Elbee Elgee FAQ

Q: "How do I change the look of [element X] in Elbee Elgee?"

A: Please don’t change CSS styles or code directly inside of Elbee Elgee, as this will virtually guarantee that your customizations break the next time I update the theme. Instead, you should create a child theme and make your alterations inside of it. I would recommend that you base your efforts on this very simple Elbee Elgee child theme I created.

The WordPress Codex provides a good starting point for learning about child themes here, while this plugin may allow you to create one with just a few clicks.

Once you have created a child theme, I would advise that you create an empty functions.php file inside of the child theme directory. Then, any and all PHP customizations should take place in said functions file.

Q: "How Do I Remove The 50% Shading In The Header?"

On or around line 50 in styles/ng.css, div#titledesc is defined. You may

Recommended

override them in your child theme’s style.css using the following declaration:


#header div#titledesc{
       background: transparent;
}

…or

Not Recommended

remove the lines from styles/ng.css, inside of the div#titledesc declaration:


        background:rgb(0,0,0);
        background:rgba(0,0,0,0.5);
        -ms-filter:alpha(opacity=50);
        filter:alpha(opacity=50);

The Recommended option is upgrade-safe, while the Not Recommended one could be overwritten if you upgrade Elbee Elgee.

Q: "How do I remove the title and the translucent title background over the header?"

A: Navigate to Appearance->Header, select “No” next to “Display Text”, then click “Save Changes”. This will remove the title text and shaded div completely.

Q: "How do I move the post meta information from the bottom to the top of each post?"

A:

  1. Make sure you’re using a child theme (see above).
  2. Edit your child theme’s functions.php
  3. Add this to the bottom of functions.php:


remove_action( 'lblg_after_itemtext', 'lblg_post_info' );
add_action( 'lblg_before_itemtext', 'lblg_post_info' );

Q: "How can I remove the 'Posted by admin on (date) edit this entry' ? I don't want that to show on my page."

A:

  1. Make sure you’re using a child theme (see above).
  2. Edit your child theme’s functions.php
  3. Add this to the bottom of functions.php:


function lbc_unplug_lblg_post_info(){
remove_action( 'lblg_after_itemtext', 'lblg_post_info' );
}
add_action( 'init', 'lbc_unplug_lblg_post_info');

Q: "Can I upload more than one header and have the headers randomly rotate among only those I have uploaded?"

A: Alas, no. The WordPress core header image handling functions don’t allow for this functionality yet.
Yes, you can, as was pointed out by observant users. Simply go to Appearance->Header and upload multiple header images. Once you have more than one original header images uploaded, you will be given the option to use a random image from amongst your images.

Q: "We would like the site to have a fixed, maximum width equal to the size of the header image (i.e., 960 px). How we do that?"

A: Select one of the fixed-width under Style Options->Layout Stylesheet in the Elbee Elgee Settings section under Appearance.

Q: "Why do I see 'This is the [position] sidebar. You may add widgets...' etc.?"

A: This is placeholder text that only appears to logged-in users. Log out and preview the site in order to see how a generic user will see your site.

I aim to make this text clearer in future revisions of the theme.

  1. Make sure you’re using a child theme
  2. Add the following code to your child theme’s `functions.php`: 
    
function lbc_remove_postimage(){
    remove_action( 'lblg_before_itemtext', 
                   'lblg_the_postimage' );
}
add_action( 'init', 'lbc_remove_postimage' );
  3. Reload the page and check to make sure it worked.

107 Comments

  1. thank you for making it possible to have our questions answered.
    three questions
    1. how do I make the share (FB, Twitter) icons smaller. they seem to be out of proportion to the rest of my site. there’s a like, tweet and share at the beginning of each post and 5 large icons at the end. Mainly, how do I get the 5 smaller, secondly is there a way to remove one of the sets?
    2. how can I update my archives? most of the pages from http://www.ourdigitalphotographysuccess.com/2008/11/ and earlier go to an index list.
    3. which image name in which folder is the main snowy leaf? I looked and could not find. I want to swap out my own.
    Thank you

    • 1. Those icons appear to be from a plugin that you’re using. You’ll have to follow-up with the plugin authors.
      2. You’ll need to import that content into your WordPress install and then remove the static source files. WordPress will show content as long as those pieces of contact don’t already exist on the server by default. That is to say, WP will try to find my-site.com/my-blog/static.html. If static.html already exists, WP exits and hands the content off to the webserver. If it doesn’t exist, then WP goes looking in the database for the content. Alas, a fuller discussion of such is well outside of the bounds of theming and ought to be handled by a trusted developer or consultant. (You will in all likelihood have to give said trusted developer access to your site and server.)
      3. You may upload your own if you have “Use Custom Headers” selected under Appearance -> Elbee Elgee Settings selected. You can then alter the header under Appearance -> Headers.

