s9y themes - Options

Calendar sidebar plugin

nospam@example.com (Jannis Hermanns) — Wed, 25 Jan 2006 01:27:18 +0100

The calendar plugin that is installed by default in Serendipity shows all entries for the month with links to the archive page for that day. This makes it so easy to find posts for particular days. Some theme designers are also adding extra coloring, borders, or background images to calendars to make them really stand out. It is even possible to add events or personal activities to the calendar by installing extra plugins.

The calendar itself is created from a Smarty template file 'plugin_calendar.tpl' and sits within a table to create the columns and rows.
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Using lists in entries

nospam@example.com (Jannis Hermanns) — Sat, 21 Jan 2006 16:37:16 +0100

At some point almost every blog user will want to make a list in an entry, and while some might just use a carriage return (new line) others may know a little html and decide to use html lists instead. The following lists, unordered, ordered, and definition demonstrate how themes handle them.

this is a list item <li>

sub-list item
another sub-list item

another list item
and another one

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HTML tags in posts

nospam@example.com (Jannis Hermanns) — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 17:45:30 +0100

HTML tags give blog authors much more control over how their posts will look, and this page shows how most of the basic tags have been styled in the theme you want to use.

Serendipity is tremendously powerful and users are able to select from plain text entry to a variety of wysiwyg editors for creating posts. If you choose plain text entry and want to use these tags, simply type the tags as you would normally and Serendipty will automagically format your post correctly.
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This post has a very long title, and demonstrates what happens to your site when users just keep typing and typing. You would be amazed the number of sites where authors actually do this. blah blah bl

nospam@example.com (Jannis Hermanns) — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 02:27:50 +0100

You may have noticed this page has a very very long title. In fact I just kept typing until I reached the limit. Many theme designers don't realise that some users are quite happy to use long titles.

If the banner of your theme uses a large font, or if you would like to restrict the length of the title, it is possible to prevent long titles from upsetting your finely crafted design.

Open your index.tpl, and where the h1 title link is, replace



{$head_title|@default:$blogTitle}

with this



{$head_title|@default:$blogTitle|truncate:50:" ...":false}

What you've just done is told serendipity that if the title exceeds 50 characters then truncate the title and add three dots. You could easily change the number of characters, and you needn't insert three dots if you have some other approach you would prefer to take.

Two column themes

nospam@example.com (Jannis Hermanns) — Wed, 18 Jan 2006 02:22:49 +0100

The power of serendipity allows us to develop themes that only use two columns, and by default serendipity places all sidebar plugins into the right sidebar. However Serendipity is very powerful and allows users to select the left sidebar for sidebar plugins as well.

Plugin Placement

In some two column themes this inevitably means that some plugins won't be visible at all. An easy fix for this would be to print the left sidebar directly beneath the right sidebar, thus ensuring that all plugins are visible. You may wonder if this is necessary, after all it is easy to change the placement. But spare a thought for the new user who happily places all their plugins into the left sidebar, including the login link, then downloads your theme. Will they be able to access their admin suite if their sidebar plugins aren't visible?
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