I’ve written about child themes and Thesis and WPMU and Thesis before, but as can happen with time and work both Thesis and WordPress have evolved. So I think both of these issues need to be readdressed.

WordPress networks and Thesis

A WP network is the new name for WPMU since it was included with the WordPress core in WP version 3. It allows you to create multiple sites/blogs with the one WordPress install.

Thesis uses a custom folder to isolate your own CSS and PHP customisations to the theme, and it also writes the CSS from the design options to this folder (to layout.css). Prior to Thesis 1.8.3 to use Thesis with a WP network and keep the customisations for each site separate you needed to use a new Thesis folder for each site in the network (which makes updates very tedious), or modify Thesis core files to use different custom folders for each site (also not amazing for updates), or use a child theme for each site.

The child theme thing was fine with me, but now when Thesis is activated on a site in a network it gives it its own custom folder with the site’s ID. That is pretty cool, particularly since you don’t have to worry about it, and you don’t have to worry about sites changing each other’s CSS: the folders are automatically created and uniquely identified, so there’s no accidental cross-over.

An extra cool thing about this new system is that you can also use “master custom controls” on a network, so you can have PHP customisations that affect all the sites on a network by putting them in the “custom” folder of a network. That is, if you have a folder called custom in your Thesis directory, while all your sites have their own custom-ID folders, the PHP in custom/custom_functions.php will be applied to all the sites running Thesis.

Thesis and child themes

There are some other changes in Thesis, which benefit child themes and make them easier to implement.

Thesis now combines style.css and layout.css into one file (style.css gets written into layout.css and isn’t called separately). That’s great because it cuts down on the number of HTTP requests made when your site loads (always a good thing!), and it also means that the Thesis styles are always going to be loaded before your child theme style.css and custom.css (which didn’t always happen and occasionally led to oddities in CSS specificity). Also, we don’t need to call Thesis’ style.css in any way with our child theme, both it and custom.css are added to the site’s head by Thesis. That is nice: we only need to worry about adding extra stylesheets.

So, to create a child theme for Thesis all we need to do is create a new theme directory containing:

• style.css containing something like this (adapted from codex.wordpress.org)

  /*
  Theme Name:     Thesis Child
  Theme URI:      http://example.com/
  Description:    Child theme for the Thesis theme
  Author:         Your name here
  Author URI:     http://example.com/about/
  Template:       thesis
  Version:        0.1.0
  */

• functions.php, which is optional in many cases, but if you want to use the Thesis Custom Loop, or add your child’s stylesheet to the head you will probably need this file and a contents of

  <?php
  
  if(!is_admin()) {
  	include_once(TEMPLATEPATH . '/functions.php');
  	wp_enqueue_style( 'thesischild', get_stylesheet_directory_uri() . '/style.css', '', false, 'screen,projection' );
  }

• your custom folder

That’s all you need to make a basic Thesis child theme.

As with the regular Thesis custom folder, you will need to make sure that your childtheme/custom/layout.css and childtheme/custom/cache directory have permissions of 666 and 775, respectively.

You might be wondering why, with the nifty multi-directory features I mentioned above, would anyone bother with a Thesis child theme. Well, I can think of two strong reasons! One is extra page templates: it’s a lot easier to manage updates on a site with extra page templates when they’re in a child theme folder. The other reason is when you’re using a mobile theme switcher, or something similar; if you want to make significant changes to the layout of your site for mobile devices a good way to do that is with a mobile child theme.

Child themes on Networks

I discovered a little quirk in the way child themes work with Thesis 1.8.4 networks: Thesis checks the child theme directory for a custom folder and if it doesn’t find one it decides that the site specific custom folder should be created in the parent Thesis directory. So, until further notice you should just keep a folder called “custom” in your child theme directory, whether it contains custom files or not. Thesis will then proceed to create a custom-ID directory for your site specific customisations in the child theme. It’s important to pass that initial check because that will determine the location of the stylesheets that get included in the head of the site, as well as where to write the design options CSS, and which files get edited by the custom editor. I think keeping an extra custom folder in the child theme is the best way to do that, for now.

Since joining the local library and Pinterest I have had the urge to try all kind of different crafts. Some have been a success, others not so much, others were okay, but need a bit of practice. I think this venture falls into the latter category.

I used Das air-drying clay to make some pendants. I found some random items around the house for rolling, cutting and creating textures. I found a nifty little set of pokers (no idea what they’re really called, but they poke holes in things) at the hardware store, and I already had some acrylic paint and unused clear nail polish as varnish.

Most of the pendants I painted with a base colour (silver, blue or pink) and when that was dry I painted over with a darker, watered-down colour, which I wiped off with a damp cloth to give the patterns more definition.

