[michelled]

Thanks. Will check out the link.

[michelled]

Yes, thank you, this worked. Though it begs the next question: if customization can easily be done this way, is there a point to building a child theme? Is it better, with regards to updates and such, to customize only within the main site itself rather than build a child theme?

[michelled]

Hi Tikram,

I followed the instructions in the WP blog but now I have a new issue: anything specified as code becomes grey text on a black background.

In the Clean Box stylesheet, Style.css, there is this:

code,
kbd,
tt,
var {
	font: 15px Monaco, Consolas, "Andale Mono", "DejaVu Sans Mono", monospace;}

Changing it to:

code,
kbd,
tt,
var {
	font: 15px Courier, monospace;}

in my child theme gives me the font I want, but the black box and grey text remain.

In another file, editor-style.css, there is this:

code {
	background-color:#333;
	color:#ddd;}

This appears to be the culprit, but deleting it or changing its values does nothing.

Any ideas?

[michelled]

Thank you for this. I didn’t realise it’s a WP problem.

[michelled]

Hi Tikaram,

Thank you but that option creates a new problem: using the Preformatted option places the text in a grey text box with a slider if necessary. This negates the ability, for example, to display code within the context of a regular paragraph. For example:

No Dual Value
One cannot add both a width=”100%” and a height=”100%” attribute to the img tag because images are then stretched both ways if necessary to fit the screen. (see http://mademers.com/image-handling-in-epubs-reaches-new-level-of-inanity/).

Is there no way to fix the issue of not being able to insert a symbol for the straight quotation mark? That strikes me as the simplest solution.

Regards,
Michelle

[michelled]

This happens while posting: as one types a post, if you use the quotation mark key (single or double) the character appears in the post as a straight quote, but in the post itself it appears as a curly quote. As I said earlier, this is fine for most situations but a problem when trying to explain code.

It started back in April 2015 after an upgrade to WP. Here is one of the original posts right after the problem started: http://mademers.com/image-handling-in-epubs-reaches-new-level-of-inanity/

It wasn’t a big deal at first and I let it go, but now I need to fix it. And that is how, yesterday, I discovered the straight quote key in the symbols option is malfunctioning. It appears to work (that is, it appears and you can click on it) but no character is added to the post.

Screenshots: http://mademers.com/wp-content/uploads/quotes-compose.jpg, http://mademers.com/wp-content/uploads/quotes-appear.jpg, http://mademers.com/wp-content/uploads/quotation-mark.jpg.

[michelled]

Hi Pratik,

I will still consider the pro version as I like the idea of different sidebar widgets on different pages.

Thank you again for your time in addressing my questions and concerns.

[michelled]

Pratik: to add to my previous post: in Clean Box Pro, would I be able to replicate what I have done on my home page (new.mademers.com) with regards to the latest blog entry?

[michelled]

Hi Pratik,

So far what works is to change the content.php and use the custom code you suggested. The second option — to return to the default content.php and alter the CSS as suggested — did not work because it also affected the blog post itself.

I have a question about the pro version, though: on the theme’s page, it says that there is the option for “Optional Homepage Sidebar”. Does this mean I could have sidebars for my homepage that are different from my blog page? For example, I would like the categories and tag widgets to show only on my blog page, not my homepage, I want my social icons on all pages, and I want my “latest blog post” widget to only show on my home page. Is this possible?

Also, since there are additional options for featured content, would I be able to have one box with my latest blog post BUT keep the first three boxes linked to pages as I have now? (new.mademers.com)

[michelled]

Hi Pratik,

I hear what you say, and I appreciate this support. What I am trying to say is that changing to the pro version at this stage may mess up all the work I’ve done with my child theme, and unfortunately when I first looked at buying the pro version, what I found made me hesitate to buy. To explain:

Your website is way better than most WP developers’ sites. BUT the first point of contact for the user is not your website, it is WordPress. Think like a typical new user: I go to WordPress. I find your theme. I don’t necessarily see the link to your support page in the theme description because the link is not hyperlinked, and one quickly stops reading theme descriptions when one has been looking through soooooooo many themes to find the one you need.

Instead, what the typical user does is clicks on Preview. The preview tells the user little, so then they click on Theme Homepage and then click on Preview there. At this stage I’m not wasting time reading about the theme; I just need to see if it looks even remotely like what I need.

Visually, it sort of looks like what I need, but I cannot be sure because the theme demo is scant at best and the explanations equally so. For example, there is no explanation that the Featured Content can be linked to either a page or post; that the Promotional Headline can be displayed or not; that the text content under the Featured Content images is optional; or whether the sidebars are optional or fixed on the front page. So I’m still unsure.

So I click on Theme Instructions. That gives me a better idea, but it’s all text and therefore hypothetical to me, the user: there are no screenshots to show me how the different options work. More importantly for Catch Themes, you have lost the opportunity here to upsell me to Pro because the page for Clean-Box Free does not tell me what more I get if I buy the Pro version.

