I’ve loved the Kiwi theme created by the boys over at No One’s Listening for a long time now. As in, ever since I found it circa 2005, a long time. It was a great theme, with a unique layout and useful plugins. The green/black/white color scheme wasn’t what I liked, but these things are easily fixed. I even once hacked the theme to call a triple loop to create an effect my now-husband wanted for his webcomic/blog. (I’d provide a link, but it’s no longer in use.) That was probably the most complex project I’d done up until that point.
When they released Kiwi 2.0 with Canvas, I was majorly excited. Except, as new things are wont to do, it was sorta buggy for a long time. It was still interesting, and I remain impressed with their efforts in creating Canvas in the first place. Canvas enabled drag-and-drop functionality for compatible themes, allowing you to rearrange (and redesign) all aspects of WordPress with no coding needed. It was a huge project, and useful to that part of the WordPress community who are just bloggers as opposed to blogger/designers.
However, Canvas was put up for adoption in October of 2006. I was bummed. Canvas needed work. I didn’t have the experience at the time or the resources to do anything about it. So, disappointed, I started looking for other cool things to do with my blog. It was the lack of support for Canvas that prompted me to start coding my own themes from scratch, rather than simply hacking the ones I found online. So I thank them for that at least.
Now that I have some themes under my belt, I felt it was time to give Kiwi another try, and sort of make it my own. Yeah, I could’ve done a layout just like it myself, but Kiwi has some useful functions. Why reinvent the wheel? So I’ve picked it apart to create the theme you see here now.
What have I changed?
- The color scheme has gone from green/black/white to wine, grey, white, and black.
- The SubPosts section (recent posts/elsewhere) has gotten a new look.
- An overhaul of the Sidebar. New clothes!
- A custom header and icons (Courtesy of Bohemian Art Labs).
- Theme and function files have been updated to be WordPress 2.1 compatible.
- I’ve gotten rid of some needless junk in the files. (Needless for me, that is.) Namely, extra author header images and such.
- MyAvatar plugin compatible.
- I’ve given it a new name: Kiwi-Cranberry!
Before the questions start: No, I will not be redistributing this theme. If Yas and the gang wanted Kiwi updated for WordPress 2.1 and released to the public, I’m sure they could do it themselves. I’m fairly new to the development side of the WordPress community, and I don’t want to step on any toes.
The full header image can be found here. It was made exclusively for me by Bohemian Art Labs. It is © Waiting For Fairies, and it is not for download or redistribution.
You’ll appreciate your own compliance with this aspect, as there has been a curse placed on the image. If you attempt to download it you will wake up on the third night amidst an army of evil monkeys flinging foul-smelling poo around your bed chamber. If you attempt to redistribute it, the monkeys will hunt down you and your family. Please, respect the monkeys. Don’t steal.