Amazing Grace is a lightweight, super-optimized WordPress theme packed with features. It uses 3 column layout for maximum accessibility and small digital footprint for minimum bandwidth usage and loading times. Now updated for WordPress 3.0 support!
Features
- Modern styled, SEO Optimized, Clean, 3 columns, Photo-friendly, Widget ready
- Valid XHTML/CSS document
- WordPress 3.0+ support (threaded comments, menu navigation system)
- Optimized for speed and loading time
- Out of box full SEO optimization including titles and page headings
- Out of box Social networking support
- Customized 404 page
- Adsense ready
- Plus much more..
Few words on the theme
The name comes from a popular tune called Amazing Grace. It is my favorite tune and it exactly describes how I feel about this theme. Find more about this beautiful song in Amazing Grace Lyrics, Chords and Movie.
When a theme is in question, I prefer ease of use and speed above everything else. That is why Amazing Grace uses optimized images, excerpts on home page (it helps generate more page views too), no javascript and "you can't miss 'em" navigation menus.
Additionally, I have fully optimized the theme for SEO so you do not have to worry about it. Just write your best stuff and the theme will take care of everything else.
Built in social bookmarking include Digg and del.icio.us.
Regarding design, I have hired a very talented designer called Magnus Jepson who did the initial design. I have taken it from there and after few months the theme came to it's final representation.
Images
Images used in the themes are provided as example only and have been obtained through Internet wallpaper sites without any known copyright information. They may be copyrighted by their respectful owners.
Installation & Usage
- Unpack this archive in your wp-content/themes/ directory.
- Go to Admin WordPress and select presentation.
- Select Amazing Grace
- You can also use Theme Test Drive plugin to see how the theme looks with your content before going live with it
Customization
Everyone has a different taste and there are couple of easy customization changes you can do to change Amazing Grace to suit your needs.
If you did not find what you need you can check out my WordPress Forums.
- Make sure to check the Ultimate guide to Amazing Grace, and also part 2
- Change the colors - You can download Amazing Grace psd file and change the graphics to your liking
- Adding rotating images in header (version 2.0 of the theme and up already has this implemented)
- Create images you want to rotate and put them in your images/folder under the names bg-portait1.jpg, bg-portait2.jpg and so on.
- Open your style.css and remove background reference from #portrait-bg section
- Enter this code in your header.php just below the stylesheet line (one beginning with link rel="stylesheet")
<style type="text/css">
#portrait-bg { background: url(<?php bloginfo('template_directory'); ?>/images/bg-portrait<?php echo (rand()%69); ?>.jpg); }
</style>- Replace "69" with your maximum picture number
- Preparing rotating images - You can read this tutorial. Alternately you can download the instructions by Sven Niemetz for a more flexible solution.
- Show Full Entries/Excerpts on index page - If you want full entries replace the_excerpt() with the_content() and vice versa. Changes should be applied to index.php and archives.php
- Display categories - Theme will display four categories by default. If you have more then this, you need to edit file header.php, and find wp_list_categories (at the bottom). This function controls how your categories are shown. You can include or exclude certain categories. Full description of the command is available here.
- Display pages - Pages are displayed also in header.php. You need to find a line with wp_list_pages. This command also allows you to include and exclude pages to show and you can read full description here. Alternatively, you can remove the command and just list pages manually one by one in the same way the Home page is listed in the line above.
- Change archives and categories excerpts to full posts - Edit archive.php and change "the_excerpt" with "the_content"
- Add AdSense (or any other) ads - You can add your AdSense code to ad_middle.php. Easiest way to insert ads into sidebar is to create a text widget, paste the adsense code into it and palce it anywhere on your sidebar
- Display Social bookmark buttons - If you want to display social bookmarks buttons, edit function.php, and remove 'return;' at the beginning of the file.
- Different Social bookmark sites - It is little trickier but generally can be done by changes in functions.php. You will need some icons too.
- Download Plugins - Find out about all the plugins I use to help you customize the theme further.
Change log
- Aug 02nd, 2008, v2.4 - Compatibility with 2.6 (mostly CSS changes).
- Jul 06th, 2008 v2.0: Added many visual tweaks and gravatar support.
- Feb 19th, 2008 V1.2: Fixed search issue, changed stylesheet to reflect recent changes on the blog
- Jan 18th, 2008 v1.1: Added hover background for entry links; fixed footer link colors; maximum of five categories displayed by default; category drop down boxes styled
- Jan 13th, 2008 v1.0: Initial release
License
Amazing Grace theme is released under GPL License.
