 17, 2007 at 9:16 pm

Hi Chris,

Thanks for a beautiful theme. I’m getting it set up over at my website, www.400words.com. I got widgets enabled, and am able to arrange them just fine, but I can’t figure out how to customize the “text” widget — I want to create an “About 400 Words” type entry for the sidebar. But I don’t see the thing I’m supposed to click on to be able to edit the content of the text widget. Any ideas? Thanks…
42 John // Feb 2, 2008 at 3:39 pm

Chris,

Have uploaded Cutline 2.0 for 2.3.2 and I have to say it works a treat. Only problem is Archive activation doesn’t seem to work, but as someone else has already asked you about that, I will wait until you answer them; but that niggle aside 5 stars for design and implementation and clear instructions!!
43 jose modesto // Mar 21, 2008 at 8:14 am

Hey dude,,

I added adsense to your template, but I want to use them inside posts,,,

You say here that there is a widget that lets me do this,,, please help me

Excellent theme!

Cutline Theme for WordPress

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