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“A Dream to Host” is Art of Blog’s First Free Wordpress Theme. It is inspired by Dreamhost’s 10 year anniversary (Dreamhost is where we host many of our sites).
Live Demo | A Dream to Host 3.0 (1775)
I spent a while coding and testing this theme to make sure it’s everything you might want. I have worked with a lot of themes in the past and have modified many to our own needs. I’ve come across a lot of themes that were a pain to work with or modify. Others did not have clean or SEO-friendly code. So I coded this one from scratch to be the kind of theme I would like to work with and that would also be a good all-around theme out of the box.
Here are some features of this theme:
- Extremely Fast loading: A site running this theme loads in less than 1 second in our test. CSS is only 4Kb. The entire page with background images is only about 10Kb.
- Widget aware: Comes with the ability to add and customize widgets.
- Easy to read: The design uses easy to read font sizes for your visitors, while maintaining a professional look.
- CSS/XHTML valid: The pages validate CSS / XHTML 1.0 Transitional
- Clean Code: Page code is clean – no CSS hacks are used, classes are easy to understand
- Easy to modify: Built with simplicity and customization in mind.
- SEO Optimized: The theme comes with optimal page title tags and content presentation that’s search engine friendly.
- Built for Wordpress 2.8+: You can be sure it will run under Wordpress versions 2.8 and up.
- Threaded Comments Ready – Easily Create Conversation with your users.
- Photoblogging Ready – Great for Photographers. Uses built in [ gallery ] functionality.
Download it, feel free to use it any way you see fit. If you like it, we always appreciate links.
We tested the theme in Firefox 2, Internet Explorer 6 & 7, Opera 8, and Safari so it should work well across all the modern browsers. If you find any bugs, let us know. Enjoy!
A Dream to Host 3.0 (1775)
Article by
Nick Reese is a full time internet marketer living in Austin Texas. When Nick isn't managing web properties he enjoys biking, wakeboarding, and drinking tea. You can read more from Nick Reese on his website and follow him on Twitter @nickreese.
Nick has written 25 awesome articles for Art of Blog.
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Thanks for your theme! I’m using it on my blog http://www.dailycommonsense.com and it really look awesome! I’ve searched a lot for a clean and simple WP theme and it’s by far the best I’ve found. Good job.
Thanks, Ben. Glad you like it.
Hello – very nice and neat theme. One question so far: how to put some marging or padding around images aligned to left or right? Thank.
To pad the images you can go into code view and put in the following code within the img tag:
for left aligned images:
style=”padding:0 10px 10px 0;border:0″
for right aligned images:
style=”padding: 0 0 10px 10px;border:0″
That’s one way to add padding
After running a very slow template for a while, I decided to go on the hunt for a fast, clean, SEO, and easily customizable template that I could use.
After sifting through a bunch of rubbish, I’m convinced this one is by far the best! I’m yet to have a good go at playing with it, but have loaded it and love it. The coding is stripped right back to the bare essentials meaning it’s going to clearly be a breeze to play with.
Thanks for your efforts and this offering to the world of blogging. I appreciate it.
LOVE the simple layout, thanks. How do you get the SUBSCRIBe widget to appear? I don’t see it listed, please advise. thx, Jeff
The Subscribe block is there if you don’t have widgets in your sidebar, but disappears if you don’t (in case people don’t want it there). You can grab the code from the sidebar file and place it in a text widget manually.
Thanks Sun Tzu, much appreciated. One last question:
On my Categories page:
http://www.tinylyons.com/category/news/
the teaser text shows up first, followed by the entire post. I just want the teaser text (like a normal wordpress presentation), not the entire post.
How do I fix that? Again, I love this theme. Thanks!
@Jeff: Thanks for the heads up. I fixed it in the version and updated the download.
To fix it on your end, go to archive.php and delete line 31 or line 33 – either of these 2:
< ?php the_excerpt() ?>
< ?php the_content("» Continue reading " . the_title('"','"',false), 0); ?>
If you delete the first one (excerpt), your “more” tag will cut off the post (if you use more tags in your posts). If you delete the 2nd one (content), your excerpts will show.
Thanks Sun Tzu, worked like a charm.
Last question… each excerpt ends with […]. Is there any way to make this a link to the full post or replace with READ MORE>
I ask this because I do a lot of usability work, and a good majority of new wordpress users don’t realize they have to click on the top header Post Link to read the whole story. Some think the except is the whole story.
Especially for this style where the Header Post is not underlined as a link… the user should really have somewhere to click to proceed.
Again, thanks for your help!
find this line “And add a line similar to the following underneath that line” on this post:
http://blog.websitestyle.com/index.php/2008/02/29/using-wordpress-excerpts/
it gives you the code to add a read more line in your template
Great looking theme! One question though. Is is just on my computer the left column pushes the right column out of whack and in below the left column?
Jes
Add clear:left; to the main ID in your CSS file.
Replace it with:
#main {margin : 0 auto;padding:10px 0px 0px 0px;clear:left;}
I might add this to the official theme release since others might run into the same problem.
