The mod bug bit my ass over the whole of last week and what you are looking at is the result of that side effect. Admittedly, I think I have lost my touch. I have never faced such frustrating moments for a long time since I first learned to mod WordPress Themes. This present look took me longer that I had expected. In the process, I crashed the whole blog more than a few times and from that, I learned quite a few new things and a few invaluable Theme modding lessons.
Never Assume What Works Offline Will Work Online
I always do my modifications offline using xampp. Though you can do everything in a “live” environment, you should be aware that when you put the Theme online, some things will turn out differently.
When working offline, the ‘localhost’ or the artificial web host that you created in your computer where you are ‘hosting’ your local blog, is a clean and uncomplicated one. Our actual web host has tons of things going on their servers so there will be a good chance that somethings will not work when you put your modded Theme online.
Always Work With Plugins Installed
One very basic factor that I did not consider when modding this Theme was the amount of plugins that I have been using. If you are modding your own Theme, always do so with whatever plugins that you have been using. Then of course, do also remember that even plugins will behave differently offline, as some of them works in relation with your actual web server.
Always Have A Backup Copy Of The Original Theme
Never delete anything blindly without backing up. When you decide to mod your Theme, download the original copy that you have been using from your server and keep it handy. In case you break the codes too badly and it is beyond repair, you can always copy and paste back the codes from the original.
There will be times when we get carried away and start changing too many things in one go. When things go wrong, we do not or cannot remember where we made the last change. Even if we remember where, we will not remember the original codes. You do not need to crack your head. Just copy and paste back the original file.
Have A Secret Blog
When are happy with everything, it is best that you have a blog that no one knows so you can check your modded Theme online. When checking,
Check The Theme With All major Browsers.
The biggest culprit and the most stubborn being Internet Explorer. Like a naughty child who needs a good spanking on the butt, IE will play havoc on all your hard work. When every other browsers listens and works with specifications, Internet Explorer plays the black sheep in the family. Like a spoiled brat, he demands you write your codes according to THEIR standard or else they refuse to read what is an industry compliant code.
Everyone should just stop using Internet Explorer until it start playing according to regulations. Use Firefox.
Have Your FTP Client Ready
Your are bound to wreck up something and you will not be able to access your blog from the front end. You won’t be able to see your Dashboard. You have to go into your server and access your raw files there so you can make changes. So you better check if your FTP client is working and you can log in to your server.
A good recommendation that I have started to love a lot is the FireFTP add-on for the Firefox browser. Better and faster than Filezilla and it is browser based, so you can do everything within your browser.
Remember Those Plugins
When things are not right after you re-load your modded Theme, don’t panic just yet. Remember your plugins. It is the most common cause of many WordPress conflicts.
Rather than having a secret blog, just get the Theme Test Drive plugin, and admins can see one theme (the one you’re working on) while everyone else sees the old version: much easier!
Hi Sue,
Good thought! Thanks!!
I didn’t know about the existence of such plugin i will check it out
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I usually make the changes via FTP and refresh to see what’s up
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Is this article related to the part that ur sidebar color was a little bit messed up and you couldn’t see the comments and etc unless u roll over
?
Yup, and a few other issues as well. Took me a whole day to get the logo image to show in IE! All seemed to be working right when I finished modding offline, but when I re-loaded the Theme, so many things went wrong!
And I thought I was getting good at these things.
It’s sad, that just because someone is unexpirienced or not so much into PCs and they use whatever Windows come hence IE.
So you have to take IE into account. If it was up to me, I would completely ignore that dumb browser. If Microsoft is being careless about CSS why should we care about their stupid browser?
Viva monopoly and the newbies that help this god forsaken browser get 60% share of the market.
Hi Lynnette,
Looks perfectly okay to me in IE. Only thing your blog is loading too slowly with all the images on the front page and you have 10 post displaying.
What you can do is to reduce the number of post to be shown in the home page to say, about 5. That should hasten the loading time.
Also, I think you have a white space in your header and background image codes. Example, the header display codes is such,
background: url('images/header.png') no-repeat;
Preferably, there should not be any white spacing between the brackets and the words
'images/header.jpg'IE don’t like that very much, though it still reads it after a some seconds delay, so I discovered.
Anyway, good job on the Theme. Loved your unique headline fonts.
There however some who are adamant that IE do not read png images properly.
But then all’s well so that ends well!! wooppee.