I spent a bit of time on my new Micro.blog theme tonight. All elements have been refined, and a splash of colour has been added. And thanks everyone for the positive feedback so far!
Themes
Building and exploring themes for Jekyll and Micro.blog.
I am making progress today, integrating PageFind into the Bothy theme. I’m only ensuring that the search input and results work with the light and dark schemes initially. A later update may see me use the colour themes for Bothy, but I have not decided yet. You can see a sneak preview on my blog.
I added PageFind to my blog last night, but I am still trying to get it working with the light and dark scheme. Once this is resolved, I’ll see about then integrating it into the Bothy theme.
A minor update to the Bothy theme this morning. I’m not going to lie, this is a pretty selfish update. I fixed the theme’s layout to allow additional CSS tweaks. Now I can put up Christmas lights again!
Time for a three-column theme for Micro.blog?
The idea of a three-column theme for a Micro.blog is growing on me.
Bothy was a nice starter for learning about how themes work in Hugo and Micro.blog, but I would like to do more with a theme.
Here are just a few ideas I thought of for a new theme
- Show a header image - I like the idea of a header image for your website. I love the simplicity of text, but having a more visual theme is something that I think is missing from the current collection of Micro.blog themes.
- Show a micro update using emojis or just one word - A little bit of extra meta to let people know what you are up to.
- Show the latest image(s) from a category - Showing images from a particular category would add another visual element to the page.
- Show recent posts - A staple of many a WordPress blog back in the day. Time for this to make a comeback!
With such a larger number of elements for this theme, I might start off with a blank HTML page and start outlining what I need using Tailwind CSS to get a quick prototype up and running. I can then iterate on that for a while, working out the finer points. Once I am happy with it, I can then start building the theme using the finished prototype.
I have made lots of mistakes building the Bothy theme, and I have even shipped some of those mistakes as well! On the positive side, I have learned a lot from it.
The next theme should be more of a straightforward process, but I won’t be starting on that until the darker nights have kicked in.
Bothy now supports category pages and the recently added category intro text.
Update is available in the plugins page.
Bothy 0.2.0 is here!
Over the last couple of days, I’ve been adding colour theme support to the Bothy theme, and it should now be available in the Micro.blog plug-ins as an update.
The Bothy theme is here!
It’s taken me a lot longer than I thought, but I finally finished my own Micro.blog theme, Bothy.
For a long time, I’ve wanted to build my own Micro.blog theme, but I kept putting it off. After playing around with TailwindCSS to get something up and running, I started to see how I wanted my own theme to look. Nothing fancy, a single-column layout with a simple header and just a little bit of CSS to make it easy to read. After a few attempts at getting a workflow going for it, I finally managed to ship a working version of the theme.
It’s by no means finished, and there will likely be a flurry of updates as I address any issues that arise and add other partials and templates that I might have missed or haven’t styled.
Full docs are available on the theme’s Micro.blog site, and you’ll find the source code on SourceHut as well. There is a repo on GitHub, but this is just to allow Micro.blog to pick up changes to the blog so that it can be updated as a plug-in.
If you’re curious as to how it looks, you can take a look at my blog or the Bothy website.
Bothy can be installed from the plug-ins directory.
Enjoy!
Back to my Micro.blog theme ...
I tried to get back to working on my theme for Micro.blog last night. I managed to hold out for a few minutes before tiredness and frustration kicked in.
I have a theme working locally with Hugo. I have created a theme on Micro.blog and have started uploading the individual templates, but it seems like such a chore, and there are some differences between my theme locally and what is on Micro.blog, in that my Hugo themes don’t always work on Micro.blog.
Is there a more effective way to do this?
Taken the first steps with my own Micro.blog theme, bothy. Still a while to go before it’s ready as a plug-in.
Cracked my laptop cover so put the replacement cover I have on.
On the downside I lose all the stickers I had on the old one. On the upside I get to sticker up the new one!
If you’re like me, and you like the Alpenglow theme for Firefox, you’ll like this collection of other Alpenglow themes that are available.
A word for 2021
Niklas Göke's word for 2021 is "matter". He'll use this word as his theme for the year to centre all his thoughts and actions. More of a guide for the year than a goal.
A theme is a baseline ideal, one that you use to guide your actions and decisions. It isn’t worried about tomorrow, nor does it care what happened yesterday. With a theme, all that matters is what you do today. It turns happiness into an attainable, daily standard that’s based on your behavior, not your accomplishments.
— How To Set a One-Word Theme for 2021
I've always liked the idea of themes, whether they be daily, weekly, monthly or even yearly. I must admit though, I haven't done a yearly goal for a couple of years. I have definitely wandered off my intended path over the last couple of years.
I think I have a word in mind for this year, but I'll just keep it to myself if you don't mind.
