Anyway, it’s been suggested that this issue can be solved by downloading/installing the Feature Pack #2 version. I tried that and got an installation error.

By the way, I’m currently running version 1.30 build 6390 (remember that you can update your version under the info and updates section of Gravity) I would recommend that you follow @janole on twitter as Gravity is his baby! You also have to remember that Gravity is a work in progress… so don’t expect it to be ‘perfect’ (although, for me it does damn near everything I want and need it to!!) I’d suggest dropping a tweet to @janole if you have any major issues.

I hope this helps some people

footer.php

• © is the copyright logo
• echo date('Y') – prints the year.
• bloginfo('name') – will print the name of the site.

Now we move onto index.php. To start off with, if we just get the header and the footer just so that we can test that they work.

inserting the header and footer into the index

title bar and footer

As you can see from the last image, it would appear that the header and footer are working. In the titlebar is the blog title (highlighted in blue) and the footer (highlighted in orange) has worked as we can see the copyright notice.

`Now to work on the posts and the lovely ‘wordpress loop‘.

the loop

As you can see this is a very very basic loop. This should show all your pots with NO FORMATTING.

Let’s see if we can make the posts more distinguishable… Maybe give them a title and link to the post? An author? A category? We may as well give these elements some basic html too? Just so that they look a little better?

We will now use the following:

• the_permalink() – gives the link to the post
• the_title() – which gets the post title
• the_author() – gets the author of the post
• the_category() – gets the category the post is in.

It doesn’t matter what order these are arranged.

loop with basic html inserts

view of the rendering of index.php

posted by author in category..

So now we can now ass the comments.

• comments_popup_link() – this inserts a link to and counts how many comments there are about a post.

comments

So far…… we have gone from a blank theme, to a theme with a header and footer….. to a page that has a very noticeable structure, a post title, a post author, a category, the post and any comments.

]]> http://optimisticgecko.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/theming-for-wordpress%e2%80%a6-part-2-footer-php-%c2%a0index-php/feed/ 1 OptimisticGecko footer.php screenshot_03 screenshot_04a screenshot_05 loop with basic html inserts view of the rendering of index.php author, category, comments comments http://optimisticgecko.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/theming-for-wordpress%e2%80%a6-part-1-setup%c2%a0%c2%a0header-php/ http://optimisticgecko.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/theming-for-wordpress%e2%80%a6-part-1-setup%c2%a0%c2%a0header-php/#comments Thu, 29 Apr 2010 14:08:20 +0000 OptimisticGecko http://optimisticgecko.wordpress.com/?p=33 ]]> I’ve spent the last 24hrs getting to grips with theming for WordPress. It seems that almost every tutorial I’ve been reading starts off by showing you how the famous ‘WordPress Loop’ works (which is fair enough), but they seem to tail off and don’t show you the exact example. I’m hoping to provide a little clarity by showing the bare minimum you need so that you can start theming. I’ve tried to be as anal as possible with regards to commenting so that you know what each command is being executed.

Ok, so the basic template files you are going to need are as follows;

• style.css – the stylesheet file
• index.php – homepage
• single.php – single post page
• archive.php – archive/category page
• searchform.php – searchform file
• search.php – search results/content file
• 404.php – error page
• comments.php – comments template
• footer.php – footer content file
• header.php – header file
• sidebar.php – sidebar file
• page.php – single page file

I created all of these files (all with no content) to start off with in a folder called MyTheme in the /wp-content/themes/ folder.

OK, so you have the basic files, now it might be an idea to put osme stuff in your blog so that your files actually generate some posts, pages, etc…

I came across an excellent wordpress xml file containing the following;

• 5 pages, with full content
• 10 posts, with content, including categories and excerpts
• 21 unique tags
• 11 unique categories
• 10 unique comments
• 7 default links
• 1 post (under category, ‘Bullet List’) contains a bullet list
• 1 post (under category, ‘Numbered List’) contains a numbered list
• various lengths of posts, contents, and titles

This file can be downloaded from designwoop.com , along with the instructions on how to import the file to your blog.

Right, so now you have some content in your blog you can start building up the structure using ‘the loop’ (and it will be a *very* basic structure). For the moment we will add the following to the style.css file.

/*
Theme Name:
Theme URI:
Description:
Version:
Author:
Author UIR:
*/

This information will be used on the ‘Manage Themes’ page on your admin page.

Shows how your theme should look on Manage Themes page

We won’t edit the css until we have some sort of structure sorted out. Activate your new theme, you won’t see anything yet as your index.php file doesn’t contain anything.

At the beginning of each php file for this theme, you should include the following (just because it’s good practice if nothing else?)


<?php
/**
*@package WordPress
*@subpackage MyTheme
*/
?>

I think, logically it would be best to work on header.php and footer.php and then work on index.php.

So, we’re going to work on header.php first. This file will include everything that comes before and including the <body> tag. So it should look something like this:

header.php

If this looks a little daunting don’t panic! Lets start with bloginfo('html_type') and bloginfo('charset'). You could think of these as shortcuts?

• bloginfo('html_style') – gets the HTML version of the site.
• bloginfo('charset') – gets the charset parameter of the site.

Don’t worry if you don’t know what these are, it’s not that important, just as long as you make sure that they are there! This next bit should be a little easier to understand. <title>, this is what will be shown in the title bar at the top of your browser.

• wp_title('&laquo', true, 'right') – will get the title of the post/page you might be viewing.
• bloginfo('name') – gets the name of your blog.

Now let’s look at the <style> tag, this is where the css data goes…

• bloginfo('stylesheet_url') – will insert the url to the style.css file.

You will notice that after the </head> tag there’s the <body> tag, this completes the *very* basic header. Save this, we’ll come back to it later….

Ok, so you’ve loaded gravity and you’re tweeting away…. but you want to let your followers know where you are! While looking at your timeline in gravity goto options > tools > GPS to Clipboard

Copying your gps location to the clipboard

This could take a while if you’ve not had a lock on your GPS or if you’re indoors

GPS position updated

Now that your GPS position is stored in the cache…. start typing your tweet…. there’s a GPS ‘button’ (I don’t know how best to describe it) it’s grey at the minute

GPS 'button' greyed out

If you now use the cursor and go up, the GPS ‘button’ it should go green?

GPS 'button' green

Once the GPS ‘button’ is green you have geotagged your tweet!

geotagged tweet

Ok, so that’s the gravity side of things….

The other setting you need to take into consideration is your settings on twitter! (This was the one part I didn’t think about) You have to go to your twitter settings and turn on Tweet Location ‘Add a location to your Tweets’ Then your tweets will have a little logo which will link to a google map of your GPS location.

I hope that helps someone out there?!