I wasn’t thrilled with the results, but the general idea has promise. Some lessons learned:

• Make an effort to roll the clay evenly and cut the edges cleanly.
  My pendants were of varying thicknesses, which isn’t a bid deal unless you want to use them in the same project. I also found some cheap cookie cutters, which I’ll use next time; they should give a bit of a cleaner cut than the piping bag tip I used the first time.
• Make the threading holes bigger, or thread jump rings before they dry because some of the holes just aren’t big enough for jump rings and one of the pendants got a bit smushed around the hole where I tried to put one in.
  The pendants are hard enough, but not very sturdy, so they don’t take a lot of forcing when it comes to threading them.
• I used cheap clear nail polish to varnish them, partly because it’s what I had on hand, and partly because I couldn’t find anything else that seemed suitable. I didn’t like the nail polish much; it is stinky (even a bit after drying), and seems slightly tacky after drying too. I found some hard-drying Mod Podge, which I’ll try next time.
• Try a variety of patterns and don’t be too sad if some don’t work out. I was surprised how much I liked the rain cloud stamp, and how some others (like the key) didn’t work out as well as I’d thought they would.

I’ve made a Tumblr blog to post photos of my craft creations, so feel free to follow that if you’re interested.

This is a truly underrated app! Okay, maybe not literally since it has an average of 4.5/5 stars on the app store and most reviews are 5 stars. However it seems like no one in the tech podcasts that I listen to ever mention it, but they mention Snapseed often… Snapseed is cute, but I think Photogene² is far superior!

Why is Photogene² so awesome?

Well! These are the features that I use pretty much daily:

• Sharpen (has a default value that is usually pretty good)
• Levels (has an auto button that works well for most photos)
• Curves
• Crop
• Straighten (I don’t really use this daily, but it’s pretty handy sometimes)
• Export (to so many places! Including the camera roll, Facebook, Dropbox, and the ones I haven’t used yet Twitter, Flickr, FTP, Picasa, Tumblr, Evernote, and some other options too, including selecting multiple images and exporting in batch to those services!)

These features are also very cool:

• Information view — you can view the EXIF and edit the IPTC data for the image!
• Collage
• Vignette
• Blur/centre focus
• Vintage filters/presets
• Black & White filters/presets
• Red eye retouching (and several other retouching tools)
• Frames
• Text boxes and bubbles

And there’s also the new “clarity” adjustment, which I haven’t used much yet, and you can now save your own presets too.

There’s other filters that I enjoy in other apps (Diana and Country in Path are cool), but for most tasks Photogene² is all I need. Easily worth 99c!

I have an old belt that was very worn around the holes and seemed to be on the verge of tearing. I was going to throw it out, but it seemed such a shame to waste the rest of it, which is quite nice. I realised I could make wrist cuffs out of it!

I found a tutorial at The Project Spot, which gave me the idea for the snap fasteners and reassured me that they weren’t too difficult to use. It took me a while to find the snaps at the shops: there’s a dearth of craft shops around here, but I found some good ones at a fabric shop and away I went!

Here’s the result!

The belt has a nice pattern on it that you can’t see in the photo from my iPhone, but it’s there. As you can see, I added some rivets to the second one, for a bit more flare.

Tomorrow holds a lunch for my husband’s grandmother’s birthday and we’re on pasta salad. I thought it would be a good chance to try making pesto again. Last time I made pesto it was okay — it dried out a bit — but I barely remember that recipe, except that it used low fat ricotta for creaminess and moisture, without the fat content that the usual oils provide.

I threw together this concoction this afternoon and hoped for the best! I haven’t put the pasta salad together yet, but the pesto tastes good!

Ingredients

• 1 bunch basil (mine was approx. 3 cups of medium packed leaves)
• 0.5 cup low fat ricotta
• 2 tbs almonds (I used sliced because I had them in the cupboard, but I don’t think it matters — blanched or roasted would give different flavours)
• 1.5 tbs apple sauce (no added sugar)
• 1 dash each salt, pepper & garlic salt
• 2 dashes cayenne pepper

Method

Combine all ingredients in a food processor and blend until smooth. That’s it! Although, I did have to process the basil before adding the other ingredients so that it would all fit in my little processor. Also, I added just one dash of cayenne pepper at first, but I found the pesto was still a bit sweet from the apple sauce, so I added another dash.

You could also add some parmesan cheese (1 tbs would probably be about right). I intended to add parmesan, but I forgot to use it until after I’d already put my pesto in a jar. You could exchange some of the cayenne pepper for parmesan, which should counteract some of the sweetness of the apple sauce (which is in there as a low fat alternative to oil and helps keep the pesto moist).

If you try this recipe or some variation of it, or if you have a favourite low fat pesto recipe, let me know in the comments!

I have a $3 notebook from Office Works that is great! It has heavy, creamy pages, an elastic band to keep the cover closed and a pen holder that fits my fountain pen nicely. Then I have a 2012 diary that is almost great: it has a beautiful cover, lovely pages and typography, but no pen holder… I didn’t realise how much I valued a pen holder on my notebooks and diaries until I had an excellent one on my notebook and none on my diary.

So, I cut the elastic off a 2011 diary that I barely used and used a craft brad and a little glue to secure it to my 2012 diary. Problem solved!

