BuSo Lightning - Official Support Thread

Did this theme vanish? Noticed I cant download.

No, we just made the decision to do away with the BusoThemes domain. It's being migrated to the main domain, but in the meantime I've changed the URL in the OP. Thanks for giving it a spin.
 
The theme just wouldn't activate on wordpress 4.4.2

actually, it could be a configuration error on my server. I'm investigating

So it was server configuration. It activates now.
Is there an option to remove the 'by buildersociety' at the bottom?
 
I was thinking there was an option added to remove the link without going into the code as I saw in a response earlier that it will be. Anyway, I amended the code.

Another thing I noticed is the meta description is not coming out properly. I sorted it out by deleting:

Code:
<title><?php wp_title('|', true, 'right'); ?></title>

  <meta name="description" content="

  <?php if ((is_home()) || (is_front_page())) {

    echo home_url('description');

  } elseif(is_category()) {

    echo category_description();

  } elseif(is_tag()) {

    echo 'Tag archive page for this blog - ' . single_tag_title();

  } elseif(is_month()) {

    echo 'Archive page for this blog - ' . the_time('F, Y');

  } else {

    echo get_the_excerpt();

  } ?>" />

and simply replacing with:

Code:
 <?php wp_head(); ?>

My question is, why this was not used in the first place, is it for page speed reasons?
 
wp_head is in there just above the closing head tag.

The reason wp_head isn't used for meta descriptions is that it's not a core Wordpress feature. They don't deal with meta-tags. wp_head is a function hook for a lot of useless core stuff excluding meta descriptions. It's essential for plugins though, including those that might allow you to create a meta description.

Otherwise, without explicitly and manually declaring what the meta description should be, you simply won't have one, which is what 99% of themes do. The general consensus around the SEO community is that, along with meta keywords, meta descriptions don't matter. I disagree, so I included them so you can manage your CTR in the SERPs. I suppose since Google will automatically pull one for you, people just don't include it or care about the minutia.

I suppose that approach is best. With wp_head, people who care can manage it with a plugin. Those who don't won't break anything. I've seen some problems with using category descriptions as meta descriptions recently too, such as scenarios where images are used in them.

I've been creating and saving up a lot of changes for a huge update to Lightning soon. I've included this change to be heavily considered. Thanks. Some of it had to do with speed but I can just as easily kill some of the loading of wasteful stuff in the functions.php as well.
 
The general consensus around the SEO community is that, along with meta keywords, meta descriptions don't matter.

That may be true for SEO.

I use meta descriptions for click through rate purposes.

Look forward to your update Ryuzaki!
 
demo link is broken and refer back to buildersociety. Just wanted to mention it in case it is not done on purpose.
 
demo link is broken and refer back to buildersociety. Just wanted to mention it in case it is not done on purpose.

That's my fault. I started migrating it back to the main domain and didn't finish. I'll have it live again today. Thanks for the reminder.
 
Noob question how can I set up a landing page home page with this theme. Under reading there's no option to set a homepage unless I missed it.
 
Noob question how can I set up a landing page home page with this theme. Under reading there's no option to set a homepage unless I missed it.

You have to create a "Page" first, and along the right hand side as you edit it you can choose to make it Full Width or include a Sidebar. Then you can browse to Settings > Reading and select that pages as "Front Page" instead of "Latest Posts."
 
lol wow thanks
It was late I was tired *walk of shame*
on a side note I love how detailed the backend files are :thumbsup:
Thanks Ryu
 
Last edited:
Thank you for your work on the theme @Ryuzaki

I'm having an issue adding a logo. It's 382px wide, but the theme is forcing it to stretch across the header the width of the site.

Is it meant to do that, and how do I rectify it?
 
@tomah

Edit the style.css by browsing along the left hand menu of the Wordpress dashboard:
Appearance > Editor > style.css (at the bottom on the right)​

Find the following block of code:

Code:
.logo-strip-text img {
    height: auto;
    margin-top: 10px;
    margin-bottom: -35px;
    max-width: 100%;
}

And change the max-width to 382px like below:

Code:
.logo-strip-text img {
    height: auto;
    margin-top: 10px;
    margin-bottom: -35px;
    max-width: 382px;
}

That will constrain it to your size and still allow it to shrink proportionately for smaller mobile viewports.

Thanks for using BuSo Lightning!
 
That did it. Only I had to add it to the style.min.css as well.

Thanks!. I'm going to enjoy experimenting with such a light weight theme and seeing if I can get it to do what I want. Hopeful :smile:
 
@Ryuzaki is there an easy way to have a full screen width and a sidebar? The regular post size with a sidebar is a little too skinny for some pages but I still want the sidebar.
 
@Ryuzaki is there an easy way to have a full screen width and a sidebar? The regular post size with a sidebar is a little too skinny for some pages but I still want the sidebar.

Yes, but you may find that you want to start adjusting the sizes of some of the images after you do this, which will be more CSS work (definitely worth it and what Lightning is meant for!)

In the style.css file, find this chunk of code, it's right under the main Skeleton section under the sub-section Grid.

Code:
.container {
  position: relative;
  width: 100%;
  max-width: 960px;
  margin: 0 auto;
  padding: 0 20px;
  box-sizing: border-box; }

All you'll need to do is change max-width: 960px; to max-width: 100%; so any other pixel dimension you want.

