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Full width / size forum

AL Aldrin
Aldrin
Member

Ok, I’m pretty low-tech and this doesn’t seem to have been posted around here before. I just installed WP on server and simple:press, all successful. However one thing that has been frustrating the last couple hours which I can’t figure out is how to change is the width/size of the forum to actually give the “full size” experience, instead I have some half-tiny forum in the middle of the page :/ check www.valorforum.com to see what I mean. Please do explain in very simple English thankslaugh

Thanks for all help I can get and sorry if this is a sort of ABC question rolleys

17 Answers

New Answer

BR Brandon
Brandon
Member

The forum fits into the size of the container that is set for your page(s) in your WordPress theme.

I assume the forum you are talking about is http://www.valorforum.com/forum/ and not http://www.valorforum.com/
If there is a setting for width in your WordPress theme I would take a look at that. If not you may to change manually or try another WordPress theme.

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

well sadly you are using wp twentyeleven theme… the wp core and theme devs dont believe that a full page template means all the width should be used… they believe keep the same width as with sidebar but center the content… and waste all that real estate with empty space… 

I think they are wrong, but they have promptly rejected any tickets I wrote against wp on how twenty ten and twenty eleven handle full width templates…

you will either need to edit the theme or make a child theme of twenty eleven to fix that ugly behaviour in the wp theme… the offending CSS in the theme stylesheet is:

.singular .entry-header, .singular .entry-content, .singular footer.entry-meta, .singular #comments-title {

where the width is set to 68.9%

you could also make your own page template for the forum and create your own css for modifying… 

I would go the child theme route so you can get twenty eleven updates…  it only 2 lines in the child theme css file…

AL Aldrin
Aldrin
Member

Brandon C said
The forum fits into the size of the container that is set for your page(s) in your WordPress theme.

I assume the forum you are talking about is http://www.valorforum.com/forum/ and not http://www.valorforum.com/
If there is a setting for width in your WordPress theme I would take a look at that. If not you may to change manually or try another WordPress theme.

Yes sorry, thanks for updating it for me 🙂

Mr Papa said
well sadly you are using wp twentyeleven theme… the wp core and theme devs dont believe that a full page template means all the width should be used… they believe keep the same width as with sidebar but center the content… and waste all that real estate with empty space… 

I think they are wrong, but they have promptly rejected any tickets I wrote against wp on how twenty ten and twenty eleven handle full width templates…

you will either need to edit the theme or make a child theme of twenty eleven to fix that ugly behaviour in the wp theme… the offending CSS in the theme stylesheet is:

.singular .entry-header, .singular .entry-content, .singular footer.entry-meta, .singular #comments-title {

where the width is set to 68.9%

you could also make your own page template for the forum and create your own css for modifying… 

I would go the child theme route so you can get twenty eleven updates…  it only 2 lines in the child theme css file…

Thanks! it’s much better now, however you got me into more questions now laugh

1. The width is now 100%, however I still have a couple of empty cm on widht and on the top towards slideshow, I’d like to max it and leave no white space 🙂

2. Now when editing the stylesheet.. if I update the theme I would have to make the change again right? (just asking to make sure if I need to save the changes somewhere in case there comes an update) rolleys

And thanks both of you for so quick replies! laugh

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

yes, if you update the theme, you will have to make the changes again… that is why I suggested a child theme… then you would not have to make the changes again… its quite easy in this case to make a child theme… only the css changes you make need to be in single file…  see: http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes

firefox and firebug are great for css work such as this… you can inspect any element and see the driving css and make changes to test out what you want…

in this case:

.singular #content, .left-sidebar.singular #content {
    margin: 0 7.6%;
    position: relative;
    width: auto;
}

is driving the margins on the side… and

.singular.page .hentry {
    padding: 3.5em 0 0;
}
.entry-content, .entry-summary {
    padding: 1.625em 0 0;
}

is driving the white space at top… 

Those WP devs just love all the wasted space…

AL Aldrin
Aldrin
Member

Wow, you are awesome Mr Papa! Thanks! Now I’m going to firebug the last spacing on top 🙂

However I failed with child theme, followed steps but it doesnt appear in my “themes” section. Should I create a new thread for this?
I made new directory called twentyelevenchild and the folder only contains style.css with the example as in the instructions, but the theme doesn’t appear in WP

Thanks

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

np. glad to help.

did your css file in child theme have the import statement for the parent css as the wp example shows?  must of course have the path to the parent correct…

AL Aldrin
Aldrin
Member

Yes, in my case I suppose it’s: 
@import url(“valorforum.com/forum/wp-content/themes/twentyeleven/style.css”);
?

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

no, like the example in the wp codex, you just want:

@import url("../twentyeleven/style.css");
AL Aldrin
Aldrin
Member

I had that at first but it didn’t work so changed, but I changed back now again and still I can’t see the child theme in admin :/

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member

I am no expert in this aspect of WP but I am willing to look into it for you.

What is the full header you have created in your child stylesheet?

AL Aldrin
Aldrin
Member

Hi 

Full header, how do you mean?

I’ve created a ‘style.css’ file and put it in a theme folder called ‘twentyelvenchild’

in the new ‘style.css’ there is this text (except for some other comments like theme name, template etc. at top):

/* importing from twentyeleven original */

@import url(“../twentyeleven/style.css”);

/* just for test that this is working */

#site-title a { color: #009900; }

Thanks

YS Yellow Swordfish
Yellow Swordfish
Member

‘except for some other comments like theme name, template etc. at top’

Sorry – that was the bit I meant. The information at the top (head).

MP Mr Papa
Mr Papa
Member

yes, please show us your header info at the top of the stylesheet…  it has to have some specific info like identifying it as child theme…  something like

/*
Theme Name:     Twenty Eleven Child
Theme URI:      http://example.com/
Description:    Child theme for the Twenty Eleven theme
Author:         Your name here
Author URI:     http://example.com/about/
Template:       twentyeleven
Version:        0.1.0
*/

where Template: identifies the parent theme…

AL Aldrin
Aldrin
Member

haha obviously I do the opposite of what you meant 🙂 here is the whole top part:

 

/*
Theme Name: Twenty Eleven Child Theme
Theme URI: http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/twentyeleven
Author: Aldrin
Author URI: http://wordpress.org/
Description: Child theme for the Twenty Eleven theme Template: twentyeleven
Version: 1.0
*/

/* =Reset default browser CSS. Based on work by Eric Meyer: http://meyerweb.com/eric/tools/css/reset/index.html
————————————————————– */