The headers on the sidebar are using the defaults in the Simplistix theme. The headers are affected by line 311 in the simplistix style.css file (found in your simplistix theme folder).

2) is there a way to make the font larger (like the one that appears in this box that i’m writing in?) if so, where is that!

The comment box text size is set by the textarea style;

.textarea, textarea {
width: 400px;
margin: 0;
background: #ffffff;
color: #333333;
font-size: 14px;
}


I changed the text size by adding the font-size: 14px; within the textarea section in the style.css file. (I’m not sure if you created a child theme or are simply editing the style.css in the simplistix theme).

3) do you know if you can show slideshows?

Check out the image viewers from AirTight Interactive

Here are a couple of sites that have WordPress plug-ins for slideshows:

Zen Photo

WordPress Lightbox JS plugin

Lightbox

I need to include some photosets on my blog. I’ve been meaning to do this for several months. Stay tuned for examples.

4) how did you get those rss icons to show on your categories?

The icons showed up by default with the Simplistix theme.

Items 1 and 4 suggest you may have an issue with the installation of your theme. Be sure to check that you unzipped the theme and included all of the files when you uploaded the theme to your site.

It is worthwhile to install Firebug if you are using FireFox. This tool lets you inspect the style elements of your blog and make interactive changes.

Why not post your blog address? I’ll delete it from the comments if you don’t want it public. It would be helpful to take a peek at your site to see what is happening.

I’ve had this domain for a few years and have mainly used it to make pages to share with friends. The main tool that I used was Homesite or just hand rolled a page (Lightroom has an excellent export function for photo webpages). I’ve used WordPress for a number of sites that I developed for my work but never set WP up on this domain.

As with any theme, you are going to want to make changes. The nice thing about WordPress 2.7 is that it can handle child themes. Using a Child Theme will help you localize and organize the changes that you make to your WordPress site theme. Sam didn’t include a child theme to his theme but I’m sure he will add this feature in his next rev. Using a Child theme will help when the Parent theme has an update, you would simply update/upgrade the files within the parent theme.

Let me show you the steps to create the Child Theme.

Read

1.Simplistix theme. is my Parent Theme for my WordPress site (using version 2.7 at this time).

2. Create a directory within the wordpress themes directory. I named the directory mysimplistix for my Child Theme files.

wordpress/wp-content/themes/mysimplistix

3. Create and open a file named style.css within your child theme directory. I posted the full code for this style.css file below. The header to this file contains information which will let wordpress know that this is a child theme. The style.css contains a line that imports the characteristics from the parent theme.


@import url("../wp-simplistix/style.css");


4. Edit and save the style.css file. If you look at my style.css you will see the specific changes that I made for my site. You can modify, delete or add any elements that you want for your site.

5. Within your WordPress administrator panel you will now see that the child theme is now present in the available themes. In the style.css file I name the theme Son of Simplistix so that is the theme that I will tell WordPress to use for the site. (note that the Child theme does not show a thumbnail of the site, that’s OK for now, we can work on this extra in the future).

The image is a shot of my wordpress theme directory:

You can see the style.css file within the mysimplistix theme directory.

Making additions and changes within the style.css file let’s me make changes to the “chrome” of the parent theme.

Did you notice that I have other files within the mysimpistix directory? Those files let me make my specific changes to the overall behavior of the theme and specific page layouts. I will put up another post that talks about these specific changes and tweaks, all easily tracked and located with the child theme function of WordPress.

BONUS:
THE LOOP is a good page to read about how WordPress works.

style.css that is located in wordpress/wp-content/themes/mysimplistix

/*
Theme Name: Son of Simplistix Child Theme
Theme URI: http://www.samburdge.co.uk
Description: Child theme for Simplistix. Make all your custom changes in the themes/mysimplistix folder.
Author: RickHap
Author URI: http://www.flyhypersonic.com
Template: wp-simplistix

I did give Sam a nudge to develop version 2.0. His first version was just two columns and I wanted three. I did a modification and sent it to him, he liked it and generalized to any number of columns. It was a good exercise for me since I was able learn more details about WordPress.

The plug-in uses simple tags to create columns. Here are some examples:

Sam released his Simplistix theme a few days after my endeavor into multiple columns. Good timing! I really like the layout of the theme and he has some great features.

Get his theme here:
Simplistix theme.

Note: There is a bug within WordPress with the Visual Editor. The editor adds extra “p” tags when you save pages or posts with the visual editor. You might notice that the Visual Editor puts extra lines in your posts. Welcome to the p tag issue! Read about it here:Unwanted tags in HTML Idea: Trust me when I edit HTML