  2. 4. “This will remove the title text and shaded div completely.”
    how would i remove the shded div only and reduce the size of header text?

  5. Hi. Before the last theme update the menu items were listed one under the other (1 per line) which I liked. I recently installed the theme update and now if long there is one on a line and if short, 2 per line which I don’t like the looks of. How can I fix this so only one per line? Thanks.

  6. Thanks for the faq….
    Is it possible to use the child theme to change the height of the header? If so could you post the code?

  7. Hi there!
    Thanks for the theme and FAQs. 🙂
    Was wondering if you could help a bit. The sidebar is too narrow for one of the widgets that I need. I tried to look through the css (I understand it fairly well, but it’s a little beyond my scope of knowledge). Is there a relatively easy way to change this?
    Thanks and best wishes,
    Kristen

      • Thanks for responding; that’s very kind. 🙂 I’m using the “2-column fixed sb right” layout. I have a CafePress widget that won’t let me reduce it any smaller than 200 x 200, so I’m guessing I need to go 250, maybe.

          • inserting the code above DID change the sidebar width, but it moved the sidebar to the bottom of the page, thus it seemed to vanish. As near as I can tell, this happened because the fixed width of the body did not adjust to compensate, which forced the sidebar below the body column. Thus, I need to expand the width of the header and menu bar, or else I need to reduce the width of the body column. Please advise how to proceed, Doug.

  8. Hi, how can I change the size of the two footer bars? Or can I make them into 1 that goes along the bottom of the screen?
    thanks!

    • Nicole:
      The footer bars are #footerleft and #footerright. You could do the following in your child theme’s style.css:

      
div#footerleft,
div#footerright {
  float: none;
  text-align: left;
width: 100%;
}

  9. Hey and thanks for the theme, it’s helping me quite a lot. I just have one issue right now: by default (1.3.7) it seems that the header banner doesn’t link to home, I’m having trouble finding where it is called (or should be called), could you help me out on this? I know it’s probably CSS 101, but I can’t spend time figuring it out right now as setting my site up is quite urgent at this time.
    Cheers,
    Alex

  10. Is there a way to modify some of the styles in styles/ng.css in the child theme using elbee-elgee/styles/ng.css?

    • Janet:
      Simply adjust the styles in your child theme’s style.css. If you alter the styles in ng.css, you run the risk of overwriting them when you upgrade to a new version.

  11. Hi, love E.E. How do I get rid of the “Search” in the sidebar in the 2 column fluid sidebar fixed right stylesheet?
    Thank you!

    • Joe:
      Sounds like you don’t have any widgets assigned to the sidebars. Try adding a few to Appearance -> Widgets and see if that clears it.

      • Doug,
        Thanks for the suggestion. Actually, I had a couple of widgets installed already, that’s the problem, my widgets are my “calls to action” and if people choose to use a search, they can avoid the call to action 🙁
        My website offers a free report in exchange for contact information.
        Search does not appear on my home page, which is good, but if people for some reason go to my Contact, Privacy, or Terms of Service pages, they can Search and find the page where the free report is. Which is bad 🙂
        What else could I try?

  13. I like the option to remove the post information as described in the FAQ.
    Would it be possible to remove everything except the Edit option?

  14. I’ve also a minor problem when pulling the Post information as you suggest. There is a run over between content when using images in the excerpt.
    If the image in the previous post is a bit bigger than the text used, the Title for the next post will line up to the left of the image… A bit of mess…

  15. Sorry, but if it is possible to selective chose items for what gets posted, would it be possible to have both the edit and date still show?
    If not, I will live as I’d then combine your to FAQ items on this and move the edit and date to the top, which would then also take care of the rolloever between the posts.

  16. Hi there, I’m having some problems with my sidebar on the site. Some of the widgets seem to be too large and are getting clipped/cut off in the sidebar.. I’m no expert on CSS but have installed the child theme as suggested. When I add suggested sidebar CSS literally nothing seems to be changing. I’d like to widen the sidebar so that the widgets etc. fit properly but am having real trouble getting anything to actually change.

    • Louis:
      It looks like you’re duplicating ALL of the original style.css in your child style.css. This is unnecessary.
      I think you may be bumping into a specificity limit that unfortunately is endemic to LBLG version 1.3. I’ve got 1.4 coming out, which should fix it.
      In the meantime, I’ll see if I can find you a solution.