Such a great theme. I’ll use it now in my blog. Hope will not get some error since i’m using wp2.5
Thanks Hussein, glad you like it. I’ve tested it with WP 2.5 and it works just as well as with previous versions.
Take a look at my blog.. The theme is now up with my blog.. Thanks for giving this cool theme. I really love it..
Hi again! It seems the theme is not validating. Go to a specific post page and let W3C validate it. Your demo and my site both get “ID “respond” already defined.” Is this something you can fix?
Regards
Jesper
Hello,
I’m trying out your theme and it is fast. I am wondering if I can make the header’s length shorter and how would I change the globe that appears in a browser tab?
The globe is very cool but the pic I have is more with my theme of the site.
Thanks,
Gary
After looking at the code more I think my question is how does one make the blue horizontal navigation bar shorter in length or be able to bring the right column up higher in the fold.
Thanks,
Gary
Hello,
Is there a way to keep the page info from showing in the top blue bar? Or a way to make the blue bar smaller in length?
Thanks,
Gary
Sorry, I just noticed that my other questions were still awaiting moderation. I figured out how to change the globe.
But still interested in the other questions. I was playing with the css and header files to get it to do what I want. I was able to shorten the length in the blue bar but it added a lot to the file size.
I love the way you streamlined these files, it’s a work of art.
Gary
This is a nice theme indeed. My dad chose it and I did a bit of tweaking for him on his new travel blog.
The CSS file could do with some newlines though. I also added this (adjusted from the edit side of Wordpress) to make the image frames and captions look the same in preview as when published:
.wp-caption {
border: 1px solid #ddd;
text-align: center;
background-color: #f3f3f3;
padding-top: 4px;
margin: 10px;
-moz-border-radius: 3px;
-khtml-border-radius: 3px;
-webkit-border-radius: 3px;
border-radius: 3px;
}
.wp-caption img {
margin: 0;
padding: 0;
border: 0 none;
}
.wp-caption-text {
font-size: 11px;
line-height: 17px;
padding: 0 4px 5px;
margin: 0;
}
Just upgraded my blog and using your theme now. Very nice, good work!
Hi There
Brilliant clean and crisp theme. I’ve just got one question please:
How would I put a banner image right across the top, under the blue horizontal menu (where the globe is and blog name/tagline). I know which code to delete so the blog name doesn’t show in the header, but I want to replace this and the globe with a banner image. I’ve succeeded in putting one in, but it’s mispositioned to the right too far by about 20 pixels. I want it to sit right across the 860 pixel width snugly. I can’t code the CSS to make this happen. it keeps pushing it out to the right.
I hope this makes sense, it’s a great theme and I’d appreciate your help. Thanks!
@Laurence. Emailed you. Change the #logo div to have 0 padding.
I have sought many themes that I could customize. I could find none till I came across this one. Its truly been a dream to be able to finally customize a theme to my liking. I have done extensive rehashing to make it look different. Truly a great theme for beginners to work with!
http://www.shorebound.net
How can i replace the globe, blog name & tagline with my own banner image? I don’t know html, php & css.
Please email me as soon as possible. Thank you very much for a wonderful theme.
@nad775: replace the contents of div=”logo” in the header.php file with your image (just make sure it’s wide enough) and take out div=”slogan” and its contents altogether.
Great theme. How do I change the font size of the titles of the widgets in the sidebar?
@Bob: in CSS file, for #sidebar h2 add the font-size attribute.
example:
#sidebar h2 { whatever is there ; font-size:10px;}
perfect, thanks!
Sorry, one more – how do I move the date so that it is up with the title of an entry, rather than at the end of an entry?
@Bob: swap class=”postfeedback” and its contents with the class=”postentry” div and its contents in the main index template.
Thanx for the nice theme mate. I will use it in some of my blogs.
Love this theme – thank you!
One issue I’m having is that in IE even though the CSS indicates “list-style-type:none” for ULs in the sidebar, I am still getting bullets that I don’t want. Also, in IE the sidebar
is slipping down below the posts, whereas in Firefox it’s
properly placed. Can you advise?
Thanks, Kathleen – glad you like it. Which version of IE are you using?
Love the simple layout, thanks. How do you get the subscribe widget to appear? I don’t see it listed, please advise. thx
@Hosting: go to Design > Theme Editor > Sidebar and move this block of code:
< ?php if ( !function_exists('dynamic_sidebar')
|| !dynamic_sidebar() ) : ?>
between the subscribe and categories li sets (between < / li > and < li >) around line 16 or so
right column is appearing below the left column in both firefox and IE..please advise on how to correct this. thanks!
Can you send me an example, Tom? You probably have something in either the left or right column that is wider than the column’s width. You can try setting overflow:none; to the containing div or show me an example of what you mean.
Thanks for it… Great Design… :D
Nice theme, I’m installed it today,
Thanks!
Hi there,
What’s the latest WordPress this is compatible with?
Many thanks,
This is fantastic. Very easy to use.
