Sugar Cane is a free two column Wordpress child theme for the Thematic framework by Ian Stewart. Child themes allow you to create layouts without touching the source theme’s template files. For this theme to work, you will need to upload both Thematic and Sugar Cane to your theme directory, but only activate Sugar Cane. It’s that easy.
Sugar Cane’s strength is that it makes both long and short posts look great and easy to read, and I’ve set up 2 image classes that will give your posts the sweet touch.
1. If you want to have an image span the width of the post, you’ll need to size the image at 751px wide. The height can vary, but I suggest keeping it under 300px. SImply wrap it in a div, and asign the class “wide.”
2. If you are posting an image that is not very big, I’ve set up a class called “vert” to make it look good. In the demo, these images are 300px wide. I’d suggest keeping it as close to that as possible. Do the same as you would for the wide images, just assign the the class “vert.” I also suggest picking a width and using it for every post you publish. This will bring consistancy to your blog, and will set it apart.
I’ve never done anything like this before so I am sure I am overlooking a few things. Feel free to ask questions in the comments or email me through my contact form.
Demo Sugar Cane
Download Sugar Cane
Download Thematic
UPDATE: Below are some sites using Sugar Cane. Some have even made some nice modifcations:
- Faulty Robot
- Something I Heard
- Derivative
- Thought Pornography
- Dr. Gigabyte
- James Hoffmann’s coffee blog
43 Comments
Great work, I really like it!!!
Thanks, Danny. And thanks for blogging about it! You’ve got some nice child themes on your site I see. :)
I love it, already have it setup on my site today. Keep up the good work.
Nick
Nick, I’m glad you like it. You are the first person I’ve seen use it! I see you’ve tagged your images, but you’ll need to put them in their own div for them to really float left. Use my contact form if you need any instruction on how to do that.
Cheers!
Ok, I got it figured out, thanks for the help, I wondered why they weren’t floating
Thanks
Nick
nice theme.
like
Hey, just wanted to let you know I’m using the theme for my new blog. I love it. Still just setting things up, but even right out of the box it looks great! Thanks for sharing this!!
Awesome Abe! You’re a *real* web developer now :)
Love the full-left float on the images, and negative indent for blockquotes. The negative indent for ordered lists seems a bit random, but maybe that’s just me… same feeling re: “Archives” and “Links” pages’ text.
This is a minor point, but it always bothers me when page content is significantly shorter than the standard links/categories/etc sidebar, such as on the “Links” page. Is it possible to code the white background of the page/post content to extend all the way to bottom of the sidebar when this happens? As is, it looks a little goofy to me with all that from the sidebar/footer. But I quibble…
Overall, really beautiful job – I know who I’ll be asking for help!
I got this thing up and rolling and I really like it. Classic organization—blog organization conventions are conventions for a reason; i hate themes that try to change things up too much and end up being hard to navigate—and this stuff is easy to manipulate. I haven’t figured out how to get my own header up yet, as I am extremely new to all this stuff. But I like it all so far!
http://koselicummings.com/TheDailyKoseli
Chris, you’re right about the indent for ordered lists. I need to fix that. And I’m still scratching my head at the Archives page titles. Not sure how to correct those.
Keenan, to add an image to the header simply place an image 750×72 in your images folder, and call it out in the CSS like so:
body {
background: url(/images/image-name.jpg ) no-repeat ;
}
Hello!
Very Interesting post! Thank you for such interesting resource!
PS: Sorry for my bad english, I’v just started to learn this language ;)
See you!
Your, Raiul Baztepo
I think it looks great! I hope to use it for a new blog I’m making on social media and the like.
However, is there an easy way to change the background color for the comments? I’m finding the blue there makes it a little hard for me to read. Thanks!
Able, this is a very elegant design, which i may keep using. I prefer clean lines, which Sugar Cane has a lot of.
Do you offer a creative commons license on this theme? I don’t want to play around with the CSS if you’d prefer your users to leave well enough alone. this is your work after all, and people should respect that.
-m.
Ben: You can change the background color of the comments in the CSS. Let me know when your blog is live!
Mitch: Glad you like Sugar Cane. It’s technically released under GPL which means you can edit it. However, if you redistributed it you would need to give Both Ian and I credit. I hope it continues to work for you.
Cheers!
I’m glad I stumbled across your theme! I was trying to figure out what I would use for my new blog and wasn’t really clicking with anything I was seeing, and wanting to purposefully stay away from getting into the code like I used to. I just did some very minor tweaks to personalize it, but since you asked (I’m the guy who wrote earlier trying to figure out the header image), you can see your theme in use on my blog!
And thanks!
Nice! I like how you can select the theme without having to touch the code.
Hi from France ! I love this design. It’s so terrific ! Very good job.
I’ve spent the past 3 days trawling through various themes looking for something creative, attractive, a little bit different and booky and finally I’ve found one. Yippeeeeee!!!
That means I like it.
Thanks everyone for the kind words!
Hello, I am using your theme now for my site. It was needed some cleaning up in the code to change colors, but I have it working now just fine.
Thank you,
Dr. Gigabyte
Great theme. I was also wondering if this theme is available for the Blogspot platform ?
Dr. Gigabyte: Your color changes to Sugar Cane make it a stand-out. Thank you of choosing my theme for your site.