You may freely remove footer links if they bother you.
Reviews
- Very nice review by Ryan of Theme Playground
- Jaypee gave it a thumbs up at Jaypee Online
Services
See my WordPress Consulting Services page for more information and rates.
665 Comments
I like the theme, but for some reason, I can't implement it on my blog --- I keep getting a "white screen of death," so to speak.
The folders appear to be in the correct location. Any idea what the problem may be?
Solved the problem and removed halfinstalled files of the theme - It works now alright again in defaultmode again. I made a mistake not reading your instructions in the readmefile - started to load in the zipfile as it is...Moving on in learning curve!
Vladimir - I've upgraded to WP 2.7 w/o any problems..... do I need to download the latest version of Amazing Grace? - are there enhancements or changes that I need for WP2.7? Thanks!
I would suggest using latest version of Amazing Grace as it supports wp2.7 specific functions like nested comments, comment pages etc.
Tried to install via zipfile in WORDPRESS as usual
My worldpress choke up with warning
Do you have to be superexpert to use your products?
any advice
Ben
two questions. If is possible to make subpages, for example ABOUT the first subpage "comments about us" second sp "press realise"
and if is possible to modified for make a page with two or three columns.
I updated to WordPress 2.7 and the latest version of Amazing Grace is running smoothly. Thanks Vladimir... only one small gripe though. Did you change the dimensions of the column where posts go? All my embedded videos were off by about 5 or 10 pixels! It took me a while to fix the embed code on the videos... I'm not sure how to change the php for the theme. Anyhow, it's ok now, but PLEASE don't do it again! lol
This is a great theme for my site; thanks so much for making it available!
Sorry if this is on the site, and I'm just missing it. But for my specific needs, is there a way to make the entire post visible on the index page instead of just the post excerpts?
Gratefully,
T. Cristine
Hello,
Recently I switched to a new theme...so now I want to unsubscribe from these comments, but the subscription manager is not working for me...Could you maybe take my email off the lists? Thanks
Vladimir, thank you for such a great theme. I've been using it for about a week now for my photoshop blog. I love it and people think my site looks great, and I have you to thank for that.
Any hints on how to create dynamic menus for Amazing Grace?
Oh my! :-D Hadn't recognized this option on the new dashboard! :-D Thank you so much for your help! Your theme's really amazing, I'm now using it on theolobias.de. Thanks for the great work!
You need to enable nested comments in WP2.7 Settings
Thanks for the answer, Vladimir! I already do use "Amazing Grace for 2.7", but it doesn't seem to show the feature in the frontend. Do I have to change something via PHP/CSS?
Threaded comments is supported, but you need to download amazing grace for WP 2.7
Well, I was thinking about the "threaded comments"-issue in the first place - is this feature going to be implemented in upcoming versions?
I'm using 2.7 and the only thing I see as an issue is a slight problem with the footer. No big deal.
Best,
Dainis
Hey Vladimir!
Is there going to be 2.7-support? I really love this theme and would like to use it on my blog.
Best regards,
Tobias
this theme is perfect you must change the other colours
Vladimir,
I just found that it, that is caused my another plugin. :)
Nothing happens now.
Great theme I like it.
Sincerely,
Don
Hello Vladimir,
Thanks for this great theme, I use it with my new blog.
I have a question need to your help.
After I added the 'wp number pages' plugin and modefied orginal codes becoming to
but the theme also show the function:
Pages:Prev 1 2 3 4 Next <-- How can I modify the code and remove it?
below is the orginal codes:(index.php,archives.php,search.php)
Best Regards,
Don
Thanks for your work on this theme. It's pretty clean and easy to use. I changed the pics in the top corner following your directions and it worked like a charm.
-josey
I'm just wondering if this theme is compatible with the WP e-commerce plugin. I really like the look of Amazing Grace and hope it will work with the WP shopping cart.
Thanks for any help you can give me on this,
Christina
Hello, again, thank you very much.
your template is a great for look and feel and for seo resources. really is wonderful. thks thks.
if you want know my url, please ask of e.mail.
i don want put the url, because, you will be thinks this post is a spam, publicity, or seo post. and really not!!!!
only tellyou, thanks for all.
chris.
Ha! Found it. In the CSS-File there is a section that defines the max image width:
#sidebar img {
max-width:140px;
change to:
#sidebar img {
max-width:200px;
Hi, thanks for the theme, but can you help me with a small problem? I want to add an image to the sidebar. It is 200 pix wide, but when i add it to a textwidget, it will be shrinked to 140 pix. Could you help me?