I also would like to have a banner image across the top.
I have it, but I would like to delete what is now blank white spacing at the top of my page.
Take a look at my page and you can see what I mean. I would like the banner to rise up a little more tightly to the top of the page.
Thank you for your help.
Perhaps I’ve missed something, but I was wondering why this blog theme doesn’t include “Tags” with each post, for further SEO, as most other themes do.
Is there a simple way of including the code manually?
Great theme. Just downloaded it and will install it soon. I found this page by typing best 2 column wordpress theme in Google and found just that.
I want to change the header link “About” and add a different page…having difficulty finding the page edit or css code locations…
Help! :)
thank you
jsw
Love this theme, having one problem though. I want to change the font size of the post to 8em, when I do, it looks fine in firefox, but breaks and pushes the sidebar under the post area. I can’t see to figure out why, any ideas?
body {font: normal .9em/1.6em Arial
want to change that to body {font: normal .8em/1.6em Arial
Sorry, ment to say, works fine in Firefox, but breaks in internet explorer when I change the font size.
Newbie here – thanks for the theme.
One question: I have a Link Category which appears
in the default theme but fails to show in this one.
Can you advise please
Thanks.
hi there..thx for wp theme. i tried it out..and loved it.
thanxs for making such a great design and avaible fo free download.
I’ve been pleased so far with the theme. I have been trying to figure out how I can add a background image to the post/sidebar (it’s a repeating image so that I can make the entire page look like a rounded rectangle). I cannot figure out how to change the background of the main content area and sidebar to include my image. Can you point me in the right direction?
Much obliged!
I am using the theme and am enjoying it very much. I am having a problem activating the “subscribe to comments” plug in. Do you have any ideas? Thanks!
I’m using your nice theme to have “static” pages. But I’d like one page to be full width without a sidebar. I can eliminate the sidebar, but not clear how to make it full width. Looks as if one would have to get deeper into WP.
Can a full width page be created? The page is the Stills page.
I’m using your nice theme to have just pages. But I’d like one page to be full width without a sidebar. I can eliminate the sidebar, but not clear how to make it full width. Looks as if one would have to get deeper into WP.
Can a full width page be created? The page is the Stills page.
Sorry for the double post. Page worked a bit differently than I expected. The second post has an edit, therefore is the one to us. Don’t bother to post this one either.
Thanks.
I may be answering my own question. I’ve found main-content in the header.php, so that should get me there I hope. An if and maybe a main-content-single should do it. I guess I’ll need to remove the sidebar too.
Here’s what I did to get page “stills” one-column full-width
style.css
#left-column-single {width : 800px;float : left;padding-left:40px;}
#right-column-no {visibility:hidden}
header.php
Was:
Now:
<?php
if (is_page(”stills”)) {
echo “”;
} else {
echo “”;
}
?>
sidebar.php
Was:
Now:
<?php
if (is_page(”stills”)) {
echo “”;
} else {
echo “”;
}
?>
Hi there – thanks for a great theme.
I have a nested page structure, but the page menui shows only the top level page. Is there any way that you can show the subpages a bit like the Atahualpa theme?
Also – once I added some widgets, the login details have dissapeared – do you have any suggestions on where this could have gone to?
Many thanks!
I have found the Meta tag now ,,, hiding!!!
Nice looking theme – I’ve been looking for a clean 2 column one – I think I’ll give this a shot.
Cheers
Jonathan
Hi
How can I switch columns so that the sidebar appears on the left?
Thanks
nick
I just installed it, but it seems like something is wrong. The entire right column starts after the post (left column) is done. They do not run parallel to each other from the top.
I tested it on FF, IE and Chrome with the very same results in each one of them.
Is this a known issue?
Is there an easy way to add drop down menu functionality? Awesome theme.
Thanks.
this is the best 2 column wordpress i have ever seen
I love this theme, but I am having a problem with one issue. Does the theme allow text to wrapped around an image. I have tried, but it doesn’t seem to work. Any solution to this would be helpful.
nice 2 column wordpress theme…..thanks….
I’ve been using A dream to Host for over a year now. It’s great!
Thanks
I’ve just downloaded this simple but nice theme. I really love the layout!
I’ve downloaded the theme and when I activate it I see…. nothing! My whole blog disapears and all I see is grey. Any idea what I did wrong? Thanks!
Thanks for a great theme.
It works well on my ordinary Wordpress site but breaks the admin on a wordpressmu site.
Looks fine when first installed, but as soon as you try to add or edit a page then it goes pear shaped.
Has it been tested on wordpressmu & if so did you do any mods to get it going ?
Regards
Brian
Hi —
I know I’ve seen this before — sorry if it’s an old question. I’m using 2.3 and drag/drop doesn’t work for widgets. Is there a line of code I can change somewhere to make drag and drop work again? Thanks in advance!
I tried to add a widget to the sidebar, but it’s not working. Any tips on how to get this working?
I love the simplistic layout and feel of this theme, but need to add customized sidebar widgets to continue to use this one.
Any help would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!