Cre8Buzz Theme Tutorials

This page is intended to help you modify themes for cre8Buzz! As I've pointed out elsewhere, themes written for other sites don't work properly on the Buzz. You might get a background and a crappy ad banner, but not much else. This is because the elements that make up your page, such as fonts, H2 headers, and the various content blocks, have different names on different sites. Only themes that were written specifically for cre8buzz.com will work.

It doesn't matter who wrote your theme (khenney of Quartz Mtn, me, yourself), it must use those elements defined by the Buzz programmers.

NOTE: I use ony Linux, BSD and Solaris systems with vim or Gedit. I assume most of my readers are using Microsoft Windows or Mac OSX. Please use Notepad (Windows) or Text Edit (Mac) or some other simple text editor. If MS Word mangles your code, I don't want to hear it.

Changing Your Background

This is probably the most requested theme modification in Buzz history.

First, as always, backup your theme. Copy and paste the code into a simple text editor. If you mess up, you can paste the old theme into your code box again.

To change the background image, you need to have the url, or web address (http://someserver.com/my_pics.jpg) of the image you want to use. If you dont have it on Photobucket or Flickr or someplace like that, I can put it online for you.

When you have the url, find the code in your theme that looks something like this: 

body {
	background:#808b7b url(http://themes.timbury.net/cre8buzz/img/sage.jpg) fixed;
	color: #ffffcc !important;
	}
Be sure you're editing the 'body' section, 'background' parameter. Change the url address (in this example, http://themes.timbury.net/cre8buzz/img/sage.jpg) to the url of your image. Save the change, reload your page, and your background should appear. If not, check the url, look for typos, and delete your browser's cache.

TIPS:

  • find your screen resolution and (if you want your image fullscreen) resize your background image to the same resolution. Other people with different screen setups will see it differently.
  • Try to save your image with the smallest file size possible. Digital cameras are often set up to take hi-res shots resulting in 3000x2000 pixel images several Mbytes in size. These will take too long to load even on a fast connection. My backgrounds average 1280x1024, 50-200 kBytes. Even then, I feel I should make them smaller.
  • Obtain and learn to use image editing software. Adobe Photoshop is the choice of many, though I find the $600. price tag unjustified. I use the GIMP, an Open Source, powerful program available for free from http://gimp.org. It takes some effort to learn, but everything worthwhile does.
  • Make use of the unlimited free tutorials and help online to learn HTML and CSS. It's not as hard as it seems, especially if you know some nice person who will explain it to you. ;-) Just google "html css tutorial" and you'll find plenty of good info.

Let me know how you fare, and what I can do to help.

Peace,
Tim

Free Photoshop Tips eBook

Some neat graphics ideas for Photoshop users made available by the book's publisher, Sitepoint. You can download it here in print-quality PDF format. It's a large file (67Mb), so it may take a few minutes on a slower connection. I hope you find it useful.

cover

The Photoshop Anthology:
101 Web Design Tips, Tricks and Techniques
by Corrie Haffly

Chapter Title
1.      Getting Started with Photoshop
2.      Basic Skills
3.      Creating Buttons
4.      Creating Backgrounds
5.      Working with Text
6.      Adjusting Images
7.      Manipulating Images
8.      Designing a Web Site
9.      Advanced Photoshop Techniques

This work is supported by you! Please consider patronizing the ads on these pages and/or making a direct donation to the theme author. I hope you enjoy theming your cre8Buzz! profile. Remember to contact timbury for custom work on any html/css/php site, like WordPress blogs, forums, Myspace, Bebo, etc.

Peace.