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Thesis Skin: A Bright Idea

Art of Blog is happy to Release it’s first Thesis Skin: “A Bright Idea”. This skin was originally ported to Thesis for use at Auinteractive’s Blog, however once we saw how great it turned out we just had to release it. After all, “A Bright Idea” is such a great example of what Thesis is capable of.

a-bright-idea

Goals for A Bright Idea

When we set out to build “A Bright Idea” we wanted to take advantage of all of the options Thesis offered to us. We also wanted something that didn’t look like it was “Thesis” at first glance. Overall, we think the finished product delivers just that.

Under the Hood

The primary driving engine of this theme is of course WordPress and Thesis, but in order to deliver the finished product we utilized quite a few elegant Thesis hooks and filters paired with quite a bit of Custom CSS to create a very sleek blogging theme which gives the content priority. We took time to remove the annoying “jump” that happens after you click read more. ;) That always bugged us, so we included that in the custom functions as well.

Photoshop File Included

Now we like the name “A Bright Idea” a lot, but we assume you call your blog something else. If that is the case your are in luck. Included in the download file is the photoshop file that will allow you to change the “home button.”

Enjoy! “A Bright Idea”

We really hope you enjoy using Thesis and a Bright Idea. If you would like to help us continue to release free skins for Thesis you can do so by leaving in the links to this site. By no means do you have to, but we’d think you where pretty cool if you did ;) Without further ado… Here are links to Get Thesis, Demo “A Bright Idea” and Download the Skin. Enjoy!

Get Thesis Theme for WordPress

Demo: A Bright Idea for Thesis

Download: A Bright Idea for Thesis

Installing Bright Idea for Thesis

Installing this theme is pretty straight forward. Just follow the steps below and if you hit any hangups, let us know in the comments.

Step 1: Buy and Download Thesis Theme for WordPress. You will want at least version 1.6 as this is the latest. This skin won’t work without it.

Step 2: Download the Thesis Settings Export Plugin and get it installed.

Step 3: Download the ABrightIdea.zip file and extract the “custom” folder onto your server. All of the files within this folder should be moved to yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/thesis_16/custom/ folder.

Step 4: Within the ABrightIdea.zip file you will also find a folder called “settings.” Within this folder are export files. Simply go to your “Thesis Import/Export” link under appearance and upload each of the files.

Step 5: Edit the Included .psd file in photoshop to include your site name. Save as home.png. Upload to yourdomain.com/wp-content/themes/thesis_16/custom/images/

Made Possible By:

Written by

Nick Reese is the author of Traffic and Trust, and all round happy dude. When Nick isn't managing web properties he enjoys biking, shooting video, and drinking tea. You should follow Nick on twitter here.

{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }

Chris November 12, 2009 at 3:15 pm

Wow, what a beautiful skin!

Thanks for offing it!

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Matt November 15, 2009 at 1:43 am

Excellent skin, Nick. Very clean. It’s been added to ThemeThesis.com. Keep me posted on any other work you do.

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ThesisTheme.Net December 9, 2009 at 6:15 pm

Great Skin. I just added it to my Thesis Skins library. Looking forward to seeing what else you come up with for Thesis!

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Butch Adams February 13, 2010 at 10:40 am

Thanks for offering this skin. I knew it was what I was looking for as soon as I saw it. Just a FYI, in IE the right side of sidebar cuts off a couple of pixles. (You can see it on your demo) It looks like widgets have extra padding in them for some reason that I haven’t been able to trace out yet.

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Terri Ann February 21, 2010 at 1:07 am

No demo? I’ll have to give ‘er a try once aI get thesis setup on my local machine.

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Nick Reese February 21, 2010 at 2:58 pm

Click on the image of it, there is a demo.

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Bill February 21, 2010 at 6:37 pm

I’ve installed the theme but there doesn’t seem to be anyway to add additional menu tabs, is this correct? Also. I would like to remove the adds for thesis if possible. I would leave the link in the footer.

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Nick Reese February 22, 2010 at 1:34 pm

Bill,

Add a menu via a widget in the sidebar.

As far as the thesis advertisements. Check the custom_functions.php.

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lux April 15, 2010 at 5:03 pm

Hi, Nick,

What a beautiful skin. As a thesis newbie, I have a quick question: with a thesis skin, I can still change the design of the theme and the skin will just be part of the background? Is that the idea?

In other words, what’s static and what can be changed with a thesis skin?

Thanks for clarifying,

Lux

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Nick Reese April 15, 2010 at 7:35 pm

Lux,

You can tweak anything you need to via custom CSS. This just gives you all the resources to have a site out of the box.

You can change the background via CSS too. :)

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Nick Reese April 15, 2010 at 7:36 pm

Lux, Just for further clarification. Everything is static.

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lux April 15, 2010 at 7:40 pm

thanks nick.

as a thesis newbie, i did that for one of the thesis site i had. but after implementing the custom css i tweaked my theme setting.

viola, the site was upside down.

that’s why i was asking what i can change, or kept variable, without breaking the whole site =)

lux

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Axrhuls Roy May 1, 2010 at 9:08 am

nice theme you have. but i was unable to load the setting. currently using thesis 1.7

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Axrhuls Roy May 1, 2010 at 9:17 am

Nevermind, i made it worked. Thanks for the skin~ great job indead..

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Martyna Bizdra June 22, 2010 at 10:04 am

Hallo Nick

I like this skin very much. Simple and elegant. I wanted to install it on Thesis 1.7 , and it doesn’t work. I mean the layout of the blog is not complete after the installation. I do not see the background, and the foreground. Only the yellow patches of the advertisements and the “The bright idea” .psd file that can be edited in photoshop. I have checked the files on the server ( in the “custom ” folder), and everything seems to be fine. And also I have used the import/export plugin to upload the files in the “setting” folder.

What might be wrong? can You help?

thanks a lot
Martyna

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Việt Coding November 30, 2010 at 10:01 pm

Like Martyna Bizdra problem. I using Thesis 1.7 and your option files in compress file are not compality with new version. Can you upgrade them ?

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Nerd Coach May 1, 2011 at 9:51 pm

After a lot of modifications, I got this theme working on my domain http://www.nerdcoaching.com for Thesis 1.8. The easiest solution is to use the layout.css file from Thesis 1.6 and DON’T import the settings. Thesis 1.8 comes with it’s own import/export tool and I’d be happy to export my settings for anyone having trouble with this theme. It’s a great theme! It just would have been nice if they kept it up to date.

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Nick Reese May 4, 2011 at 12:02 pm

Send me the export and I’ll update it.

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Kishore Mylavarapu May 15, 2011 at 3:38 pm

Very nice options.Looks like a premium theme.Great work.

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David December 4, 2011 at 5:13 pm

Also looking for an update for 1.8.2

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