4 Nifty Code Snippets to Trick Out Your Thesis Theme

To make some really smooth changes with just a few snippets of code, copy and paste the following code snippets into your custom.css and/or custom_functions.php files.

1.  Remove the outlines around your links

Add this code snippet to your custom.css file:

.custom a {outline: none;}

2.  Remove the grey line below the navigation bar/menu

.custom #tabs {
 border-bottom: none;
 }

Click here to find out how to remove all grey lines.

3.  Automatically add post content using hooks

Would you like to add some text and images somewhere in your Thesis Theme without hard coding it?

Use Thesis OpenHook plugin and insert a few lines of code where you want the content to appear.

Suggestion to place post content using Thesis OpenHook plugin:

• Add post content to the top of your sidebar (like in my example image above)
• Add post content to the bottom of a post – like subscriber information, social bookmarking icons or ads

Step 1:  Create the content

Create a post with the information you want to appear in the sidebar.

In the category and tag options, create a new category (e.g. ‘info’) and give it a unique tag (e.g. ‘about’).

Step 2:  Copy and paste the code snippet into the custom hook box

<?php query_posts('category_name=info&tag=about&showposts=1'); ?>
<?php while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
<?php the_content(); ?>
<?php endwhile;?>

In this example, I selected the before_sidebar_1 hook

• Remember to check the ‘Execute PHP on this hook’ box.
• Hit your Little Ass Save Button and check your results.

You can reuse this code snippet and place extra tailor made pieces of information all over the place :-) Have fun with it.

4.  Add Style to Popular Posts in Your Sidebar

If you would like to style your sidebar content like I have with my ‘Popular Articles’, here is how to do it.

Grab Rob Marsh, SJ’s Popular Posts plugin and the companion plugin Post Plugin Library.Use the ‘Add New’ function on your Plugins page to search for ‘Popular Posts’ and look for Rob Marsh, SJ to know it is the right one.

You can also add/install his other plugins – Similar Posts, Recent Posts, Random Posts and Recent Comments - and style them in the same way – using different colours perhaps).

• Just swap out the word ‘popular’ in the code below with ‘Similar’, ‘Recent’, etc.

Add the following code to your Custom.css file and replace the background and outline colour codes with ones that suit your site.

#popular-posts li {
 background: #EEEEEE;
 border: 1px solid #05396B;
 line-height: 1.4em;
 -moz-border-radius: 5px;
 padding: 1.2em;
 -webkit-border-radius: 5px;
}

If you have a darker sidebar, a lighter coloured background looks quite nice.

Let me know how you went :-)