Thanks to Twitter I caught wind of Fitarella’s 12 in 12. Not only does Jacqueline have a cool screen name, she also has a great idea for this year!

The rules for 12 in 12 are that you do something every day for each month of 2012, at the end of each month you decide whether to continue with what you have been doing and choose a new thing to do every day for the next month. The “thing” can be pretty much anything: exercise, giving up a food or activity, trying a new food or activity.

12 in 12 is a great opportunity to try new things, build new habits, practice activities that you haven’t made time to practice in the past. I like the idea because it’s a measurable goal, it’s good for developing discipline, and you can make it as easy or difficult on yourself as you like.

For January I am doing 3 sets of abdominal crunches when I get up each morning. I haven’t decided on any challenges for future months, but I have got a list of ideas. You’re welcome to draw from this list if you want to take up the challenge too!

• pushups
• squats
• lunges
• walk up & down stairs
• no coffee
• no chocolate
• dark chocolate instead of milk
• eat at least 3 greens
• cook a new recipe
• wake up earlier
• don’t take a daytime nap
• read at least 1 Christian (or topic of your choice) article
• play guitar
• play flute
• learn to play piano
• write a blog post
• write a letter

What new thing are you hoping to do this year?

I hate new year resolutions!

At least I have for quite a long time. I think they’re cliché, they’re too often setting yourself up for failure — people don’t realise that change and improvement usually don’t happen in a linear fashion — and if you really want to make a change, or want to achieve something, just do it! You don’t have to wait for new year to better yourself or achieve goals.

That said, this last week or so has been pretty chilled for me, and a good opportunity to think, review and plan. It is actually a nice chance to think about what to work on and how to approach it. One of the things I hate about new year resolutions is the lack of follow through: people say they want something to happen, but do nothing to make it happen. And it’s a failing of my own as well: too often I think about doing something, but don’t do it. So, the how to approach it stage is a grand step towards actually taking action.

Some tips for successful change

• Don’t just think, do
• Change usually doesn’t happen overnight, nor is it consistent — there will be ups and downs
• If you fall off the wagon, you haven’t failed (or if you have, your goal might have been too ambitious), just get back on at the first available opportunity

What changes do I want to make?

Well, unfortunately, due to a lack of exercise and possibly too much take away food, I’ve put back on a fair bit of the weight I lost. I’m super keen to lose that and keep it off. One of the methods to achieve this is to practice my karate kata at home every weekday, or close to it. I’ll need more exercise than that, but it’s a start.

I want to make more Thesis skins and plugins. It was my hope to do that last year, and while I made a couple of free plugins and one paid child theme, I want to do more.

I want to make a series of video tutorials about making websites (I think the series will be called Websites Back to Front). These will involve using FTP, HTML, CSS, WordPress and Thesis. I believe there are good videos and tutorials out there, but I think I’m in a good position to reach some keen beans that those other tutorials haven’t reached yet.

There is much more I want to do, but I don’t want to set myself up for failure by listing too many of them here (and I don’t mind if some of them happen in years to come).

Happy new year everyone!

Good luck, or if you believe in him, happy God’s providence to you.

My copy All Mankind’s new album Simple Desire came in the post a couple of weeks ago. I love it more and more every time I listen to it!

I love the energy of Can You Hear Me? and Break the Spell, and I really enjoyed the peaceful vibe of Lay Me Down while I was driving this morning.

You can:

• Listen to Simple Desire
• Buy a signed copy
• Buy it on iTunes
• Check out their music videos on YouTube

I haven’t used ad-blockers for a very long time… partly because I haven’t used Firefox (regularly) for a long time, and I’ve been slow to adopt Chrome plugins. Also, I’m a little conflicted about denying site-owners potential income by blocking their ads. So, I’m not an expert on ad-blocking by any means, but I ran into an interesting issue with a client this week that I thought deserved sharing.

My client had chosen to use thumbnails in the Thesis teasers that were 300×250 pixels. Personally I prefer something slightly more “widescreen”, like 300x200px, but it is a food blog, so I think they’d like to show as much of the dishes as they can. We had just finished implementing the design on the website — I had written a little script that grabs the first image uploaded to the post and displays the thumbnail version of that image, if there is no Thesis Thumbnail designated for the post — and the client told me that Adblock Plus was blocking the thumbnails.

Since I don’t use ad-blockers and haven’t used this specific image size much, I’d never encountered this issue, but with the help of Perishable Press and my client we figured it out! The images have -300x250 at the end of their URL (WordPress adds the dimensions to all images it generates), and Adblock Plus was blocking images with -300x250 in their file name. 300×250 is one of the standard ad sizes… So assuming that Adblock Plus only blocks the standard ad sizes, the way to fix this issue in WordPress is to change your image size to something slightly different to 300×250, even if it is just by one or two pixels.

If you need to change all the thumbnails on your site Regenerate Thumbnails is a very effective plugin for regenerating the images after you change the size settings.