I think I have a word in mind for this year, but I'll just keep it to myself if you don't mind.
The themes I’m building for my Rails product are hardly fantastic to begin with, but they are improving with each iteration. The goal isn’t to have themes with the best design, it’s to simply be better than what’s already out there for my target market. I’m close to doing that.
A product decision over some code and coffee
For the last few months, I’ve been building a content management system aimed at a particular industry.
I’m close to finishing the first working version of the product. There are still a few things to do, like account management and theme options, but these are trivial things that will not present any problems.
While reviewing the CMS source code this morning, I spotted a way that I can refactor a part of the CMS. The change involves simplifying the different content from multiple types of content to a single base content model that I can base other content on. This is a significant structural change to the product. It involves changes in how the CMS presents and manages the content.
If I spend the time making the change now, it would be much easier to handle any created content and migrations of data in the future.
If I schedule the switch for later on after the release, I’ll always know that I have this change in the structure to make and will be presented with an increasing problem of migrating data.
Thinking on it, I like the idea of taking the hit now and getting this right before the product gets released. I’m just wondering now why I didn’t see this before when I was modeling the content for the CMS.
Anyone have any recommendations on a Jekyll theme that would serve a similar purpose as an About.me page?
I’m looking for something like a portfolio site, but more of an emphasis on who I am, what I’m working on and where people can find me.
Finally got my freelance website moved over from Ghost to Jekyll. 👍
Version bump for my Daring theme for Ghost so that it works with Ghost’s 1.0.0 release.
Also hat tip to Ghost for their theme scanner that let’s you know when a theme has issues.
Bought a license for Monokai Pro this morning. Small change to ensure that a great theme keeps going for my text editor.
Timepage 2.0 Update
My favourite calendar app, Timepage, has just been released with a number of particularly nice features.
Theme colours
The themes preferences screen gets an overhaul that allows better manipulation of the theme as well as new colours and the ability to use light or dark text for your theme.
Advanced Repeating Events
Events can now be repeated with greater granularity. One example of this is you can set an event to repeat on a particular day and week of the month and repeat it a number of times.
Better Notes
Notes now support URLs, flight numbers, email addresses and phone numbers.
There's a also a number of other features and improvements like synchronisation between devices, text size and calendar colours.
What sets Timepage apart from other calendar apps for me is the user-interface. It's not like your typical calendar app. Almost all calendar apps start from a month view and work down to a daily view.
Timepage is different in that it starts with a view the upcoming days and allows you to switch to a heat map of the month or a view of your day.
The iPhone and iPad applications both share the same look and feel but with the extra screen space on the iPad you get a split screen view of the upcoming days and what's happening today.
There's also nice integration with Dark Sky for weather updates on both the iPhone and iPad versions.
All I need now is a version of this app for my macOS and the set of Timepage apps will be complete.
A designer/developer could make a nice sideline income from Ghost themes by just keeping them up to date with Ghost releases.
Wordpress hosting recommendations please? Dreamhost? Siteground?
Also what themes are y’all using?
A Wordpress theme that doesn’t display the title for each post in the posts index and each individual post page. FFS.
When did Wordpress sites become so bloody confusing to use? Oh yeah, when every theme had to have a bloody slider on it.
Be refreshing to see a few Wordpress themes that are slider free.
One for the Devs
Love these Atom themes that only use two hues for your syntax highlighting.
I've been a Solarized user for years but I might give these a try.
More and Less
Love Kurt's more and less theme for 2016.
Over at the bothy ...
... I'm breaking down the technical debt concept for product stakeholders.
The NOW Year Calendar
I love the idea of incorporating monthly themes into the calendar.
Each month leaves a space on the first day to enter your Monthly Theme, and you can also theme your weeks as well if you wish. These themes will act as catalysts to inspire you to move the projects forward that you want to complete and the goals that you want to turn into reality. By planning these things now, you’re setting yourself up with a better chance for success in the future. And The NOW Year Calendar keeps the plan front and centre in a design that is both simple and stunning.
Wishlist Wednesday - Pedal Consumption Ass Savers
My fixie tends to be a fair weather bike these days, but the weather in Scotland is so unpredictable that it might be worth investing in these Pedal Consumption themed SmartAss mudguards.
Becoming a Wordpress Development Professional is launched
My friend Curtis has been busy penning a new book.
Congrats on the launch Curtis!
Avoid the “Jack of all trades, Master of none.”-mantra, as this not only defocuses & complicates your execution, but it most definitely decreases the quality of your work / products / services.
— Do One Thing by Adii Pienaar
It's something that I have to rectify. My development career has moved from one programming language to another without me taking the time to truly specialise in one specific language. I think I've just found my theme for next year.