Dave's Serendipity themes

We've been offline

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2009-02-11T09:31:00Z

We've been offline for a few days! Apparently there was a corruption in one of the records in the database for this domain which created a syntax error in the DNS zone file, preventing the zone from being loaded and therefore no DNS resolutions supported

I'm not sure what it all means but at least the site is back along with my email.

Commercial templates with S9Y Bulletproof

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2008-04-08T09:17:49Z

Whilst my difficult personal life has prevented me doing any free template work for Serendipity recently, I've still got to work in order to make a living! My most recent website work has all used Serendipity - and Bulletproof - as a framework and backend.

The Bulletproof template that Matthias, Don and I developed to simplify Serendipity customisation has made the creation of commercial websites even easier - particularly in ironing out so many IE6 and IE7 bugs.

For those who are interested, here's a couple of Bulletproof websites.

Pennine Divers is a simple template design - completed by the client with their own content.

Stag Sports are a Rugby Kit manufacturer with a complete website based on the latest version of Bulletproof. Although it's not an e-commerce site, I've designed it in such a way that it can become one when the client is ready to start online trading.

We had a lot of trouble with this client - getting paid etc and, although still in use, the site is now hosted and updated elsewhere. Such is life in the commercial world.

More websites using Serendipity

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2007-11-13T10:33:24Z

When I've found the motivation to actually do some work this summer I've designed and developed a few more websites for clients that use Serendipity as a framework.

These three sites are based on the Bulletproof template.

And this one, the latest Vindon Scientific site 'Vindon Scientific - Ireland' is based on one of Carl's Andreas' conversions.

It makes use of nifty cube by Alessandro Fulciniti again to create the rounded corners.

S9Y-Bulletproof

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2007-11-13T09:29:35Z

It's some months since I updated this site - sorry to all you regular visitors, my difficult personal life has really got in the way of my themes and template work this summer. I've not completely neglected Serendipity but what time and energy I've had had been devoted to developing the Bulletproof template that's now part of the Serendipity v1.2 installation package.

For those of you who don't know, Bulletproof has been developed by Yellowled (Matthias Mees), myself and Don Chambers over the past few months as both a standalone template and a framework to build new templates for s9y. Bulletproof has been designed and developed to work in all browsers and comes with three coloursets to use or get you started on the way to design your own Serendipity template.

I'll not write too much about Bulletproof here as it has it's own website - go and take a look (if you've not already) at s9y-bulletproof.com.

New themes and templates in progress

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2007-04-02T15:29:15Z

Not all the work of the past few weeks has been commercial. I've been busy on the collborating with Matthias Mees (Yellowled) and Don Chambers producing a new 'Bulletproof' template which we have designed to make template configuration easier. We're hopeful that this template, when released, will form part of the Serendipity v1.2 default install package. I'm currently working on a couple of coloursets for the template whilst Yellowled and Don are doing the final IE bug blasting.

I've also had another theme in progress for some time which I hope to be able to release soon. You can take a look at it, in it's unfinished state, by selecting 'Depth' in the template chooser dropdown.

More Serendipity powered commercial websites

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2007-04-02T14:18:03Z

Thes past few weeks have been extremely busy. On the commercial side I've used Serendipity for two new websites and for a commercial blog. The commercial websites were for Bank Creative clients - Vindon Healthcare Plc and the Oldham Symphony Orchestra.

Vindon Healthcare Plc

The Vindon Healthcare website is an 'Investor Relations' corporate site with the content governed by various laws and statutory regulations. Building the website around Serendipity has ensured that the content can be easily updated by the client. The rounded corner boxes are created dynamically using nifty cube by Alessandro Fulciniti. The base code for the site came from Carl Galloway's excellent conversion of Andreas Viklund's Andreas08.

The news section is a separate install of Serendipty with a slightly modified template operating as a blog rather than a website.

Oldham Symphony Orchestra

Oldham Symphony Orchestra is another Serendipity powered website you might like to take a look at. All the content has been added by the client after completion of the website framework. The right hand side navigation visiblity is controlled by the 'toggle sidebar state' event plugin by Tys von Gaza.

The base code for this site came from Carl Galloway's excellent conversion of Andreas Viklund's Andreas00.

Joshua Nino 3 column template

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2007-02-01T15:55:15Z

Another user request and another 3 column variation. This time I've given my Joshua Nino variation a 3 column layout.

It's the same as the original Joshua Nino but wider with an extra sidebar. You can check it out in the template chooser or download 'Joshua Nino 3' from my download area.

3 column 'Coffee Bar' template

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2007-01-25T11:26:16Z

At the request of a user, I've produced a 3 column version of my 'Coffee Bar' theme which I've imaginatively named 'Coffee Bar 3'

It has all the same features as my original 'Coffee Bar' theme - it's just a little wider to fit in the extra sidebar.

You can download 'Coffee Bar 3' from my download area.

SPLAT! - new grunge template now available for download

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2007-01-23T11:35:53Z

SPLAT! my new grunge theme and template is now complete and available to download.

