Free WordPress theme : Purity

Posted by Maigret on Aug 25, 2008 in wordpress • 23 comments

Originally created for my weblog Maigret’s Blog, Purity is a free WordPress theme available for all versions. Providing a clean and simple style, Purity is composed of 2 columns in order to promote the content of your weblog.

This guest article was written by Maigret, a French blogger which maintains a PC related blog.
Have some web development, web design or blogging skills? Contribute to CatsWhoCode!

Purity - pureté in French, is a WordPress theme based on the excellent MassivePress by Jason Schuller. This gifted author is the creator of numerous free and premium WordPress themes that you can see on Wpelements.com or on Press75.com.

Many features have been removed from the original theme when many others have been added or improved. It is not a simple lifting : 75 % of the code have changed !

I have always keep in mind to propose a good user experience for the visitor. Therefore, usefulness features as JavaScript have been totally prohibited during the process of creation. The loading time of a page is one my priority in this theme !

I always use this theme on my weblog but some features have been added for my needs. For instance, social links and enhanced page navigation have been removed to get a better loading time.

Nevertheless, Purity theme is full of interesting features that I will present to you now.

Key features

Among the principles features, we can remember :

  • Separation trackbacks / comments ;
  • Counter for trackbacks / comments ;
  • Numbering of comments ;
  • Support Gravatars ;
  • Support widgets ;
  • 2 sidebars widgetised ;
  • Custom field "Image" to display thumbnail on the Home page ;
  • 2 templates page for the archives and the links ;

Sidebars

This theme is composed of 2 sidebars, one on the right, the other at the bottom just before the footer.

First sidebar (second.php)

It is composed of :

  • Search bar ;
  • List of categories with their respective RSS ;
  • RSS posts and comments ;
  • Recent comments ;

You can also add your own widgets through the admin panel without losing the native widgets - even if you can delete them in the code.

Second sidebar (third.php)

This secondary sidebar is useful to show widgets which are not necessarily essential for the visitor - at least, in a first time.
To add widgets in the admin panel, do not forget to select Footer in the list.

Native widgets are :

  • Tag cloud ;
  • Popular posts ;

Plugins

I have integrated 2 essentials plugins in the theme : Popularity Contest and Subscribe To Comments.

Install them like any other plugin and active them in the admin panel.

Custom field "Image"

This theme can display a thumbnail for each article on the Home page. Define it using the key Image as a new custom field when writing a new post. The value corresponds to the URL of the image.
The recommended size is 80 pixels by 80 pixels, but you can easily change it in the code.

Customize header

To change the default header, overwrite logo.jpg located in /purity/images/

If it does not work, modify #header in the CSS and write the complete URL for background-image property.

Feedbacks

If you encounter any kind of problems (bugs, corrupted archive, bad translation, etc.), leave me a comment or contact me.

I am also open to suggestions !

Download

Purity theme is free downloadable but you must leave credits in the footer and in the CSS for the original authors.
Of course, you can modify the theme as you like !

Live demo

Installation

The archive is composed of 2 folders : plugins and theme. Extract them in their corresponding WordPress directories.
For the folder theme, create a subdirectory named purity and copy / paste the content of the archive.

That's all, enjoy and share your customizations !

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