When we re-launched our site a few months back, we built the entire thing on WordPress and integrated our existing blog into the new design. This left the old blog design orphaned, and so – rather than let it gather figurative dust on our server – we’ve decided to release it to the public as a free WordPress theme.
In fact, we enjoyed the process of creating this theme so much that we plan on doing it again. From time to time, we’ll post a free WordPress theme on our blog for you to download and enjoy. Check back soon or subscribe to the feed so you don’t miss out.
Features
This theme is essentially a re-purposed and enhanced version of our old blog theme. It won’t make you coffee, but it will make your blog look good.
- Widget ready
- Supports threaded comments
- sIFR enhanced (minimal configuration)
- Random, rotating banner images
- One-click social bookmarking
- Segregated search results (pages styled differently than posts)
- Localization support (interested translators please leave a comment below)
- Support for WordPress’ Custom Header API
Testing and validation
- Tested W3C valid (XHTML 1.0 transitional and CSS 3)
- Tested in Firefox 3, Safari 4, Internet Explorer 7 & 8, and Chrome
- Tested at resolutions from 1024 x 768 to 1680 x 1050
Requirements
- WordPress 2.7 or higher
Download or try the demo
Grab the zip file below (658 kb) or try out the fully functional demo first.
I’ve included documentation in the zip file that explains how to install and customize the theme; however, feel free to post a comment if you get stuck (or if you find a bug).
Alternate versions
sIFR support also requires some extra work, and we like to keep things simple. If you just aren’t interested in using sIFR on your blog, you can grab the latest version without sIFR support.
Download version 2.3 (no sIFR) (509 kb)
As of 2.2, we decided to drop support for Internet Explorer 6. To keep our theme accessible to users of IE6, we’ve kept the older 2.1 version available. This version has been fully tested in that browser and works fine.
Download version 2.1 beta (1.74 MB)
Legal
The Elegante WordPress theme is licensed under the GNU General Public License version 3. In plain terms, this means you are free to download, modify, and use the theme for commercial or personal purposes, provided that you keep the footer link, which reads “Elegante website theme by 3 Roads”, intact and unchanged.
Change Log
2.3 (23 December 2009)
- Added localization support
- Completely widgetized the sidebar
- Added support for WordPress custom header API
- Added support for SEO custom fields
- Changed to a GPL compatible license
2.2 (30 October 2009)
- Added support for child and grandchild pages
- Added support for sIFR dropdown menus (when child pages are present)
- Added new styles for HTML embedded in comments
- Added new styles for HTML tables
- Enabled comments for pages
- Improved image styling (large images no longer break layout)
- Comments and trackbacks now display separately
- Dropped support for IE6
2.1 Beta (1 October 2009)
- Added sIFR support for special characters
- Actually included the sIFR Flash files this time…
- Updated documentation on how to configure sIFR
2.0 Beta (16 September 2009)
- Initial public release
35 Comments
I am in love with this theme! Thanks for releasing it as free.
What could make it better? Theme options where you could select what images you want to show in the header or the option to not show any images at all. Also, option to upload your own logo or not show a logo but just text.
You can definitely tell a lot of time was put into the theme and it is definitely beautiful!
J,
Thanks for the kudos; I’m thrilled that you love the theme
Excellent suggestions — I’ll jot these down and look into working them into the next version. I can’t provide a timeframe right now, but stay subscribed to this post and you’ll get the updates.
This theme certainly deserves the name you have given it.
Did you set out to make an elegant theme, or did you name it retrospectively when you saw the results of your work?
There’s some lovely typography in your schema, and it comes at a good time for me; starting a new blog very soon. Thanks!
Very nicely done. Typography is great, colors are perfect, background is good. Excellent release. Thanks.
Michael,
No nested comments in this theme yet. Gotta work on that
Like all of our WP designs, we come up with the name at the end (retrospectively, as you put it). I decided the theme looked elegant, hence the name.
If you end up using our theme for your new blog, I’d love to hear about it. Send us a link!
Looking forward to see the next release. I’d love to use it as my theme for my blog with the changes I suggested.
Best free theme I have seen in a long while!
I have uploaded the theme, but continue getting the error form WordPress that the “Stylesheet is missing”. Anyone else have that problem? I have moved the style sheets here and there, but with no luck. Any ideas would be appreciated.
Al,
I sent you an email directly — let me know if you’re still having trouble.
Thanks for sending an email — it has not arrived yet. I look forward to getting it. (1:28 MDT, 9/30)
Hi, really beautiful theme. Got a problem with characters “Æ, Ø, Å” in the sIFR generated headlines (they aren’t printed). Any chance the theme can be configured to show them?
