Producer Theme
About the theme
Download | Demo
What’s can you do with it?
- Build a regular blog site with a three-column, two-column or one-column design
- Build a magazine style blog with up to 10 featured categories showcased on the homepage plus numerous other options.
Options Quick Look
These are just some of the options you can control with Producer
- Run in Blog Mode or Magazine Mode
- Two magazine layout options
- Use layouts in static or widgets mode ( Static means you use the layout as packaged. Widgets means you drag and drop the categories where you want them the same way you drag and drop sidebar widgets)
- Add google analytics to footer
- Use a graphic for your site title instead of text
- Activate hidden leaderboard ad space
- Position Leaderboard ad left of center
- Position Sidebars side by side on left of content
- Position Sidebars side by side on right of content
- Position Sidebars on left and right of content
- Control sidebars on Index page, single post page, static page, archives/categories page, 404 page, search results page (Each page can have different setup for sidebars)
- Move around navigation menu row, leaderboard row, logo/tagline row, search box/rss links row
- Hide search box/rss row if preferred
- Hide navigation menu row if preferred
- Hide tagline if preferred
- Activate adsense in single post pages
- Activate adsense in static pages
- Configure feeburner to display subscription form (will need to drag and drop the widget into your sidebar)
- Choose between pages and categories to display in navigation bar
- Show or hide author date byline on index page, archives/categories page, search results page (each page uses own options so can show on one but hide on the other as needed)
- In non-mgazine mode choose between index or excerpt on index page, search results page, archive/categories page
What’s the CSS Styling Tool?
The CSS Styling Tool allows you to completely change the look of your Producer site. If you want a different background color, if you want to use a background image, change the default font style, give each featured category section its own background color/image, remove the borders, change the border colors, change font colors, style the sidebars, style the post area, style the footer, change bullet styles… (This website is using the Producer Theme with the Styling Tool used to give it a different appearance from the default). Below are 2 additional samples of styles designed with the Producer CSS Styling Tool.
Can you change the styles without the CSS Styling tool?
As with any other theme, you can edit the CSS files to change the appearance of the theme manually. Keep in mind that the Producer CSS classes are saved in PHP files to accommodate the CSS Styling tool, so you will technically be editing PHP files. If you prefer to manually edit the files you can find them in includes/styles. The CSS Styling Tool was designed to make it possible for you to change the design of your site without having to edit any code, however it is not necessary to purchase the tool to achieve the look you want. If you prefer to manually edit the files, the files have been named to make it easy for you to recognize which files you need to edit for each area of the page that you want to change. If you need help finding a particular class leave a comment with your question and it will be answered as soon as possible.
Examples of Styles you can change with the CSS Styling Tool
Page Background – you can change the color of the background, use a background image if desired, set the image repeat status, change the font color, font family etc
Page header logo/tagline – you can change the font size, font color, set a background color or image etc.
Page Search bar ( you can change the RSS and RSS comments links to whatever you prefer, example link to facebook link to twitter. Provide the URL to your own icons, change the background color, change the border color, change the font color, transform text…
Post area – main post area end post entry areas can be modified to add background color, image, border, change font color etc.
Featured category blocks – each block can be modified to add a background color or image, font color, change bullet style etc.
Footer – change background color, font color…
Purchasing the CSS Styling Tool
The Producer Theme’s CSS Styling Tool can be purchased using the Buy Now Button below:
Or you can visit either Products Page or Buy Products
What the difference between widgets and static mode?
Widgets/Static option only applies when running in magazine mode.
In widgets mode you get to drag the featured category sections where you want them the same way you drag widgets to your sidebar. You can mix them up with your other widgets to make your site look how you want it. This is a great way to control your site’s design. You can select “No Sidebar” for the Index page in magazine mode and use the widgetized areas to mix up your widget content.
In static mode you are using the theme’s default design.
Hi, this is because you set the options for each featured category from the theme options page. The widgets do not need additional options. Once you drag them to the “Home Column” where you want to place them you’ve done all you need to do there.
Thanks a bunch. If I can just figure out how to make something a featured category, I’d be feeling pretty good. Thanks again for getting back to me so soon. Sorry if I seemed “crabby” I’m just frustrated with the trial and error and this template seems like it has so great with so much to offer that I just want to jump in and get to it. My lack of patients is my own problem though.
Thanks again.
Hi New England Vegan, if you are familiar with dragging widgets to your sidebar, then the process of dragging widgets to the home page works the same way. You go to your dashboard and click Apperance, then click Widgets. You will see that there are some widgets named Featured Category 1, Featured Category 2 and so on. You will also see some wigets place holders named Home Column One, Home Column Two etc. The dragging takes place when you drag one of Featured Category 1 through Featured Category 10 to one of Home Column One through Home Column Ten.
Thanks, it was the setting the options for each featured category from the THEME OPTIONS page that tripped me up.
I appreciate your prompt answers.
NEV.
New England Vegan, I’m glad you were able to sort it out. And do not worry, your frustrations are perfectly understandable. I will do my best to get the manual for the theme and the manual for the styling tool out as soon as possible. In the meantime please feel free to post your questions or contact me directly for assistance.
My thanks for an excellent theme and the advanced capabilities available through the CSS styling tool. Both saved my butt this past week when my political news site crashed four days ago under the heavy resource demands of a Drupal installation that had become unmanageable. With a main database of 23,000 plus articles plus thousands of images and hundreds of videos plus more than 50 modules needed to make the site do what I wanted, the Drupal installation had grown to a 2GB MySQL files with 137 tables.
When it crashed the logs showed that the resource load was too heavy even on a dedicated dual processor server with 4GB of memory, I used Lincoln Hawks superb tutorial at CMS Buzz to convert my Drupal database to WordPress and the move reduced the database from 137 tables to 11 and the size from 2GB to 101MB. The conversion process took about 90 minutes using Hawks’ SQL scrips.
Then I looked around for a temporary WP Theme that would get the site back up and running and came across Producer. It offered what I needed for a news-style format and I had the site back on line in about four hours.
While the tweaking the site, I found the code was well-written enough to consider using the theme permanently. I ordered the CSS styling tool and have spent the last 24 hours using it along with direct modifications to the CMS and PHP code to get the site back to where it was and how it looked with Drupal but without the resource overhead.
My congratulations to your team for an excellent theme. The fact that it is open-source is incredible given the depth of options and the CSS styling tool saved me countless hours in tweaking the site. I plan to use both for work on other sites.
Thank you. You folks saved me a lot of work and grief over the last four days.
Doug Thompson
Capitol Hill Blue
http://www.capitolhillblue.com
Doug thank you. It’s always encouraging to know that the products are helping others achieve their goals more easily.
I have now spent a good solid day working with Producer Theme and I have to say I’m impressed. I got off to a rocky start only because I think it’s such a powerful theme with so many options, I couldn’t get a foot hold to really figure out how to get started.
This theme is so versatile, it’s really amazing. I bought the CSS Styling Tool which is worth every penny whether you’re familiar with coding or not. When you consider what you get for free with this theme paying a little for the CSS Styling Tool is still a great deal.
Also when I was having a little trouble staring out and posted a few questions here they were answered right away. Great support.
Thanks again.
New England Vegan.