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I had promised (weeks ago) to post a tutorial on how to add footer widgets to the Mimbo 3.0 theme once I figured out how to add them to http://www.recipemobile.com.  Although, I was able to make the necessary tweaks to recipemobile, I have not had the time to post a tutorial.  So, for now, I am publishing the code I have added to enable the footer widgets.  I hope to be able to update this post to a full tutorial soon.

You will have to edit 3 files in your theme:

Functions.php

In functions.php, add the following code under the existing widget code:
if ( function_exists(’register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar(array(
‘name’ => ‘Mimbo Footerbar1′,
‘before_widget’ => ‘<div class=”clearfloat”>’,
‘after_widget’ => ‘</div>’,
‘before_title’ => ‘<h3 class=”widgettitle”>’,
‘after_title’ => ‘</h3>’,
));

if ( function_exists(’register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar(array(
‘name’ => ‘Mimbo Footerbar2′,
‘before_widget’ => ‘<div class=”clearfloat”>’,
‘after_widget’ => ‘</div>’,
‘before_title’ => ‘<h3 class=”widgettitle”>’,
‘after_title’ => ‘</h3>’,
));

if ( function_exists(’register_sidebar’) )
register_sidebar(array(
‘name’ => ‘Mimbo Footerbar3′,
‘before_widget’ => ‘<div class=”clearfloat”>’,
‘after_widget’ => ‘</div>’,
‘before_title’ => ‘<h3 class=”widgettitle”>’,
‘after_title’ => ‘</h3>’,
));

Footer.php

In the footer.php file, add the following code right under the footer div definition:

Style.css

Now, all you have to do is edit your style.css files to add the appropriate styling to the footers.  This is the css code that I have used to get you started.

#footerbar {
        display:block;
        clear:both;
margin-top:-10px;
list-style-type: none;
list-style-image: none;
margin-bottom:15px;
}
 
#footerbar ul {
padding-left: 15px;
}
 
#footerbar h3 {
        color:#dadada;
        font-family: 'Tempus Sans ITC','Bradley Hand ITC','Comic Sans MS','Zapf-Chancery', cursive;
        font-size: 18px;
	letter-spacing:0.15em;
border:none;
margin:0px;
}
 
#footerbar h3.widgettitle {
        color:#dadada;
border:none;
}
 
#footerbar a {
display:block;
}
 
#footerbar1 {
        float: left;
margin-right:10px;
        }
 
#footerbar2 {
        float: left;
        }
 
#footerbar3 {
        float: right;
margin-left:5px;
        }		
 
#footerbar1, #footerbar2, #footerbar3 {
width:32%;
}

This article is part of an ongoing series where I share my experiences with modifying Recipe Mobile to use the Mimbo theme.  You can see the related articles here.

Introduction

In this article, I will show you how to change the hover states of important objects in your Mimbo theme.  These include:

1. The page navigation bar link hover color
2. The category bar link hover color
3. The hover effect of the lead story background
4. The default link hover colors (continue reading…)

This article is part of an ongoing series where I share my experiences with modifying Recipe Mobile to use the Mimbo theme.  You can see the related articles here.

Introduction

I apologize for the delay.  I work on many project at the same time and though most of the updates to the new Recipe Mobile website are in place, I have not had a chance to publish details in this blog as I had said I would.

Anyway, here is a start.  The last article in the Modifying the Mimbo theme series dealt with making certain changes to the index.php & header.php template files in the parent theme itself.  Now, this section is the first that will talk about modifications that can be made using a child theme.  I have already written about the advantages of styling Wordpress blogs using child themes and today I will show you how.

While the functionality of the Mimbo theme is great, I am not a fan of the greyish tones used in it by default.  The first theme I used on the Recipe Mobile website had a strong red background with green elements.  Initially, I was unsure that it would look good, but Deepa loved it and so I let it be.  Eventually, it grew on me andI realized it gave the website a unique look.  I wanted some continuity by maintaining a similar color scheme after the theme change. For that I had to change the colors of several elements of the Mimbo theme.  

In this article, I will be focusing on the major areas, where changing the color completely changed the look of the theme.  These areas are:

1. The website background
2. The category bar background, and 
3. The lead story background.

(continue reading…)

If you usually post across multiple topics and sort them by category, you might want to highlight a few categories so that your readers can easily find them.  One way of doing this is to create page tabs (like the ones saying ‘Home’, ‘About’ towards the top of your Wordpress blog) that link directly to the category page. Wordpress makes this extremely easy.  

All the categories pages are automatically built.  You can access these category pages by clicking on the category name on your blog (if you have the category widget displayed) or from your Wordpress dashboard.  Copy the URL of the particular category page you want.

Once you have the URL to the category, create a new page in Wordpress and add a link tag in the title.  The syntax will be <a href’=”URL”>Page Title</a>, where URL is the url of the category page and Page Title is the text you wish to appear on the tab.  Save the page.  Refresh your blog and you should see the new tab.

Categories like ‘how-to’, ‘tips’, ‘news’ particularly can benefit from this.

Having finally decided to go with the Mimbo Wordpress theme for Recipe Mobile, it was time for me to start customizing it.  The themes author, Darren Hoyt, recommends that style customizations should be made using child themes so that changes can be retained across future upgrades.  I have heard mention of child themes several times before but have never delved into it before. 

Luckily, Darren provides a child theme called Vintage Green on the same download page to help get started.  Installing a child theme is similar to installing a regular Wordpress theme.  You unzip and upload the theme folder to your ‘wp-content/themes’ folder and activate it from Appearance-Themes on your Wordpress dashboard.  Make sure the parent theme folder is also present in the themes folder. (Note: The child theme folder does not go into the parent theme folder but within the Themes folder itself.)  The child theme contains references to its parent theme already so every thing should happen smoothly

I have been customizing Mimbo using a child theme for only a few hours now and have already seen the benefits of using a child theme.  The only code changes that I have had to make in the parent themes files were to: (continue reading…)

If you are not familiar with CMF Ads, please see my other blog post on adding CMF Ads to your blog.

CMF Ads has a great forum.  The community is very close and I have used the forums a few times to get help on topics both CMF related and otherwise.  Also, this is a great way to improve your visibility within the CMF Ads website if you are still waiting for your first advertiser.  If you are an advertiser, it is also a great place to meet publishers who share the same interests as you so that you can find the right websites to advertise on.

While you are posting on the forums, you might as well advertise your blogs for free by adding them in your signature.  There was some confusion while I was trying to add a signature so I thought I would post a short tutorial here. (continue reading…)

CMF Overview

CMF Ads is a new advertising network that I have just come across.  They only started at the end of January and have grown quite well since then.  Ive decided to test them out on RecipeMobile first and then use them on my other websites.  They are great for smaller blogs as:

• They let publishers keep 100% of your credits
• Instead of cashing in your credits, you can choose to buy more ads.  This helps avoid transaction fees and helps market your blog or website without paying money out of your pocket.
• Unlike Entrecard, you can manage multiple websites from a single account and so share all your advertising credits to spend them efficiently.
• If you have more ads playing on your blog than you have advertising space, the ads automatically rotate while still giving you the same number of credits per month.  Therefore, even if you have set your ad price at $1/month/ad, your actual earnings will be more if multiple advertisers place their ads on your website.  This also avoids advertisers having to wait in line to advertise on your website (unlike Entrecard).
• Also unlike Entrecard, all credits are bought by real money so the economy is stable.

Overall, its an interesting network that has a lot of potential.  Here are the steps to go about deplyoing it on your blog. (continue reading…)