Wordpress: OpenBook premium theme available for download

Posted by jbj on Jun 14, 2008 in featured, wordpress • 53 comments

Looking for a premium Wordpress theme, with magazines features and a very cool design, but don’t want to pay a single buck? If so, you’re just at the right place. Here’s OpenBook, a theme I originally made up for my personnal weblog lyxia.org, but which is now available for free download.

As I said previously, I originally made up OpenBook for my personnal weblog lyxia.org. But after receiving a few compliments aboout it, I decided to offer it to everyone, for free.

This version is 2.2 and it is the first to be translated in English. Don’t worry, any future version will be available in English too

Wordpress premium theme:openbook

OpenBook offers many features, so here’s a quick list:

Magazine-style homepage, including 2 columns and SmoothGallery for your featured posts.
100% Gravatar compatible.
3 availables custom fields to insert images on the homepage featured gallery, on homepage posts and categories posts.
Magazine-style dropdown-menu for your categories.
Not manual editing of files required. OpenBook have a special tab in wordpress admin panel where you can set up the options for the theme, including featured posts, featured category, blog logo, number of posts to display on the gallery, categories to display on the blog homepage…
Integrated IE6 killer. If checked, IE6 will litterally crash.
Compatible with Firefox 2, Firefox 3 beta, Safari, Opera, Internet Explorer 7 and 6.
Widget-ready sidebar
SEO-friendly titles
3 page templates: normal, Links and Archives
Compatible with Wordpress 2.3 to 2.5.1

Wordpress premium theme:openbook

OpenBook live demo and Download

You can download Openbook v2.2 here. If you want to see how it looks, just have a look at my personal weblog.
I just ask you one thing, if you use the theme, please leave the backlink in the footer. Thanks in advance!

Feel free to comment, or request support, I’ll try to help you as much as I can

53 reactions

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1 - Zhu on Jun 15, 2008, 4:06 am:

Nice theme!

I was looking for a new one a couple of weeks ago, I wish I had known. I settled for the Option Theme which is pretty cool too but I really like this one.

It’s amazing to see how evolved themes have become… or how talented people have become!

Is there actually a kill IE6 feature?
2 - jbj on Jun 15, 2008, 9:51 am:

Thanks for your compliments Zhu! I’m agree that the Option Theme is very cool, and your blog looks good!

Yeah OpenBook gots a “kill IE6 feature”: If checked, when someone will try to visit your website with IE6, it will crash. This is radical, trust me

If you’re interested in codes to crash IE6, you should suscribe to the rss feed, because I wrote a post named “6 html codes to crash IE6″
3 - Jack on Jun 19, 2008, 2:50 am:

Great theme!

Are there any instructions on how to easily implement it, for instance how to define the custom image for the SmoothGallery?

Thanks.
4 - jbj on Jun 20, 2008, 2:40 am:

Hi jack, you`ll find what you need on hqck woordpress: http://hackwordpress.com/free-magazine-wordpress-theme-introducing-openbook/

See ya!
5 - steve on Jun 23, 2008, 1:13 am:

hey there, awesome theme.. I have installed works rel good on firefox and safari.. but then the smoothgallery comes in at the wrong dimensions on inetrnet explorer..

any ideas?
6 - jbj on Jun 23, 2008, 1:43 pm:

Hi Steve, and thx for the compliments! I had to reduce the Smooth Gallery width on IE because it didn’t worked properly with the right width, wich is 600px.
Let me now if you found how to fix this problem.
7 - jan on Jun 25, 2008, 6:41 pm:

hi~
cant download…if i clcik on the download link the download window appears and when i click on save it just disappears and nothing happens.

why do u think is that?
8 - jbj on Jun 25, 2008, 7:13 pm:

Hi Jan, seems to be a weird problem, I checked the file on the server and everything’s ok. Which browser do you use?
Additionally you can try this link.
9 - JR on Jul 8, 2008, 9:18 pm:

Hey JBJ,

I absolutely LOVE the theme. Thanks so much for it. I just have one small question. When I place an image on the homepage using the “Image” custom field…the articles on the right column wrap nicely around the image…the images on the left do not for some reason. Any Suggestions? You can see what I mean here:

http://www.truthmerchants.com

Thanks again,

JR
10 - jbj on Jul 8, 2008, 9:45 pm:

Hi JR, and thanks a lot for your compliments.