Ben: Thanks for the kind words. Sugar Cane is only for Wordpress.
Elegant theme.Thanks for sharing.
Hello Able,
Yo made a nice job. I love the way you combined images and legible typography. Pretty.
But I think the way you place images is quite complicated. The need to go to the HTML editor and write the div tags and the classes is not very fast.
I’ve found a quick way to do it: just placing images in H2 paragraphs. As you know H2 style has no indent. It seem to work. I don’t know if it’s the best way, but sure it’s faster for me.
¿Any suggestions?
I’m creating a spanish film blog and I’m going to use yout theme with some modifications. Hope to show you soon!
Thanks.
Pablo
Hi Able, great wp theme! I used it for my online portfolio, I still don’t know if it works well but for sure it looks pretty. I still want to make some modifications but for now it’s ok for me since I’m quite new to wordpress. Keep up with the good work and thanks for sharing. Love your collages and your wife’s pictures!!
Best,
s
Pablo: I wouldn’t suggest doing it that way, but I’m glad you found a work-around that works well for you. Actually, not having the h2 tag indent was oversight on my part, since I published this theme a bit prematurely. (I didn’t realize it would take off like it has!) I’m almost done wrapping up some fixes for it, and will be publishing it soon.
Serena: Thanks for the kind words, and I’m glad Sugar Cane is working for your portfolio. Let me know if you make some significant alterations to the template. I’d like to see them!
I can’t seem to figure out how to wrap the images so that they extend all the way.
When I try inserting an image in a post, I write “wide” where it asks for the CSS Class (in the Advanced Settings of the image settings), but that doesn’t do the trick.
Could you post detailed instructions on what I need to do for it to work correctly?
Thanks! ~ Joel
A good theme for my site…
Thank you very much…
Hey there!
I love the theme, am using it on my blog and i think it looks great!
I have a question about the post headers if i may… At the bottom before the “edit” link, there is a date and then “By, published”. I was wondering if it was possible to change that to my name at all?
Also, is there scope to put a logo/custom header in the theme at all?
Many thanks,
John
Hi,
One of the best themes ever, great job !!
Is it possible to change the position of Sugar Cane in CSS ??
I want the whole theme to be center instead of left
Best Regards
Nick67
Able,
I have been creating labyrinths all over Toronto for many years now, and despite being a photoblogger, blogger and very proficient with wordpress, I never quite felt at home with tweaking just any existing wp theme for my Toronto City of Labyrinths Project.
Much like dowsing or following the gut feeling one gets when deciding to orient the entrance to a labyrinth, or even in locating the site of a labyrinth to begin with, I immediately just knew/felt, yep — this sugar cane theme is indeed meant for the City of Labyrinths Project.
Thank you for creating a wonderful canvas upon which to blog upon.
I was wondering about your choice of name for this theme, my guess would be an inside joke on our ancestors, “Cane and Able” ??
Lastly, a minor thing, like @John above, I am also experience the “By, published” anomaly and would appreciate any direction in fixing this tiny hiccup.
Thanks Able,
HiMY SYeD
Toronto Canada
Able: fantastic template. I love it’s easy and simplicity. I’m using it on our web site for spec fiction, here: http://wrywriter.com
But like John, above, I was wondering about “By, published”. As it looks odd, and I’m not sure how to redress that. Also, for some reason, when we click on a category, or the Archives, the page is butting out both side, not like the main page. Is that normal?
Thanks anyway, I’m sure you’re busy, but if you can, would love some help or advice.
Cheers!
Great theme! It’s going to good use at the semi-artsy-fartsy meanderings at http://theohshithandle.com.
Though I’ve noticed, as others above have, a problem with multiple authors: the “By published” text. Can you suggest any workarounds to get Author links squeezed in there?
Thanks much, duderino
Sweet Jesus, I just Bought A host & domain to use this theme of yours…
Okay, I finally solved the “By, published” thingy and pointed a couple of other people in the right direction on how to solve it.
The other thing I’m trying to figure out is, how to add just 2-3 nav tabs just beneath (but abutting) the header. Does any one know how to do that?
Thanks!
Interesting blog as for me. It would be great to read something more about that theme.
For those of you who are looking for the easy fix for the “By, published” not displaying, you need to open the Sugar Cane style.css file and under the ‘content’ section look for and delete these two pieces of code:
.entry-meta .author {
display: none;
}
.entry-meta .meta-sep {
display: none;
}
Hope that helps. And thanks again to Able for such a fantastic template. :)
Hello!
Wonderful Sugar Cane theme
Thanks !
Gracias!!!!! Thanks. Magnífico trabajo!! Best regards
Gracias por el tema. Magnífico!!
Thanks!!
Great work! I really love your theme, but got one question: Is there any possibilty of writing your posts justified?
Is there a more detailed instruction on the web about how to endue the pictures with classes? I’m not very familiar with the codes .. sorry
Great template. I am just having a slightly little problem since I am not that familiar with CSS. Do I have to add any other code other than that suggest to the body part? And where do I locate the image? I really can’t get my website to display the header at all.
Thanks for the theme! ;)
Wonderful theme and it’s working out fabulous for our work blog! Anyone know how to eliminate the blue box behind the links?
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