The Joy of Customization: Streamline
The first of the newly rebranded Studio Press designs that I played with was Streamline. It turned out to be the dream theme I knew was possible but hadn’t ever found until it was released.
For a little over two years, I had been keeping an eye out for a new blog-style theme to implement on the Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas website. I’d always seen things that came close, but nothing ever struck me as being perfect or near-perfect for what I wanted to do, that matched the vague idea I had in mind for the site’s new look… until Streamline came out.
The front page article listing was exactly what I wanted to use for normal paging throughout the site, and the use of the larger icons with the article listings was the perfect match I’d been looking for.
I had to make a few modifications to get the front page layout style to act as the default article listing throughout the site, but the end result was exactly what I had in mind. Slight modifications to the banner were needed to make it fit the new theme sizing, but those were easily implemented by the graphics guru who’d done the original banner.
This one was one of the fastest and easiest customizations I’ve done, and the result was well worth the wait. But there was one odd drawback that I haven’t resolved yet… my favorite contact form stopped working.
I love WordPress-Ready Contact Form, from the Beast-Blog guys; I’ve used it on at least 10 different websites, and that’s in addition to at least another 10 non-WP sites that use the both the v2 and v3 standalone version of the form. But after I customized this Streamline install, the contact form ceased to work, and even more disturbing was that the Configuration admin page for the form stopped loading.
So for the time being I’ve switched to Contact Form 7, until I get the time to sit down and figure that particular failure out… or post something on the Studio Press support forums and ask for a set of fresh eyes to spot what might be the cause of this conflict, because I haven’t tracked it down yet.
Site: Kick-Ass Mystic Ninjas
Theme: Streamline
