One column example site built using Alchemweb’s Childishly Simple theme
Two column content left example site built using Alchemweb’s Childishly Simple theme
Two column content right example site built using Alchemweb’s Childishly Simple theme
Three column content left example site built using Alchemweb’s Childishly Simple theme
Three column content middle example site built using Alchemweb’s Childishly Simple theme
Three column content right example site built using Alchemweb’s Childishly Simple theme
Childishly Simple Theme (FREE)
Download the very latest version from THIS site (the big green ‘Download’ button below) or less regularly updated versions from WordPress (I only upload major changes to WordPress)
For anyone who wants to put up a simple site without hassle. Easy to customise from one options page.
- Change the colours of everything by clicking on a colour wheel beside each item (see demo options page).
- Change the site width and sidebar widths.
- Choose 0, 1 or 2 sidebars.
- Choose the banner image across the top of the site.
- Choose from a selection of items to show in each sidebar and in the footer. These include numerous widget areas and basics such as categories, archives, pages, bookmarks, a calendar, tag cloud etc.
- Choose fixed or flexible site width.
- Choose miscellaneous items such as RSS feeds, rounded corners, copyright notice.
- Includes threaded comments with comment ‘bubbles’(screenshot).
- Includes featured images
- Includes basic post formats
- All the options are on one long page with plenty of illustrations, so should be fairly idiot-proof
You can also download an example CHILD theme
Changelog
For the latest version click the green button above, download to your computer, go to Appearance/ Themes and upload it. Activate, make sure the version number is the same as here, check site works, delete the old theme with a lower version number. If you have a child theme you will have to rename the import url e.g to childishlysimple2 via FTP. If you don’t know what FTP or child themes are ignore the previous sentence
26th March 2013 – Version 1.015, added a new Page template without titles, and a new Page template without sidebars or titles. Uploaded to this site but not WordPress.org
8th March 2013 – Version: 1.014, added a new Page template without sidebars. Theme uploaded to this site but not WordPress.org
By cathy Mon May 6th 2013 at 6:47 am
I don’t usually comment but I spent hours looking for an easy theme. Once I opened it and saw how simple it was I was amazed. Most themes out there, especially if you are a beginner are not easy! There is no explanations in many of them and the ones that have explanations are often confusing or don’t make it clear exactly how to use some parts of the theme.
My hat is off to the person who made this theme!
http://www.naturalremedyrelief.com
Cat
By Russ Wed Apr 10th 2013 at 12:43 pm
Just to say thanks for that theme.As a beginner I was about to give up on WordPress until I found it. Are you bringing out a premium version with more options? Or does one exist already?
Regards Russel
By admin Wed Apr 10th 2013 at 2:59 pm
I’m bringing out a free version with more options. You’ll be able to enter css etc. into the header, html into various parts of the page and there’ll be several different home pages to choose from. Working on it at the moment, but it all takes time. Thanks for the compliment!
By Rob Kutch Mon Mar 25th 2013 at 2:37 am
How can I make photos change automatically?
Thank you.
Rob
By admin Mon Mar 25th 2013 at 11:00 am
Hi Rob,
Do you mean a slideshow? Whereabouts – in a post?
You can get various plugins – search for ‘WordPress slideshow plugin’ or similar – and they’ll probably have something called ‘shortcode’ that you drop into your post e.g. [slideshow1]
Don’t know if this answers your question, let me know,
Richard
By Rob Kutch Wed Mar 27th 2013 at 4:19 pm
Thanks Richard for your input. I will try that. I am a rookie just trying to get my feet wet. Want to try and monetize this site with some great content. I have been spending the time on that rather than trying to understand changing site architecture. Appreciate your help. Any hints for me learning what to do with CSS and HTML? I find it difficult.
Rob
By admin Wed Mar 27th 2013 at 4:35 pm
Hi Rob, HTML, XHTML and CSS by Elizabeth Castro is a brilliant book and I used to use it all the time
By Steve Varney Sun Mar 17th 2013 at 12:49 pm
Hi
Love the theme, website coming on great.
Two things please
1) Is it possible to have a option to display ‘site map’ and ‘terms’ in the misc footer items?
and 2)
How can I keep the theme up to date without using wordpress I notice you have some recent updates that are not available by WP
Many Thanks
Steve
By admin Sun Mar 17th 2013 at 9:24 pm
Hi Steve,
Two good questions.
<1) Is it possible to have a option to display 'site map' and 'terms' in the misc footer items?
and 2)
How can I keep the theme up to date without using wordpress I notice you have some recent updates that are not available by WP
>
1) Terms and sitemap – possibly – but what about using a widget in the footer? I’d be interested in knowing why you’d rather have an option instead of a widget.
