From the very outset, I was making the Constructor theme for those who want to create a unique blog design quickly and effortlessly. Judging by these statistics, the theme has found its users, and here's a brief review of its features.

Themes

The Constructor theme supports its own themes (by default, there are five themes in the archive):


Besides, a few more themes have been added:




There's a so-called «example» theme too, with a PSD file for making your own theme easily. (The PSD file is ready-made, just add some clipart and save it for the Web.)

By the way, what's a theme made of? Well, we've got only three files and some pictures:

1. style.css – cascading style sheets
2. config.php – system configuration
3. screenshot.png – theme screenshot, 300 x 255 px

You can leave the style.css file empty; just remember to add a header (same as for any other WordPress theme):

/*
Theme Name: MY THEME
Theme URI: http://MY.THEME.COM/
Description: MY THEME DESCRIPTION
Version: 0.0.1
Author: MY NAME
Author URI: http://MY.SITE.COM/
*/

The config.php file contains all the settings for the theme, which you can also modify via the admin panel:

<?php
return array(
            "sidebar"   => 'right',          // sidebar location
            'layout'    =>  array(           // layout settings
         	             'header'  => 140,   // header height
                        'width'   => 1024,   // container width
                        'sidebar' => 240,    // sidebar width
                        'extra'   => 240,    // additional sidebar width
                        'home'    => 'default', // layout of the main page default/list/tile
                        'archive' => 'default', // ... for archives
                        'search'  => 'default', // ... for search
                        'index'   => 'default',  // ... for the rest
                                 ),
            "title"     => array(           // website title
                        "pos" => 'left'     // - position
                        ),
            "content"   => array(        // content
                        "author" => 0,   // - show the link to the author's webpage
                        'thumb' =>  array ('auto'   => false), // - autogenerate picture thumbs
                        'list'  =>  array (                    // settings for the "list" layout
                                           'filter' => false,  // - remove HTML tags
                                           'thumb'  => array ( 'pos' => 'left', 'noimage' => false, ), // - thumb location; otherwise, visibility of the No Image picture
                                          ),
                        ),
            "footer"    => array(          //  footer text
                        "text" => null,
                        ),
            "fonts"     => array(          // fonts (sequential number)
                        'header' => 0,     // - for the header
                        'body'   => 0,     // - for the content
                        ),
            "menu"     => array(          // header menu settings
                        "flag" => 1,      // - enable/disable
                        "home" => false,  // - link to the main page
                        "rss"  => false,  // - link to the RSS feed
                        "search" => true, // - search form
                        "pages"      => array('depth'=>1), // - visibility of pages
                        "categories" => array('depth'=>1, 'group'=>1) // - visibility of categories
                        ),
            "slideshow" => array(        // Slideshow settings
                        "flag" => 0,         // - enable/disable
                        "layout" => 'in',    // - inside the content container or above it
                        "showposts" => 10,   // - number of slides shown
                        "metakey" => 'thumb-slideshow', // - name for the additional field of the post
                        "id" => null,        // - slideshow ID for the NextGen Gallery plugin
                        "height" => 200,     // - height, px
                        "onpage" => false,   // - slideshow on the pages on/off
                        "onsingle" => false  // - slideshow in the posts on/off
                        ),
            "images"   => array(             // background picture settings
                        "body" => array('src'=>'', 'pos'=>'left top', 'repeat'=>'repeat', 'fixed'=>false),
                        "wrap" => array('src'=>'themes/default/header.png', 'pos'=>'center top', 'repeat'=>'no-repeat', 'fixed'=>false),
                        "wrapper"  => array('src'=>'', 'pos'=>'left top', 'repeat'=>'no-repeat'),
                        "sidebar"  => array('src'=>'', 'pos'=>'right bottom', 'repeat'=>'no-repeat'),
                        "extrabar" => array('src'=>'', 'pos'=>'right bottom', 'repeat'=>'no-repeat'),
                        "footer"   => array('src'=>'themes/default/footer.png', 'pos'=>'right bottom', 'repeat'=>'no-repeat'),
                        ),
            "opacity"   => 'light',     // transparence
            "shadow"    => true,        // shadow
            "color"     => array(       // colors
                        "bg"      => '#fff',
                        "bg2"     => '#fff5c5',
                        "opacity" => '#fff',
                        "title"   => '#333',
                        "title2"  => '#555',
                        "text"    => '#333',
                        "text2"   => '#aaa',
                        "border"  => '#aaa',
                        "border2" => '#999',

                        "header1"   => '#ff6600',
                        "header2"   => '#ff7711',
                        "header3"   => '#ff9933',
                        )
            );

Please don't be shy — just tune the theme up and export it, and the system will create the file for you.

Layout

There are six options of sidebar placement, and now you also can modify the main container's and sidebar's widths separately:

Site header

You can add a drop-down menu to the site header and modify its content (now you can also use widgets), while header location and color are modified separately from the menu:

Site footer

As for the footer, at the time being, you can only modify its text:

Colors

There are several global colors that you can modify, that's for the fonts, background, borders, etc.; you can make objects transparent too:

Fonts

As for the fonts, there are not that many options available but you can use the presets for headers and content:

CSS

If you're an advanced user, you can edit the theme's CSS (just make sure that you set the appropriate access rights):

You can find answers to many questions on the FAQ page.

Images

This option is mostly intended for keen users and makes it possible to set background images for page elements, specify their placement and select repeat options:

Slideshow

If you are using the NextGen Gallery plugin, you can add a slideshow to the website's main page easily; the newer versions also let you make a slideshow from the images specified in the posts' additional fields (thumb slideshow is used by default):

Page templates

While WordPress lets you choose from a number of page templates, the Constructor theme adds five more:

• Archive: template-archive.png
• Authors: template-authors.png
• One column (with sidebars turned off)
• For pages with child pages: template-parent.png
• Site map: template-sitemap.png

One more additional template:

• Author's personal page: template-author.png

Multiple languages

Thanks to the theme's rising popularity, a few languages have been added:

• English (by default)
• Russian
• Ukrainian (thanks to Baziak)
• Polish (thanks to mummle)
• Danish (thanks to Georg S. Adamsen)
• Italian (thanks to gio gio)
• French (thanks to Nicolas Loeuillet)

A German localization is expected soon. Alas, not all localized versions are up to date.

Future plans

• To add widgets customized for the theme
• As far as possible, to keep updating localization files
• To add cache for css.php
• To add the option of exporting the whole theme in one Zip file
• To create a video presentation of the theme

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