Textpattern Maple Leaf Forever

Introduction

off the top of my head is a template for Textpattern, tested on version 4.0.5. It's flexible and easily customized. Created by Mark Rogers (mwrogers at shaw dot ca).

Features

• Stretches and flexes with text and window size.
• Looks good in Firefox, Safari, Camino and IE6+.
• Archive and Contact pages work. Change the About page to suit you.
• Pictures and icons can easily be swapped to suit your own theme.
• Uses lots of forms for one-stop changes to content.

Installation

1. Images

Upload files in the Images folder of the template package to the Images directory in your Textpattern installation. You can also upload the files using Textpattern's built-in Image handler.

2. Pages

Text files in the Pages folder are used to create or replace pages (Presentation: Pages) in the Textpattern installation.

3. Forms

Text files in the Form folder are used to create or replace forms (Presentation: Forms) in the Textpattern installation.

4. Styles

Use default.css in the template package to replace the one (Presentation: Style) in the Textpattern installation.

Make sure the image names in the stylesheet correspond to the names in Content:Images.

5. Sections

Create the following in Presentation: Sections

• About -- Title About, Uses page about, uses style default, set to "no" "no" "no" "yes"
• Archive -- Title Archive, Uses page archive_list, uses style default, set to "no" "no" "yes" "yes"
• Contact -- Title Contact, Uses page contact, uses style default, set to "no" "no" "no" "yes"
• Article -- Use the "default" template rather than "archive."

Save each time.

6. Plugins

Copy the text of each file in the Plugins folder into the field at the top of Admin: Plugins. Then upload and install. Click on Yes to get it working.

7. About

In Content: Write, you can create a new article using the contents of the about file in the articles folder. Change it to anything you like. Be sure that the status is Sticky, and set the section to About.

8. Contact

In Content: Write, you can create a new article using the contents of the contact file in the articles folder. Change it to anything you like, but keep the data in the zem_contact tags. The first tag has an e-mail address in it that you should change to your own. Also be sure that the status is Sticky, and set the section to Contact.

Customization

Custom field

Site preferences: Advanced preferences: change the name of Custom field 1 to "mood" -- or whatever you prefer.

Name your site

Site preferences: Site name: off the top of my head -- or whatever you prefer.

Put in the top of your own head

Have someone take a picture of you against a black backdrop. Open the picture in Photoshop and make sure the background truly is 100% black. Crop it with the head at the bottom left to a size of 300px 1000px. You can get the bubble effect by creating a custom brush in Photoshop. There is tutorial at http://www.idigitalemotion.com/tutorials/guest/custombrush/custombrush.html

By the way, that isn't my head in the template. I got it from stock.xchng.

Make your own mood icons

Creat a 30px by 30px canvas with a black background in Photoshop. Use the text tool at 24pt to create icons using fonts like Webdings or Wingdings.

Links

Change the links in the sidebar by going to Content: Links. For Feed, I suggest using the Feedburner service.