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/taxonomy-widget/
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/google-sitemap-generator/
2) Keeping theme up to date – I wasn’t sure myself until you asked, so I’ve checked it out and added instructions to the download page as follows:
For the latest version click the green button above, download to your computer, go to Appearance/ Themes and upload it. Activate, make sure the version number is the same as here, check site works, delete the old theme with a lower version number. If you have a child theme you will have to rename the import url e.g to childishlysimple2 via FTP. If you don’t know what FTP or child themes are ignore the previous sentence
Best,
Richard
By Claire Tue Mar 12th 2013 at 3:33 pm
Is there a way to make the sidebars and content area have no background color? I want to have a background image across the width of the site and just have three columns in front of it. I’ve tried editing style.css, style-options.css, and the options page in wordpress. Should I edit a different file? Thanks! This theme is perfect!
By admin Tue Mar 12th 2013 at 4:39 pm
Hi Claire, the only way to do this is to edit internal-stylesheet.php – put your styles at the very bottom but before the last tag and it will over ride everything else.
On my to do list is to include the ability to do this in the options page.
By Kelli Fri Mar 8th 2013 at 6:18 pm
Is there a way that I can make a page NOT have sidebars? Am having trouble getting my Amazon store up because the sidebars show up whether it’s a post or a page. Thanks. Kelli
By admin Fri Mar 8th 2013 at 7:43 pm
Yep, I’ve uploaded a new version of the theme – not sure how you go about updating it without FTP, but anyhow it’s basically just a new Page template called page-without-sidebars.php, you just need to upload that to make it work.
When you create a Page go to Template (right hand side, half way down screen) and choose Page Without Sidebars
By Chris Mon Mar 4th 2013 at 7:10 pm
Hi, just installed your theme and am having trouble with the background. I uploaded an image in Appearance > Background, however it’s not over-riding the default body background color set in the Childishly Simple theme options. Am i doing something wrong or is it a glitch?
By admin Tue Mar 5th 2013 at 10:21 am
Hi Chris, it’s a glitch.
I’ve just checked on my test site and there are no problems. To make doubly sure I’ve moved a line of code around in the theme – you can get the latest version above.
Not sure what I can suggest – try it with the default twenty twelve theme, see if that works – if not, then you’re definitely doing something wrong somewhere – perhaps not clicking ‘Save changes’ once you’ve uploaded a background image?
Richard
By Jean-Paul Sat Feb 16th 2013 at 8:25 am
I really love this theme. It’s so easy to use especially with the graphics showing what part of the theme will be modified by the option. That’s really clever.
I was looking for a theme I could use to create a blog AND a site. I’ll use this one with the same look but different colors.
It’s fully compatible with the qtranslate plugin for anybody wanting to have a multilingual blog or site. I’ve also tried to use Mingle forum, it looks like working.
Thanks for creating this theme usable with just a few clicks!
By Stacy Thu Feb 14th 2013 at 10:23 pm
Hello, I am sorry to bother you again, but how am I able to put my post into boxes like you have in some of your samples. Particularly, Three column content left example site built using Alchemweb’s Childishly Simple theme
By admin Fri Feb 15th 2013 at 7:53 am
Hi Stacy,
I’m not quite sure what you mean – but I THINK you mean the border around posts.
Search for the phrase ‘Set the post border color’ in the options page, and you can set the color there.
By Stacy Wed Feb 13th 2013 at 9:22 pm
Hi, How can I get rid of Allowed XHTML:
I do not want that to appear on my website.
Thank you!
By admin Wed Feb 13th 2013 at 9:43 pm
Hi Stacy,
In comments.php replace the line that begins with:
and contains
with this line:
Sorry, but it wouldn’t display correctly in the comments, hence the convoluted explanation
By scarpetterosse Mon Feb 11th 2013 at 10:28 am
Hi, your theme is very nice, but the Header option is still not appearing (http://wordpress.org/support/topic/wow-29?replies=2#post-).
Is this the latest version? thank you.
By admin Mon Feb 11th 2013 at 12:47 pm
Hi scarpetterosse, I’ve just done a fresh instal of WP and downloaded and installed the theme from the WP repository and it’s working OK. I’ve also double-checked the functions.php file and the code for the header is there. I’m not sure what to suggest. I have no idea what your skill level is but at the risk of teaching my grandmother to suck eggs, if you hover over ‘Appearance’ then a menu of various options should fly out, including ‘Header’. If that doesn’t happen try clicking on ‘Appearance’.
Update: WP supports this feature as of version 3.4 http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/add_theme_support#Custom_Header so check that you’ve got the latest version of WordPress.
By Christine Sun Feb 10th 2013 at 12:40 pm
Hi, I really like your theme but, even though childishly simple I am having problems getting the 2-column with side bar to look like your demo and now take up the whole page width (whatever width, liquid or static, I make it). Thanks.
By admin Mon Feb 11th 2013 at 3:11 pm
I’ve emailed you …
By carlovanni Thu Feb 7th 2013 at 7:08 am
Hi! Your theme is fascinating and I’m thinking to use it for my blog, but I don’t find the way to show the blog title; can you help me about this problem, please?
By admin Thu Feb 7th 2013 at 5:04 pm
Hi, Whereabouts do you want the blog title? If you mean in the header image it’s not set up for that, though I could create the option if other people are interested.
Otherwise on the front page there’s an option to write some sort of message e.g. your blog title.