SPLAT! uses standard the system fonts 'Impact' for XP users and 'Helvetica Neue condensed' for Mac OS X users and features Dynamic Text Replacement in the header - thanks to Stewart Rosenberger for his article on A List Apart. The DTR font is 21005 EURO from junkohanhero.com. The ink splats came from Tom Tirins' excellent collection. Thanks also to Suzanne at work for the input during development of the theme and for scanning all the other grungy bits and pieces!

SPLAT! is a Serendipity 1.1 theme with the navigation configurable in the style manager and is fully backwards compatible through v0.9. Static pages and special pages are also fully styled.

You can download SPLAT! from my download area. Comments and feedback welcome!

SPLAT! - new grunge theme in progress

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2007-01-05T17:32:03Z

Some of you will have noticed a new theme in the template chooser.

SPLAT! is a new 'Grunge' theme that is still a work in progress. I'll be posting on the Serendipity Forum when it's finished but in the meantime I'll be interested to get some comments and feedback.

Update 23 Jan 07
Finished!
Dave

More commercial themes

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2006-11-17T15:03:38Z

Philips Art Gallery
One of the great features of Serendipity is that it's so easy to configure and use for a commercial web site. Philips Art Gallery asked me if I could duplicate their existing website in such a way that the gallery owner could update the site himself. Using Serendipity as the backend was fairly straightforward and the gallery had their new site up in plenty of time to promote their latest exhibition - which started today!

Original Philips Art Gallery website

Philips Art Gallery Serendipity website

New theme - multi-column

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2006-10-11T12:41:55Z

'Multi' is a new theme that uses the CSS3 'columns' properties for dividing the 'entries div' into 2 columns. These new properties are only implemented in Firefox currently but the theme works well with a single column for the entries in Safari and IE6.

Each entry title in the 'Multi' template is preceded by it's category in a 'filepath' style with white space replaced by underlines as are the homelinks in the header. As in my 'Square' theme and template, I've used the blockquote element as a 'pull quote'. The 'pull quote' highlighing is achieved by enclosing the blockquote contents in a span which has a separate class.

'Multi' also features a re-designed calendar

I started with the basic calendar code from ceejay's 'Chocolate Fudge' template and added a little style and inspiration from Veerle Pieters' excellent article on her blog 'A CSS styled calendar'.

'Multi' for Serendipity has a restyled admin interface, is configurable through the v1.1 style manager and is backwards compatible to v0.9

'Multi' is available to download from my download area.

In addition, I've also made a zip available for download here of the banner image as a .psd file with the text layers active, along with the font I used - Benny Blanco from dafont.com

I'd be interested to get some feedback on this style from other Serendipity users.

Kubrick header image template

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2006-10-02T20:42:41Z

Kubrick is still one of the most popular templates in use on all types of blogs and I'm sure there are many current and future Serendipity users who will use it. Those of you who would like to easily change the header image can download my kubrickheader.psd file.

All you need to do is slide your own image on a layer between the background and border layers and save for web as kubrickheader.jpg

Upload the kubrickheader.jpg file to your
templates/kubrick/images/
directory and that's it, you'll have a new header image in your Kubrick template.

This kubrickheader.psd template is for Tom Sommer's Kubrick port for Serendipity. Those of you using other blog systems might like to download this kubrick header template which was made by Jonathan Peña.

New Theme - Square

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2006-09-28T10:50:40Z

Square is a new Serendipity 1.1 theme inspired by the Design Observer - one of the many excellent design blogs out there in the ether.

Square is a 2 column, fixed width design with 2 sidebars on the right hand side. I've used the 'blockquote' element as a magazine style 'pullquote' as I feel this design lends itself to well to a magazine style blog or website. The menus are fully configurable in the admin interface for Serendipity 1.1 users and in the index.tpl for users of Serendipity v1.0 or less.

Select 'Square' in the tempate dropdown to take a look.
You can download 'Square' from my download area.

Added 8-10-06
Yellowled on the Serendipity forum suggested I make the sidebars equal heights and extend them the full length of the page. This seemed like an excellent suggestion so I have implemented this in the theme and updated the zip. Thanks Yellowled - and thanks also to Carl for his helpful suggestions.

New theme - Coffee bar

nospam@example.com (David Cummins) — 2006-08-03T12:09:05Z

A Serendipity user emailed and asked if I could make a fixed width version of my 'Coffee Cup' competition entry theme. So here it is 'Coffee Bar' - my competiton entry but fixed width with a single sidebar and a navigation bar.

I named it 'Coffee Bar' as it has 3 CSS variations. 'Coffee Cup' - in all the original colours as you see above, and two new colourways 'Cappuccino' and 'Espresso' shown below.

'Coffee Bar' is fully configurable in the Serendipity v1.1 style configurator and is fully backwards compatible defaulting to the blue 'Coffee Cup' stylesheet in version 0.9 and 1.0. Thanks to Már Örlygsson for the menu code. You can download 'Coffee Bar' from my download area. If you're using Serendipity version 0.9 or 1.0 you can use the 'Cappuccino' and 'Espresso' CSS files and configure your menus by editing your index.tpl file. Click on the 'Continue reading' link for instructions.

Continue reading "New theme - Coffee bar"