Need help with Simple Balance? Ask away!
In the months past I’ve received a lot of messages, comments and emails, each asking something about Simple Balance. To some I have answered, to others I couldn’t, due to various reasons (mostly time).
Please understand that the simple fact that I released this theme for free is a “support” action itself, and most times, my daily activities do not allow me to help everybody in their quest to customize this theme the way they want to. That would mean to cut time from my clients’ projects to offer support for this free theme. I am sure that you can understand this situation.
That’s why, for a limited period of time, I’ll check out this post daily and try to answer any question you might have, be it design or source code related, as long as it is about Simple Balance. If you have previously asked the same thing on another topic, or sent a mail and did not get an answer, please ask again here so that I can answer your questions.
So… fire away!
PS: Some questions could already be answered in these posts:
Simple Balance – Right Sidebar Alignment Bug Fix
It has been brought to my attention that the Simple Balance theme has a display bug which causes the right sidebar to drop below the content on single post pages.
After looking into this problem I’ve seen that this only happens when users are required to be logged-in in order to post a comment.
The bug is fairly easy to fix and a fix has already been included in the Simple Balance 2.2 download package.
In order to apply the fix, you only need to download the package and replace the “comments.php” file in your theme’s folder with the one inside the package.
Manual bug fix
Alternatively, you can apply the fix manually by opening the “comments.php” file in a text editor and scroll down to the end of the file where you should see this code snippet:
</form> </div> <?php endif; // If registration required and not logged in ?> <?php endif; // if you delete this the sky will fall on your head ?> </div>
All you need to do is to replace the above lines of code with the ones below:
</form> <?php endif; // If registration required and not logged in ?> </div> <?php endif; // if you delete this the sky will fall on your head ?> </div>
The closing tag of the comments section should have been placed outside the conditional loop that checks if the user is logged in. Since it was not, the sidebar was considered to be part of the comments area and displayed below.
Sorry for the inconvenience if you have had trouble because of this bug. Now it should be alright.
Simple Balance WP Theme in German
Thanks to the amazing involvement of Florian from Floeschen.ch, the Simple Balance theme has been translated to German, from front-end to the extensive control panel.
As Florian and I have agreed, the translated version will only be available from his blog and is to be considered the only official German release. Otherwise we could not guarantee for the safety of the scripts.
All future updates of Simple Balance will also be translated by Florian and released by him on the same page that the current version is available from.
Here’s the link: Simple Balance WP Theme auf Deutsch
Thank you Florian for the hard work!
Download Simple Balance 2.2 – Xmas Edition
Simple Balance 2.2 is now available for free downloading. Although it was previously working with the recently released WordPress 2.7, now, the theme has built-in support for threaded comments (you can reply to people’s comments with a maximum depth of 3 steps) which is a new functionality added by the latest WordPress release.
If you’re running a WordPress version prior to 2.7, fear not! The comments section has backwards compatibility.
Another cool feature has been added to the options panel and it refers to the 125×125 right sidebar banners. Now, you can also add Google AdSense code, individually, for each of your banners.
And that’s not all! Christmas is around the corner, and so’s the New Year.
New color scheme: Xmas Edition
Why not give your Simple Balance themed blog a cool new color scheme to match the Holiday spirit? A new color scheme – Xmas Edition – has been added, raising the total number of schemes to 10!
Click here to read the full blog post!
How to Add Your Logo to Simple Balance
By popular demand, I decided to publish a short tutorial on how to add your own logo to the Simple Balance WordPress theme.
So, in order to achieve this we’ll walk through the following steps:
- The logo image guidelines and instructions;
- Files to update;
- Code explanation.
Simple Balance 2.1 – Everything is Under Control
One month and 2000 downloads later, the new version of the Simple Balance Free WordPress theme is released.
New options have been added – along with the options of Simple Balance 2.0 – to the theme’s control panel, including:
- Easy to set up featured post (does not use categories);
- Google AdSense alternative for both the top and right sidebar ad space;
- Easy to set up email subscription form; *
- Page selection for the top menu (only selected parent pages will be displayed);
- Two brand new color schemes: Blue Bubble and Curly Green
FeedBurner Email Subscription in Simple Balance 2.0
Since its launch, over 1800 people downloaded the Simple Balance 2.0 WordPress theme. For that, I thank each and every one of you!
The idea behind this theme was to keep it as simple as possible, yet effective. Simplicity in administration is one of the keywords behind its creation. But some things need a bit of coding knowledge to tweak.
One of them is the email subscription form, which, once you install the theme, serves only as a design template that does not work unless proper code has been added to it.
I’ve been asked via comments and email what’s wrong with it, or how can it be made functional and this made me write the following step-by-step tutorial on how to integrate the FeedBurner email subscription form in Simple Balance 2.0.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Simple Balance 2.0 – Free Simple WordPress Theme
Here it is folks, Simple Balance 2.0 – a free, simple WordPress theme with enough options to make it “premium-like”.
After launching the first version (1.0) in July, I’ve decided that the next release should not be an intermediary version, but rather a real, meaningful update. And that’s how Simple Balance 2.0 was born.
Simple Balance 2.0 is launched under a new slogan: “More Power. More Style. Your Style!” Why? Because that’s what it has to offer! More control over it’s options, advertising space, layout and color, and with each future update you’ll be able to tweak it more and more to your own style!
Let’s take a look at what Simple Balance 2.0 has to offer
Many new options have been added, most of which you can adjust through the theme’s brand new “Control Panel”.
- An extensive and inclusive theme control panel;
- Widget-ready sidebars;
- Top advertising space (468×60 pixels);
- Sidebar advertising space: Up to 8 small square banners (125×125 pixels);
- Individual settings for each banner you add:
- Custom banner URL;
- Do Follow / No Follow witch;
- Title and alternate text;
- Open in a new window or same window
- Master switch (on/off) for every Ad Zone;
- Variable layout structure:
- Centered content;
- Right-aligned content;
- 5 new additional color schemes (more released monthly);
- Option to display the default left sidebar image, use a custom one or hide it;
- Custom feed URL;
- Valid cross-browser tested XHTML and CSS;
- SEO smart coding;
- Works with WordPress 2.6.2 (tested starting with WordPress 2.5);
- Any many more options that I’ll let you discover.
Simple Balance 2.0 – Premium can still be free!
Yesterday I promised I’d tell you what I’ve been working on lately. Well, Simple Balance version 2.0 has just got out of development stage and for today will be in a testing stage across a few WordPress versions. If all goes well, tomorrow you’ll be able to download it and take it for a test drive. For now, version 1.0 is still available for downloads.
And because I’m convinced that good quality can still be delivered for free sometimes, this new version of Simple Balance gives you just about enough control of its settings, but don’t take my word for it. See for yourself in the following screenshots.
Click here to read the full blog post!
Simple Balance Free WordPress Theme Released
Update
Simple Balance theme is a 3 column widget-ready WordPress theme. Some of the features include:
- Widget-ready left and right sidebars;
- Top 468×60 ad space;
- Right sidebar built-in ad space for 125×125 banners;
- SEO smart coding for titles and content;
- WordPress 2.5 ready;
- Valid cross-browser tested XHTML and CSS;
- Possibility to fully display the latest X posts on homepage instead of the post excerpt (to prevent duplicate content issues);
- Not to forget, beautifully balanced design;
Since this is version 1.0 expect some changes in future versions to make this theme even more appealing. Suggestions are kindly appreciated.
Enjoy the Simple Balance theme!
Preview and download
You can preview the Simple Balance 2.0 theme on this demo server.
More info on this theme is available here.
If you use and enjoy this theme, you could consider a PayPal donation of your choice:
