Monkey House

As you can see, the site is undergoing a redesign.

I think I’ve learned enough about web development and WordPress to design one from scratch, but I know myself, and I know the path to ruination that would bring. So, I’m taking a theme that’s slightly less than perfect for my needs and making gradual changes. The assumption is that the things I would like to change are at least “tolerable” for now, and that I can therefore take my sweet time changing them.

Excruciatingly boring to most readers, but here’s what the strategy is:

1. Start with Web2Feel’s spiffy Androida Theme
2. Change the core look and feel and redesign a custom header using our Monkey House branding
3. Make sure the most absolutely important base functionality is restored and/or created:
   1. Make a link to a “Blog” page that lists the whole sequential blog for people who like that kind of thing
   2. Get rid of the banner spaces… I don’t need no stinkin’ banners… nobody pays me for advertising space! Maybe a Flickr widget would be cool…
4. Fix a visual artefact in the slider
5. Write some PHP to complement the slider… when a gallery image isn’t specified, some sort of default placeholder image is put there
6. Fully Widgetize any area that can sensibly be widgetized
7. Modularize the whole thing so that child themes can be made with simpler CSS and fewer image changes

Not to criticize the folks at Web2Feel. This is one of the best FREE themes you can get. But it has some flaws, and I think it will be fun learning how to fix them.

So far, I’ve obviously done the first few steps. It was a lot of fun taking the basic monkey and logo created by Jan at Dawghouse and creating new Alex and Cole monkeys from it.

Next step… get a “Blog” page ready.