You will also need to make this change is the minified style too, which is style.min.css
 
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Yes, but you may find that you want to start adjusting the sizes of some of the images after you do this, which will be more CSS work (definitely worth it and what Lightning is meant for!)

In the style.css file, find this chunk of code, it's right under the main Skeleton section under the sub-section Grid.

Code:
.container {
  position: relative;
  width: 100%;
  max-width: 960px;
  margin: 0 auto;
  padding: 0 20px;
  box-sizing: border-box; }

All you'll need to do is change max-width: 960px; to max-width: 100%; so any other pixel dimension you want.

You will also need to make this change is the minified style too, which is style.min.css
Perfect! Thank you! I'm going to make a new page template (full-width and sidebar) and just copy in the regular template but use .modified-container with modified .container code.
 
Nat, feel free to disregard this, but I just thought I'd mention it on the off chance you or anyone else fall in to the same situation I did awhile back.

As far as page width for the content area, in many cases there is such a thing as too wide. I remember at one point, with some other themes on a few of my sites, getting fed up with an excessively narrow content area, so with a bit of CSS I moved to much more of a full screen or at least 75-90% width content body (sidebar and all, if there was one). Seemed better, but something kept nagging me in the back of my mind, telling me something still wasn't quite right. A bunch of other marketing, content and site dev efforts later, after a couple months, it took me awhile to realize my decline in user engagement metrics (these were heavily text content-focused sites) was due to the excessively wide content area. Seems crazy, something so simple, but the little things can often make a HUGE difference.

There's actually a TON of science and R&D behind this, for decades if not a century or more, and likely much of it coming from the print media world as well. It;s actually an incredibly interesting subject, IMO, and one most people don't even bother to study. Here's a few examples to get those mental gears turning (for anyone that finds it useful):

Environmental Vision: Interactions of the Eye, Vision, and the Environment
http://socialtriggers.com/perfect-content-width/
http://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

In terms of the width, one of the major issues in too wide of a content area is user difficulty in scanning from line to line. We've all seen it before. You get to the end of the line, move to the "next", only to realize you just started re-reading the same line. :wink: Definitely something to be said for "all things in moderation" here, depending of course on the application. Obviously this may not apply to certain cases, such as a much more photographic intensive site, gallery pages, etc.

The thing I found more effective, at least in my case, was simply changing up other variables, getting more creative with typography (text color, font weight, formatting, etc.), and/or modifying element spacing and sidebar elements to be less overpowering against the main content area.
 
Nat, feel free to disregard this, but I just thought I'd mention it on the off chance you or anyone else fall in to the same situation I did awhile back.

As far as page width for the content area, in many cases there is such a thing as too wide. I remember at one point, with some other themes on a few of my sites, getting fed up with an excessively narrow content area, so with a bit of CSS I moved to much more of a full screen or at least 75-90% width content body (sidebar and all, if there was one). Seemed better, but something kept nagging me in the back of my mind, telling me something still wasn't quite right. A bunch of other marketing, content and site dev efforts later, after a couple months, it took me awhile to realize my decline in user engagement metrics (these were heavily text content-focused sites) was due to the excessively wide content area. Seems crazy, something so simple, but the little things can often make a HUGE difference.

There's actually a TON of science and R&D behind this, for decades if not a century or more, and likely much of it coming from the print media world as well. It;s actually an incredibly interesting subject, IMO, and one most people don't even bother to study. Here's a few examples to get those mental gears turning (for anyone that finds it useful):

Environmental Vision: Interactions of the Eye, Vision, and the Environment
http://socialtriggers.com/perfect-content-width/
http://baymard.com/blog/line-length-readability

In terms of the width, one of the major issues in too wide of a content area is user difficulty in scanning from line to line. We've all seen it before. You get to the end of the line, move to the "next", only to realize you just started re-reading the same line. :wink: Definitely something to be said for "all things in moderation" here, depending of course on the application. Obviously this may not apply to certain cases, such as a much more photographic intensive site, gallery pages, etc.

The thing I found more effective, at least in my case, was simply changing up other variables, getting more creative with typography (text color, font weight, formatting, etc.), and/or modifying element spacing and sidebar elements to be less overpowering against the main content area.
This is extremely helpful and very interesting. I needed to make this particular theme wider for one page in particular that I wanted to use some images side-by-side on. But I'm reconsidering switching other pages widths around now. I guess its something I'll also just need to keep testing down the road.
 
@Ryuzaki Before I start digging around, Is there a simple way to stop the theme from stretching the logo image and keep it a nice 'small' size?
 
In the CSS for .logo-strip-text img, try removing width:100%; if that's there. Otherwise you'll want to set a max-width in pixels on the .logo-strip-text img in the CSS, changing it from 100%.
726 x 100
 
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Quick question, does this theme need to be updated?
 
Quick question, does this theme need to be updated?

At this point, I don't see Wordpress changing anything used in the theme. It's your basic functionality in terms of Wordpress. The theme itself is HTML / CSS / PHP (again, basic stuff that doesn't change). I even packaged a jQuery library for the mobile menu. I don't anticipate it ever needing an update unless Wordpress themselves decide to fundamentally shift away from what they've been doing since the start. Worst case scenario is they deprecate a function but never really kill it. I'd offer a single replacement file or explain exactly what line to change for future proofing.

It's about a 95% chance of never needing updating.
 
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