Everybody knows that wordpress.com lacks a photoblogging theme. To be fair, there’s not a vast selection available for wordpress.org either. I think most photographers realise there are other tools out there which do the job better. Nonetheless, we now have 3GB available for image storage and some people may wish to use it. Enter PhotoWP for Sandbox, an uber-minimal theme which ensures all eyes are on your images:

download PhotoWP for Sandbox

Basically it emulates the appearance of Steven Campbell’s PhotoWP theme (link seems to be down at the moment), though obviously I can’t replicate the functionality.

To get the best out of this theme, try not to post anything wider than 600px (decent browsers will resize anything, of course, but I can’t speak for IE6) and display only one post per page (Options > Reading > Blog Posts).

You know the drill. Select ‘Sandbox-10′ under ‘Presentation’, head for ‘Custom CSS’, copy/paste the contents of photowp.txt in the textarea and make sure the ‘Start from scratch and just use this’ option is selected. Save, view, tweak as much as you like, feel free to pimp in the forums

Never before have I wished so intensely for multiple file upload:

download diurnal stylesheet for wordpress.com

Yeah, I know the screenshot has a different layout to the actual skin. Blame IE6. There are a couple of minor differences between this and the contest version (hover image for global tag links and nicer dropdown menus) but the dynamic goodness of this 5-in-one theme remains intact.

As far as I know, this is the only wp.com theme currently available with a dynamic header image which changes according to the time of day. Being unique is as simple as selecting Sandbox-10, choosing the ’start from scratch’ option on the Edit CSS page, and copy/pasting the contents of diurnal.txt. I’d use this myself, if it wasn’t for branding considerations.

08/12/2007 update: skin now supports comment avatars. Author avatars aren’t displayed as I don’t think they look good with the stars, however if you do want to show them it’s a one-line deletion. As always, it’s a good idea to edit your style in a text editor before installing it, since wp.com strips comments and you will lose my handy hints

To celebrate the availability of Sandbox 1.0, here is the wp.com edition of Picnic:

picnic.txt

Images are hosted for you, so all you need to do is copy and paste. I know it’s confusing to have two Sandboxes, but I’m tagging my styles with the theme they’re based on which will hopefully make things easier.

Now, on to Diurnal. (@import gets stripped, so this is going to be a freaking nightmare.)

Well, there’s still no news on the Sandbox upgrade so we’re going to have to press ahead regardless. This isn’t perfect (redundant arrows on the prev/next links) but it will do for now.

thebluebutterflylayout.txt

There’s a full-size preview here. If you want to use this on your wordpress.com blog, enable Sandbox and copy and paste the contents of the text file into the custom CSS box, selecting the ’start from scratch and just use this’ option. It’s a three-col layout disguised as a two-col one, so you’ll want widgets in both sidebars for the full effect.

I’m hoping this’ll be as successful as last year’s Style Contest, and that Automattic will be as generous with their support as Six Apart were with theirs. (Matt has already thrown in $500 prize money, which is a good start, but a little linkage wouldn’t hurt.) I’m not worried about the two-month deadline from a design point of view, but it may be a little short notice to get top-quality judges and sponsors in place. Judging and adminstrating these things is a lot of work.

Potentially, this could be a real boost to takeup of the custom CSS option on wordpress.com, which so far has been mostly limited to people already proficient in CSS and those who know enough to make minor tweaks to a theme they’re otherwise happy with. There’s no intrinsic reason why this should be so. After all, not everyone who installs a wordpress theme is familiar with XHTML and PHP.

The GPL requirement does limit what we can use to create our styles (no stock photography, icons, brushes etc.) and I don’t see the necessity for it since, as adam points out, not even the most rabid free beer fundamentalists can seriously argue that CSS for WP needs to be GPL. If I’m not allowed to touch PHP I can’t insert the required links anyway, though, so this is pretty much moot. Anyway, it’s more of a challenge having to make everything from scratch. Time to dig out the camera again.

This design is about two or three years old now, but I am very fond of it nonetheless. Hence, I have ported it to Sandbox. You can preview it on the test blog, at least until I get bored and put something else up there.

If you’re on wordpress.com, pick your preferred column layout from the Sandbox skins menu, ensure that ‘Add to existing CSS’ is selected and paste the contents of meadow.txt into the custom CSS editor. If you’re using Sandbox on a wordpress.org blog or wish to host the images yourself, download meadow.zip.

Quick, simple festive stylesheet for Sandboxers wishing to decorate their blogs. If you’re on wordpress.com, pick your preferred layout from the Sandbox skins menu and copy and paste baubles.txt into your custom CSS box. If you’re hosting your own sandbox installation or want to host your own images, the zip is here.

This is another original design (well, ok, it’s another variation on one I did for livejournal) that’s been sitting around for a while now waiting to be uploaded. You can see a full-size version on the test blog, at least until I start testing other stuff out :). WordPress.com custom css users, cut-and-paste biology.txt into your custom css box and you’re good to go. Got Sandbox installed on your own domain? You’ll be wanting the zip.

edited to add: I forgot to mention that this style is compatible with the existing Sandbox layouts, so rather than selecting ‘no style’ you need to pick the number of columns you want from under the ‘Sandbox Skins’ tab. Yes, you read right: you can pick the number of columns on this one. You paid $15 and I’m trying to ensure you get value for money

Of course there was the first paid upgrade, Custom CSS and the Sandbox theme. It was aimed at you more technical folks, since you have to be pretty savvy with CSS to do anything fun with it, but already over 350 blogs have added it.

This is not me cavilling at the lack of acknowledgement of the work that’s already been done in terms of bringing custom CSS to the non-coding masses (come on, I know I’m never going to get official recognition), this is me going ‘that fell kind of flat, didn’t it?’ I suspected they weren’t getting a lot of take-up when they had to introduce the free preview, but 0.1% is even lower than I thought.

I’m not complaining, because said free preview just enabled me to test out the ports and make a couple of necessary tweaks to get them looking their best over here; new versions have now been uploaded. Some of the CSS classes used on wordpress.com are not the same as on the downloadable version of sandbox, which disappoints me because I’d hoped the same stylesheets would work on both, but then total interoperability is a big ask.

Unlikely as it is that any of these stylesheets will actually be used on wordpress.com, it’s an interesting exercise for me and I’m going to continue with the ports, try and get some original designs done, and package them up for use by self-hosters, just in case Sandbox ever does become the default template

Continuing on the theme of PINK, today’s port is of Stacee Leung’s Reflections:

To be totally honest with you, that girl creeps me out a bit. She reminds me of that episode of Doctor Who where everyone’s faces get sucked into the telly. Nonetheless this is a nice, simple, personal journal kind of layout, and we are always in need of more girlishness. Plus the use of absolute positioning made it super-easy to convert.

Sooo, copy and paste reflections.txt into the custom CSS box, and you’re good to go.