  17. Another interesting problem.
    posting content to Facebook from the wp blog ends up with only the url making it.
    I found a claim that said that there is an error in the header.php file, and that the following code needs to be changed.
    Should this be done in the header file, or the child?
    After analyzing found the bug. Change your meta description on ur header.php.It Should look like something similar below.
    <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="; charset=” />

    • The post cut off part of the code change… Attempt #2:
      <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="; charset=” />

      • Roger:
        Do you have a link to this troubleshooting? Your code isn’t coming through.
        Or you could post a Pastebin or a Github Gist…

          • What appears to be the proper response to the problem is at the very bottom of the above support document, of changing code in the header.php

        • Usually, when I post a link to Facebook from a news story or other link, Facebook will let you chose a thumbnail, print some of the first paragraph of content and of course a link to the piece.
          In this case there are problems with Facebook being able to see current images within the document to chose from, but also doesn’t post any of the content, just a bare link to the site. I thought the image problem might be a caching problem with Facebook, but the inability to print any of the content from the post other than the link is of greatest concern.

          • Roger:
            I only specify the description META value — there are no other METAs that I specify. The solution you’re looking for lies outside of my theme’s domain.
            I would recommend that you install a plugin such as Yoast’s WordPress SEO to help manage both your pages’ SEO profiles as well as your OpenGraph information. It is OpenGraph that hints to Facebook what your preferred excerpt, post image, etc. are.

  18. Is there any way to change the header font?
    I copied the bridge image and made up a new header with the font I wanted but it would look better if I could change the font in the theme itself.

  19. How do I make this theme a 3 column structure without any widgets or sidebars, just all content? Also, how do I put the navigation within the header?

      • Roger:
        The easiest way to do this currently is to create a child theme and then set the height of the div#header element to 150px.

          • no luck.. 🙁 This is what I put in the style.ccs file in the childe theme:
            div#header {
            height: 150px;
            }

        • what is ng.css? It appears to be over-ruling the height of the header.
          using firebug, to change the height works, but it just cuts the top of the image off.

          • Roger:
            It’s the default CSS stylesheet. If you don’t select a stylesheet in the theme options page, it defaults to ng.css.

          • Hours later… tried adding the above code to both ng.css and style.css no luck – I would only get a stretched version of the 140-960px header.
            So I then used the custom header WP codex page you have linked to. I added the code it suggested for custom (variable height) headers in the function.php
            It also wanted me to put “<img src="<?php header_image…" into the header.php file. So added the header.php file to the child folder.
            Voila. 🙁 I now have two headers on the blog – the old one and a new one looking like I want.
            I pulled the "” code, and that really messed things up.
            How do I combine the get wp_head() and header_image() variables into a single header rather than two?

  21. I chose this theme mainly for your great responsiveness I’ve seen you have with all the inquiries. I’m using 1-click wordpress with buddypress and LBLG.
    1. I want to change the buddypress-elbee elgee menu to a horizontal menu that runs along the bottom of the header.
    2. How to take the ‘home’ title and titles off every page. (you posted a previous code for this but it didnt work for me)
    3. Get rid of the ‘posted by admin’ (previous code didn’t work)
    4. Get rid of menu above header (except for admin account because I need to access dashboard)
    5. Get rid of the ‘home’ link and search area IN right side of header
    6. Get rid of scroll bars on widgets (they only appear on some)
    If you haven’t figured it out yet, I’m a newbie. lol I have a maintenance plugin on but can take it off for you to see site. Just let me know.

  22. After deactivating maintenance plugin to view my website on my android phone, i realized that the menu displays horizontal…the way i want it. I also noticed that the ‘home’ link on header diappeared as well as the widget scrollbars. The phone says webkit browser and the pc is ie9. Any ideas on how to get these results for ie? BTW, most of my users will probably be using ie.

  23. Hi! I’m hoping you can help me change the colors in the widget and main content areas. I can change the background to black (for example) but these 2 areas remain white. Can you tell me the correct code to enter into my child theme?

  25. You theme has been working well so far with me but a couple of things i’d like to resolve is removing the title from all PAGES. Also, under my left column I have “Recent Posts” and I like to modify the look to include bullets and a small space between items. (I’d love to put a nice box around just this with rounded corners if possible 🙂 )
    I will admit that I haven’t had much luck using the child theme as anything I place in that file has no effect so I’ve backup the originals and have been modifiying them. Thanks

  26. I am trying to figure out how to set the foreground color to semitransparent (or even as just a color) instead of the default white color that is set in the theme. I have created a child theme via the plug-in you suggested, but I can’t figure out how to set this item.
    Thanks for your time, and let me know if my question doesn’t make sense.
    Travis

      • Yes, sorry for the terminology issue. the area where the content goes. For the most part all of my stuff is in tables, but i’m waning to make it so they are more opaque or transparent so that an image or color shows through…or even change the background color of the content on my pages.

        • Travis:
          Do you have a live site I can take a look at? I could make suggestions better that way, but the basic content div is #content. Have you tried out Firebug or Chrome Inspector to take a closer look at your CSS?

