Recent and regular visitors to my site may have seen a series of changes on my site over the last two days. It includes stripping down the site of all theme, putting up the hybrid framework and setting a child theme.
(This is an old post from 2009. I have setup Hybrid on my blog recently, and you can check out this post on Hybrid theme, to know more about Hybrid and how to set it up on your blog. I am writing a series of posts on removing duplicate meta tags in Hybrid, showing advertisements below post titles, replace post with excerpt on homepage and show link ad under menu.)
It boasts of features like,
- Easy management of widgets with high customization of widget placement.
- Highly optimized SEO.
- A clean interface and structure.
- Open source development.
- Enhanced support for media files.
But the real trouble started when I started customizing and optimizing my theme for peak performance. This is how I got my theme working as it is now.
- Firstly, I was clueless about the existance of a child theme and sat down to write a CSS, spent a lot of time on that. Im N00b.
- Secondly there is no regular index.php, as in the index.hp has nothing inside it! So, I read through the theme files and got a hang of the structure of the theme.
- I saw a tabbed sidebar at pallab’s web2.o blog, it was worth the looks. So finally, once more after almost an year, I thought of using ajax on my blog, but my js libraries were not loading! To bypass that, I used a plugin php speedy to load all my js libraries.
- Even then the tabs were not show up, so I used the trial and error method to see that it does not work with the gzip compression of javascript and css.
- Ocasionally rushing up to the hybrid site is of no help, they do not offer any for free.
- But now, finally it is up and running as an eye-candy. I have always been on the lookout for a clean uncluttered theme and hybrid is just all that.
Hybrid is such a wonderful theme to use with wordpress 2.8, and it is open source but they have maintained such an amount of secrecy with the support forum, it is really annoying and makes it less of a favourite for those who are new to wordpress. But other than that, hybrid themes rock and I would advice you all to give it a try.
Visit the hybrid theme homepage at themehybrid .
Download hybrid theme at Hybrid download .
If you need any help in setting up the hybrid wordpress theme for your blog, contact me sign up at their support forum.
Chinmoy Kanjilal is the geek behind Techarraz. This is where he rants about his adventures with technology. Get to know him better, and connect with him on social networks.
Hybrid works best with wordpress 2.8.
Thanks for using the theme. I always like to read feedback on user’s experiences.
It is true that part of the site is closed off to non-members, but this is how the development of the open source themes and plugins supported at Theme Hybrid are kept up. Development time costs money.
Anyway, I’m glad you like the theme.
@Justin Tadlock, i liked your theme a lot and the best thing about the hybrid theme is it’s clean look and optimization.
I have been looking at Theme Hybrid too and was having problems just adding sidebars and footer widgets. Not very succesful. If you could share some of how you did yours here, that would be great as not everyone is in the position to pay for the support there.
Thanks.
Well, the sidebars are not specifically marked as sidebar. They are marked as areas in the hybrid theme. So, all you have to do is add widgets or custom codes to your desired area. The option for this can be found in Appearance->Widgets section. The left sidebar goes as primary and secondary sections and the part below the footer goes as subsidiary. Try it out once and you will get the hang of it.