PixoPoint

We’ve completed a large update today for the PixoPoint Template Generator. The changes include a huge number of bug fixes. Thank you very much to the dozens of you who have reported various bugs to us, without your help we wouldn’t have been able to improve the system. If you have any questions or bug reports, please leave them in the forum.

Some new features have been added for premium subscribers including the ability to add the date, RSS feed links and search boxes to the header, plus breadcrumb links and a dropdown sub-menu.

To help show the various changes made in the PixoPoint template generator, we’ve added this blog post which features a range of different HTML tags, attributes and classes to display those changes. You can still use any page on our site to see most of the changes, but if you need to see a particular feature which we haven’t used on another page, then this is the place to look.

… Read more

WordPress is a powerful Open Source blogging application. The PixoPoint template generator includes an ‘export to WordPress’ option to allow you to create a WordPress theme from scratch without needing to touch a single line of code!

To create your own WordPress theme, design your site via the control panel and then choose the export to WordPress option (Fig. 1, ‘Export/import’ > ‘Export to WordPress’).
A dialogue box (see Fig. 1.) will appear, showing various options which you may set in your new WordPress theme. You can leave most of these with the defaults, although you may wish to change the ‘Folder name’ and ‘Theme URL’ to differentiate the various themes you export from the template generator.

After clicking ‘Export’, you will be prompted to download a zip file containing your theme. Then simply unzip your theme, upload to your webhost and activate the theme via your WordPress admin panel. Happy blogging

Fig. 1. Enter the various details which will appear in your new WordPress themes documentation.

What are all those options for?

Some of the various options available in the ‘Export to WordPress’ dialogue box are used by your WordPress installation and some are used by.

• Folder name: This is the name of the folder which you will upload into your WordPress themes folder.
• Theme name: This is the name which will display in your WordPress admin panel when you activate the theme.
• Theme URL: If you write a page or blog post about your new theme then add the URL for it here so that others can find it. This particularly useful for anyone who is looking for support or help customising your new theme.
• Theme Description: This should describe the theme. This information can be useful for theme repositories as they can use this information as a short blurb about theme.
• Theme Version: If you release different versions of your theme, then you should enter the number here.
• The Comment: This can be a general comment about your theme.
• Theme Author: If you feel your design is sufficiently different from the original, then change this to your own name so you can claim credit for your new theme.
• Theme Author URL: If one exists, then enter the website for the theme author here so that others can find out more information about the author.
• Screenshot URL: This is the thumbnail image which will display in your WordPress admin panel when you activate the theme.
• Copyright: By default, most of the themes included in the template generator can be exported with either a BSD or GPL license. However some designs are based on templates which are only available with a GPL license. If you want to submit your theme to the official WordPress themes repository you will need to choose the GPL option. If you are only intending to use the theme for your own purposes then the license is unlikely to matter, so feel free to stick with the default choice.

If you have any questions or comments, please leave a message in our support forum … http://pixopoint.com/forum/.

The PixoPoint template generator has been designed to allow you to design your own website without having to touch a single line of code. Unlike other template creation devices, ours allows you to export your design as a WordPress theme. By modifying the various options in the control panel on the left hand side of the screen, you can make huge changes to the design of the site.

Activate template generator

To activate or deactivate the template generator, use the following links:
Generator on
Generator off

Please note that is a very early beta release and there are likely to be bugs in the system which we need to iron out. If you encounter any problems, please post a link to your XML file (which you can download by going to ‘upload/save’ in the menu) in our forum. We can’t track any problems without the file.

Features

• No coding knowledge necessary
• Semantic markup
• No tables used for layout
• XHTML/CSS output
• Lean, non-bloated code base

Screenshot of the PixoPoint template generator

Testing out your design

Visit our example page to test out a range of different styles which you may have in your posts/pages. Or use the preview feature to see your theme without the editing bar in the way.

Saving your design

All users have the ability to save their designs, simply choose ‘Save’ in the ‘Upload/Save’ menu and you will be prompted to download an XML file containing all of the data used in your design. If you find any bugs or issues with your design, this file should be linked to in our support forum for our techs to look at. However, we need to make a living somehow and so we have limited the ability to re-upload your designs to our premium membership subscribers. As a premium member, you will be upload your design and edit as many times as you like. Everybody can still make the same designs, but only our premium members will be able to go back and edit theirs at a later date.

If you would like to make your design available to others to work from, please post it in our forum.

Export to WordPress

For detailed information please visit the Export to WordPress blog post.

Uploading images

There is currently no image uploader built into the template generator; this functionality will be added at a later date. In the mean time, you may link to any URL you like, the template generator will copy the image and place it inside the zip file with your theme. A handy tool to upload images is the WordPress admin panel, simply upload an image, copy the URL and enter it into the template generator. And also something about images, if you are looking for an image hosting service then web hosting companies recommended are listed in web hosting search. You can select the one which suits your requirement.

Future changes

A fleet of changes are intended in future releases of the template generator. These include integration of a variety of Ajax techniques, direct uploading of images to the template generator and support for other CMS’s as well as WordPress.

Support

If you require help with using the template generator, or would like to file a bug report then please visit our support forum. Note: We do not provide free support via email.

Implementation

Note: the following does not apply if you are using our Multi-level Navigation Plugin.
The CSS above will work on any unordered list with an ID of #suckerfishnav, ie:

<ul id="suckerfishnav">
<li><a href="">Tomato</a></li>
<li><a href="">Capsicum</a></li>
<li><a href="">Cucumber</a></li>
</ul>

Due to the inadequacies of older versions of Internet Explorer, it is advisable to download and integrate the “Suckerfish Javascript for Internet Explorer” code with your site. If you want your visitors to be able to access your menu with their keyboard, download the “Suckerfish Javascript for keyboard accessibility” code and include it too. Here’s is an example of the code used to include these two files into your web pages:

<script type="text/javascript" src="suckerfish_keyboard.js"></script>
<!--[if lte IE 6]>
<script type=”text/javascript” src=”suckerfish_ie.js”></script>
<![endif]–>

WordPress Plugin

We have released a new version of our Multi-level Navigation plugin with an option in the admin panel to enter the CSS from this page to generate a menu with the same style as on this page within your WordPress site.

Support

If you have any questions, suggestions or problems, please leave a message in our multi-level navigation support board.