Cheers
Hey Jesper,
Thanks for your comments. I uploaded a new version of the theme (beta 2.1) that includes support for these special characters.
I had to update the sIFR Flash movie to include some extra embedded characters, so you should be all set. The demo also features a post with special characters in the title to illustrate that they work.
Cool, thx!
I trying to find this line inf the sifr-config.cc but it;s not in what I downloaded. Any idea
var hypatiasans = { src: ‘../flash/hypatiasans.swf’ };
Actually I can’t find the sifr-config.css file in the download.
Thanks
Ray,
I apologize, but the documentation had a typo (now fixed). You should be looking for js/sifr-config.js, not css/sifr-config.css.
Sorry about that! Please post again if you have any more trouble.
Ryan,
Thank you very much for the correction. This theme is one of the nicest, best put together themes I have seen. Thanks for releasing to the community.
Would it be possible to add localization support in the future? So that us foreigners can fully enjoy this seriously wicked theme.
Johan,
Great thought; I’ll add that in the next release. If all goes according to plan (hah!), that will be by month’s end.
Just a heads up that 2.2 is fresh out of the oven. Probably the biggest new feature is support for sub-pages. I’ve also posted a sIFR-less version for those who don’t want to worry about any advanced configuration.
Thank you very much that’s a great theme !
In 2.2 many bugs of the previous version are corrected and it is much faster to load (maybe because I took it without sIFR).
Only one little problem remains on my site : the “Search the blog” widget is displayed although I did not set it in the admin panel. If I set it, then I have it twice. Is there a way to remove it ?
I am still in love with this theme but also still waiting on the theme options. Looking forward to future updates!
@Julien,
Wow, sorry for the delayed response… I hadn’t thought of just having the search form as a widget; I’ll look into that for the next release. For now, look in the theme’s sidebar.php file and remove all instances of the function get_search_form().
@J,
Glad to hear it — stay tuned for future updates, including the ones you mentioned in your first comment.
Yes that’s what I did : a tiny change in code.
Now it looks how I wanted it to look like, and it’s great !
Just one detail : some widgets of the sidebar (archives, categories) have no margin on top or bottom, so these widgets are “stuck”. But it is not really a problem.
Just a heads up that 2.3 is now available. Big updates are (1) localization support and (2) support for the WordPress custom header API so you can adjust your logo from the WP admin.
@Johan,
If you’re interested in a translation, let me know and I’ll post it.
Hey Ryan,
This is an awesome theme! I’m thinking of using it on my blog, but I was wondeirng if this design could somehow be editted so that I can have the blog just fill up the entire page for a 1024×768 resolution user? This is because space is important to me and I’d much rather have space I can use for writing and sidebar than just loosing space to the background pattern.
Thanks!
Hey Static,
Thanks for the kudos
You can certainly change the width of the theme; you’ll need some knowledge of CSS and a graphics program. I recommend Firefox and Firebug so you can change the CSS on the fly.
There is a containing DIV called wrapper, which you can adjust to whatever width you want. For a 1024×768 resolution, I recommend a max of 990px (the width is currently 890). You can also set it to 100%. You’ll also need to change the width of content and (possibly) sidebar.
The graphics program is necessary because you’ll also want to change the width of the images/bg_wrapper.png image. I suppose you could also just remove the image, or set the background to white. Maybe in a future version I’ll make a fluid width layout.
Hey Ryan,
I’m going to fiddle around with it quite a bit and see what I get. I’m trying to change the color scheme of it too actually, but not sure how that’s going to come out just yet.
Thanks for your help though!
Just wanted to say that the theme doesn’t seem to be too flexbile with going 990 px all together. It’s probably due to my limited knowledge in coding though, rather than the way you coded the theme.
Please do update me when you get a fluid or a 990px version out.
Thanks!
Hello,
I love this theme, really amazing,i’m wondering to know if there is a french translation?
Thanks for all.
Dadou3x,
Thanks! The latest version of the theme supports localization. If you’re up for providing a French translation, I’ll include it in the theme and re-release it ASAP.
Hi,
i am ready to translate this theme into french, thanks to dadou3x who did tell me that he need a translator !
Great
@Ryan Burney how to process and what i do for french translation ?
@sunsimo,
Thanks a million for being willing to translate!
If you do a Google search for “how to translate a WordPress theme” you should find some good how-to articles. Here is one tutorial and here is another that I found helpful.
When you download the Elegante theme you’ll see a file called elegante.po in the root folder of the ZIP file. That’s the one you need to use for translation.
Good luck and thanks! You can send your .po file to web AT 3roadsmedia DOT com.
@Ryan,
Thanks for these tips, let’s start translation
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