New Template: Ladybug

Ladybug is a Search Engine Optimized, content-first template. It is built around a ladybug theme, as the name implies, so expect lots of pink, with red and black splashes.

Besides putting the content before the sidebars (so search engines give your content greater value), Ladybug includes some nice finishing touches: drop shadows, themed archive bars, and rounded corners for Mozilla FireFox users. I like it, but of course, I made it.

Ladybug is available through SPARTACUS.

Serendipity Theming Documentation

And now, to complete the trifecta of posting: there has been some recent activity on the Serendipity Wiki, improving the themeing documentation.

First is this Smarty mini-tutorial, covering the basics of Smarty syntax, looping, and {if} statements. It actually answers a question from the forums about adding separators without getting an extra separator at the beginning or end of the list.

Second is Carl's masterpiece, a fully documented stylesheet for the Default theme. This is an absolute must-read for anyone interested in creating new Serendipity themes. Anybody interested in modifying just a portion of their blog can benefit, too.

Let the theming begin!

More Templates by Carl Galloway

Carl is really on a roll. Over the course of two weeks, he's released three new themes.

The first, Softened Cells, is actually two themes in one. The second is its fraternal twin, called Sunset. Both provide rounded corners and include a horizontal CSS-driven menu. Both are taken from a web designer's imagination at Open Source Web Design.

The third theme is also from an OSWD idea, and is called Reflections. It's a nice grey that doesn't feel cold and hard. It's also full of little innovations, including full styling, rounded corners, CSS menus, and a fully commented stylesheet.

Add an icon to your serendipity page

You can now add an icon to your Serendipity template without any coding at all. I've extended the kubrickheader plugin -- which already changed the header image in Kubrick and Joshua templates -- to handle the default template as well. Since most templates simply extend one of these three, the plugin should be able to handle just about anything. To reflect these new capabilities, the SPARTACUS title has been changed to "Template Header / Logo Image".

While I was in there, I also added ".gif" to the list of image extensions, so if you specify a directory of images, a random icon will be chosen every time the page is loaded.

You can read the forum post for more information and directions.