I known the problem you’re talking about, and it will be fixed for the next version.
For now, just edit the style.css file and find the following lines:

#rightcol img {
float:left;
margin:3px 10px 4px 0;
}

#leftcol img {
display:block;
margin-bottom: 4px;
}

Delete it, and paste this instead:

#rightcol img, #leftcol img {
float:left;
margin:3px 10px 4px 0;
border:1px solid #000;
}

The problem will be solved. Happy blogging
11 - hypatia on Jul 10, 2008, 7:58 pm:

Hey just wanted to let you know about an incompatibility between SmoothGallery and the Formbuilder Plug-in by TruthMedia Internet Group.
12 - jbj on Jul 10, 2008, 8:37 pm:

Thanks for the info! I’ll try to understand the bug and fix it.
13 - joe on Jul 12, 2008, 10:06 pm:

nice theme : )
14 - Wet Squid on Jul 13, 2008, 3:13 am:

I was wondering if this theme is designed only to work for posts which only have a single category. Some of my posts belong to multiple categories, and this seems to create lots of duplication in the main page’s category posts.

Another issue is in the setup screen. We see this twice:

Categories to display on left column:
Categories to display on left column:

Do they mean the same thing?

Anyway great theme, looking forward to the next version.
15 - jbj on Jul 13, 2008, 2:02 pm:

You’re right, this function isn’t that great when osts belongs to more than one category. It will be removed in the next OpenBook version anyways.
16 - FreeSoftNews on Aug 10, 2008, 9:00 am:

Hi

Thanks for great theme. I really like that and so I made my own theme, based on Your (changed some graphic and colors).

You can look my new theme at: http://freesoftnews.com website.
My old theme was Cordobo Green Park, and I want, that new theme looks similar to old one. So I take the colors from Cordobo Green and added these to new one.

Thanks again

FreeSoftNews team
17 - jbj on Aug 10, 2008, 9:09 am:

You did a great job! Glad to see that you like OpenBook
18 - toto on Aug 15, 2008, 4:15 pm:

This is probably very easy but I’m trying to change the colour of the green text header for each post..under each category in the main section…I have changed some other coours, just the post t5itle I cannot fine. I just can’t find which line it is in the style.css. any help appreciated..cool theme by the way and very easy for a novice like me.
19 - zulsdesign on Aug 16, 2008, 4:51 am:

good job!
20 - Anand on Aug 18, 2008, 5:25 pm:

Browser: IE 7

There is a big black space below the gallery and the main page content. The page however looks fine with FireFox.

I am not sure as to which file I need to edit. I have not completed the site as of yet and hence I can’t give the URL here. I will contact JBJ directly.

Is there any fix for this problem?

Anand
21 - jbj on Aug 18, 2008, 5:35 pm:

@Anan: I’ll look your website and then get back to you.
22 - Anand on Aug 18, 2008, 5:35 pm:

Please ignore my previous post. I solved the problem by modifying css file meant for IE.

Anand
23 - jbj on Aug 18, 2008, 5:59 pm:

Glad you solved your problem! Thanks for using OpenBook
24 - Anand on Aug 19, 2008, 2:30 pm:

How can I edit the logo?

It is in JPG format and not in PSD format? Do you have PSD format?