So then I go back to WordPress and check the reviews. They’re all 5 star, but there’s only five reviews, three are on the same day, and they’re all minimal in their information so they could be posted by friends or even yourselves.

So then I check the View Support Forum. I see two questions but none have been answered. And that creates a HUGE red flag. Why? Because WP is densely populated by developers who put up a theme or plugin, it doesn’t make much money, so the theme or plugin is abandoned. Or the developer puts up a free version of a theme or plugin that is nothing more than a bait-and-switch for the paid version. Or support is only offered for the paid version. Once the user has spent days or even weeks of buggering around with such themes and plugins, patience wears really thin. This is not the fault of Catch Themes, but is is your problem because this is the environment you are working in.

There are currently three questions on the Clean-Box support page — one of which was one I place over a month ago — yet none have been addressed by anyone at Catch Themes. You had an opportunity then to contact me and suggest I upgrade, and address these concerns I have about paid support, but you missed that opportunity because no one from Catch Themes pays attention to your own support page on WordPress. I had to answer a question for one user, and solve my own problem (you’ll see I later posted “Fixed” and marked it as resolved). This does not inspire confidence in the developer and turns off potential customers.

Consequently, I would highly recommend that you put up on the WordPress support page for your theme your own post that redirects the user to your website forums. This serves two functions: 1) it shows the potential user that there is active support for the theme; and 2) when the user runs into problems, their first stop is the WordPress site, not yours, even if they are using your theme. You need to bring the user to your site’s forums in an intuitive way. As it is, I only found this forum after failing to find a solution on WordPress and consequently looking deeper.

I also remember that when I first came to your site, I looked for what support options were available, and I recall that whatever button I clicked brought me not to your forums but to the paid support options. Don’t know if you changed something in the last few months; I just recall that I found that first and not the forum, which turned me off buying. I also could not find any return policy, which also put me off buying.

That all left me, the potential use, with only the option to install the free version of the theme and tinker about to see if it worked in any way for me. It sort of did, but there were things I wanted to change. So then I had to learn about child themes, which I did, and created one for Clean-Box; and I found plugins for the stuff the theme does not do, like my galleries. But now I’ve gone down that road, and I think it’s too late to start all over with the pro version.

I suspect Catch Themes have lost a lot of potential sales due to the above issues. And I suspect you have lost even more sales by not specifying a return policy: WordPress forums are densely populated by angry people who bought a theme or plugin that did not work, and the developer refused to give a refund and simply ignored emails from the unhappy customer.

And now I must get back to work. I can report that I did get the image to float left using your code (I had forgot the comma earlier — my bad); however, the code affected ALL containers where the post has a featured image: the container for the single blog post page entry was therefore also shrunk down to 488 pixels, which was not good.

In the end I left the content.php as I did and used the custom code you suggested. It works despite the HTML error and it works with the existing responsive design.

[michelled]

Hi Pratik,

I did as instructed: returned the content.php to its default, then added the code to the CSS.

Unfortunately it does not work because, I suspect, the content.php still has the image sitting above the entry container. All that happened was that the headline and content shrunk down to the smaller container size but the image remained above the content.

[michelled]

Hi Pratik,

I am using the free version, but when I searched your forums for Clean-Box only this one came up.

I did look at your website for information on the pro version but I could not find a refund policy posted should one discover that the theme doesn’t do what one needs. As someone who had to try several themes before I could find one that did most of what I wanted — I still had to create a child theme and to add more plugins — I was hesitant to buy. Perhaps you could consider offering a 30-day trial version?

Also, your support page suggests that support is not included in the purchase of a theme; support is extra and it’s expensive: $50.00 for just one month or $100 for one year. Since it doesn’t make sense to choose the first option, that means the cost of the theme is really $150.00, not $50.00. Add in the potential cost of the plugins because no theme seems to do everything one needs, and you can see how the user hesitates to buy. That you do offer this second support option could be better promoted.

Thank you for the help. I very much appreciate it. If I cannot get the float to work without breaking anything, then I will consider the Pro version. At this point I’ve gone so far down the road (over a month of working on it between regular work), I’m hesitant to change anything for fear of having to start all over again. 🙁

[michelled]

Hi Pratik,

The site address is: http://new.mademers.com/?page_id=101. It’s not live yet (I’m still building it). Also, I have left some of the larger (landscape) images as is in case I cannot fix this issue, but if you look at the first entry (“The charitable way to create a bestseller”), that image size and format (or maybe square 150 x 150 pixels — I’m still debating) is ideally what I will be using and want to flush left with the excerpt wrapping.

In the alternative, I would return the code to the theme’s default (image on top) and modify the code to have all the text (headline, metadata, and excerpt) wrapping.

Regards,
Michelle

[Author]

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