          • Doug,
            I was just wondering if you have had a chance to look at my site. If so, do you have any suggestions on how to alter the css in order to make the main content either semi-transparent or possibly just change the color?
            Thanks,
            Travis

          • Travis:
            Try adding this to your child theme stylesheet:


            #allwrapper {
            background-color: inherit;
            filter: alpha(opacity=50);
            }

          • Doug,
            Sorry for taking so long to reply back. I have updated my child theme stylesheet with the code you suggested in your last post, but the pages look no different…

          • Travis:
            You’re right. I’m sorry, I’m working from a newer (unreleased) version of my theme. You’ll need to win the Specificity War, so you’ll need to do

            #container #allwrapper {

            However, I may recommend going a different direction than the transparency, as that applies to child elements and is difficult to reset. (You’ll see what I mean when you apply that effect. *grin*)

          • Wow, you weren’t kidding. That isn’t ‘exactly’ what I was looking for…lol
            Any suggestions on how to accomplish what I am wanting to get to?

        • So you’d like to make the background look semi-translucent (i.e, a less vibrant orange than the page’s background color)? I would just specify the same background color as the page with the luminosity slider tweaked a bit. Leave it in the same color family and tweak it slightly.
          Does that make sense?

          • Currently I have an orange background, but ultimately I would like to be able to set some sort of nature picture as the background and then make the content somewhat ‘see through’ so that the picture shows through on what is currently ‘white space’ in the content area. I used a different theme previously that had the capability, but I like the general styling of your theme much better…so i was hoping to have the best of both worlds I guess. 🙂
            I am hoping this makes sense…
            If it isn’t possible to do this with your theme, so be it, I was just trying to verify it wasn’t just my lack of skill set…
            Thanks!

  29. Hi,
    thanks for your nice Theme.
    Maybe you can give me an answer for this:
    How to change the height of the header/headerimage?
    The theme as a 960 × 200 px Header, I would like to have a much smaller Header. How to get a 960 x 75 header?

  31. Hi! Is there an easy way to show full posts instead of excerpts on my main/category/archive pages? They all have the link in them now and I don’t want to change each individually.

  32. After doing the whole disabling plugins/themes to find an answer, I figured out that it was the Elbee Elgee theme that is causing my Visual Editor to go wonky.
    I can still type in it, but it’s grayed out and doesn’t accurately reflect what my page/post looks like. It also doesn’t like italics. Any suggestions how to fix this? Thanks!

  33. All of a sudden my bottom right widget area is gone. I activated another theme, deleted Elbee Elgee and uploaded another version, but it still is gone. It shows up in Widgets, but the only thing it will take is Search.
    What page do I need fix the code to recapture this feature? (And then I will learn how to create a child theme so this doesn’t happen again).

  35. Hi,
    Thanks for an amazing theme and a great FAQ.
    What would be best practice for applying Google Analytics on a site using Elbee Elgee?
    According to Googles instructions I’ve created the file analyticstracking.php and have it ready for uploading.
    These are their instructions for implementation:
    Create a PHP file named “analyticstracking.php” with the code above and include it on each PHP template page. Then, add the following line to each template page immediately after the opening tag:
    Thanks
    Johan

      • Thanks Doug.
        I am having a look now.
        I’m rather new to WP and I wonder if you could help me. If I would like to add code as described above, what file would I have to add and modify as a child theme file?
        Thanks,
        Johan

        • Johan:
          I wouldn’t alter the theme at all. Instead, I would use a plugin like this one to add your GA code. In the event of a change of theme, your Analytics will continue functioning properly.
          Just install that plugin, enter your GA string and away you go.

  36. Hi Doug!
    First of all thank u for such great theme!!
    I would like to ask u about a bbpress problem. When I create a topic of a forum inside a group No one can read it, and it comes with this “Fatal error: Call to undefined method stdClass::have_posts() in C:\xampp\htdocs\local1\wp-content\plugins\bbpress\includes\replies\template-tags.php on line 201”
    and in that line you can find this
    // Put into variable to check against next
    $have_posts = bbpress()->reply_query->have_posts();
    I asked about this in a bbpress forum, but they told me that the problem is not about the plugin because with the theme twentyeleven everything is ok, so they told me that it must be a problem with my parent theme… any idea?? Thank you!

    • alfredios:
      Thanks for the heads-up. I’ll get that into the next version. In the meantime, you can make the change yourself in order to get it working.

  37. All I really want to know is how to change the color of the body, the white page. It’s a little too white and I want to make it just a little darker. I have the child theme and I’ve read through these posts, but I can’t find the solution.

  39. I’m blind from searching, so I assume my answer may be obvious. How do I remove the page title from showing up on the page itself? Not from the navigation bar, but I don’t want the titles to show when viewing each page (i.e. About Us, Home, Contact Us)

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