K2 Lite
As below, I must stress that this is NOT my work. I simply took an abandoned project and updated it.
K2 Lite is like Sandbox K2 below, except that K2Lite is just the CSS file and requires Sandbox to work. It has no modifications to the Sandbox core files included.
The original, by Trevor. Apparently abandoned when Sandbox reached 0.6.1. He’s also got a note there that anyone who wants to update it is free to.
DOWNLOAD the new version (1.4), compatible with Sandbox versions 1.2 and up (currently at 1.6).
License: GNU GPL.
K2 for Sandbox
This is NOT my theme, originally. I want that out there. Here’s how the story goes:
- Michael Heliemann made the theme K2 for Wordpress. For those who don’t know, Michael is also the person who designed the current default Wordpress theme.
- Scott Wallick makes a “sandbox” theme. This is a theme for themers, a very barebones thing that one is supposed to spruce up simply using CSS. There are several great examples of that.
- Safirul Alredha made a clone of K2, based on Sandbox (version 0.9).
- Sandbox updates to version 1.0, to be compatible with Wordpress 2.3.
- I start looking for a K2 replacement, as I have trouble with a couple of things with the new K2 theme (and frankly, I don’t use a lot of the features the theme has as extras — it’s a very nice theme, but it’s just too much for me… and it’s too complex to troubleshoot. But anyway.). I find this K2 lookalike for Sandbox, and I like Sandbox… but this theme doesn’t work!
- I set out to figure out why… and lo and behold I got it to work!
The Advantages
- It’s small
- The theme has a great base to work with
- The base theme does not have any extra javascripts
- It doesn’t try to be all web 2.0 on you with ajax comments, a slider bar to access archives, and a nicey-nice ajax search
The disadvantages
- It doesn’t try to be all web 2.0 on you with ajax comments, a slider bar to access archives, and a nicey-nice ajax search
- While this theme started great, and Zeo’s an awesome coder, I’m a barely literate and semi-inebriated monkey and I shouldn’t be messing with code.
The Mechanics
The CSS is based as closely as possible on Zeo’s Beta 1 of this theme; there are 3 changes clearly marked in the style.css file.
The other files are as closely based on Sandbox 1.2 as possible:
- functions.php — ported the K2 menu bar function over from Beta 1 of Sandbox-K2.
- archives.php — added tag archives. By default, 50 tags are shown; this differs from current K2 (RC3) which only shows the top 25 tags.
- header.php — moved <?php sandbox_globalnav() ?> from line 28 to line 23. One of my first experiments with it, and probably unnecessary, but I did it and it worked.
The License
This theme is licensed under the GNU General Public License, AKA the GPL.
The support
If you need support from me, we are both truly screwed. However, the email address is yarbroughs at gmail dot com.
The most important thing
Get the theme here - Beta 3, released 1/5/08 (48KB .zip file).