Also how ca I replace logo with the text heading?
25 - Anand on Aug 23, 2008, 9:25 am:

Hi,

Archives and Blogroll are displayed only in full post pages and not in index page. Is there any way to show them on the home page as well. Also tags are not displayed on the single page of the post if I enable widgets.
26 - jbj on Aug 23, 2008, 9:25 am:

Anand, just edit the sidebar.php file: You’ll find some conditionnal php function like is_home() or is_single. Delete theses function (but leave the code between the { and } ) and the blogroll/Archives/Tag cloud will be displayed on every page.
27 - Lorenzo on Aug 23, 2008, 9:26 am:

hello, Thanks for this beautiful theme,

I need some help:
I would use the “photo user” plug in with which a user can upload his photo,
teorically I could use “local avatar” plug in to associate LOCAL PHOTO, GRAVATAR and other..
How can add User uploaded photo to your theme?

thank you..
28 - jbj on Aug 23, 2008, 9:27 am:

@Lorenzo, I never heard about this plugin before so to be honest, I don’t know. Try to edit the the gravatar code in the footer.php file.

Good luck!
29 - Lorenzo on Aug 23, 2008, 9:27 am:

Thank you I solved the problem, will let user to use gravatar =)

Now I need another tip.. pleaseeee

I’m building a quite complete portal for my town,
quite hard work, quite professional structure, quite complete interface..

I miss something to be good, somebody helps me?

1) I would give the possibility to users to upload image on comments,
it is very important
1.1) There is a plugin?
1.2) I perform it (manually, so bad) with the img tag, but the image has to be uploaded.. how can I let the user upload the image?

2) I would let visitors to register with a different interface since the wordpress one.. which plugin do you suggest?
30 - jbj on Aug 23, 2008, 9:28 am:

1: I don’t really know. It might be possible to let users upload images by developping a custom plugin, but I don’t know if a plugin already exists.

2: Lucky you, koen just posted something like this on WpVote.com.
31 - TheWebpreneur.ca on Aug 23, 2008, 9:28 am:

great theme, widgets in the footer would have been nice though
32 - jbj on Aug 23, 2008, 9:29 am:

@TheWebpreneur.ca: What a cool idea. I’m currently making a new version of the theme, so you can expect a widgetized footer soon
33 - Lorenzo on Aug 23, 2008, 9:30 am:

thank you =)

what about (HERE) to share the most used plug in for this wonderful theme?
I think my necessity are common.. and surely others useful.. nop?
34 - Da Lash on Aug 30, 2008, 4:44 pm:

Hi JBJ,

I have implemented Openbook on my blog… http://www.abhilashkumar.com

If you notice… there is a problem with the Travel Category. The images are displaying, but not the text. Any idea as to why this is happenning?

I tried whatever I could think of. Also if I put the travel category on the right side then the images of the posts appear below each other but are indented to the right after the first post.

Would appreciate your help.

Thanks.
35 - Da Lash on Aug 30, 2008, 5:12 pm:

Hi JBJ,

Another thing.

Even when I go into the Travel Category the same thing is happening.

You can check it out on my blog since its live.

http://www.abhilashkumar.com

Thanks.
36 - jbj on Aug 30, 2008, 5:20 pm:

@Da Lash: really weird. The page used in your travel category is the same as in your tachnology category, one works and not the other…Have you set an excert for each post?

If you want, I can go to your blog and try to find/correct the problem, but it will be paid support.
37 - Da Lash on Aug 30, 2008, 5:33 pm:

JBJ,

You solved my problem… earlier these posts were in the gallery category so the theme that I was using had applied the excerpts!

I removed them and now its fine…

Thanks a lot for your help.
38 - jbj on Aug 30, 2008, 5:35 pm:

Great! I’m glad all works fine for you now.
39 - Da Lash on Aug 31, 2008, 4:57 am:

Hi JBJ,

The archives page gives a 404 error. Do I need to configure something to enable it?

Thanks,
Da Lash
40 - Da Lash on Aug 31, 2008, 5:11 am:

Edit

Fixed it.

Thanks.