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Today we have a feature-packed WordPress theme called RS14. The template was originally designed by Roshan of Rambling Soul, which I then ported to WordPress. It has two widgetized sidebars, Gravatar support, tag support on single posts. There is also a options page as well as two custom page templates, more info on which will be gone over after the jump. This theme would be great for a business or company site, and I’ll show you how to use it for that below.

Live Demo | Download

And now more information on the theme options page, custom page templates, and more…

Theme Options

Like I mentioned above, the RS14 has a theme options page, on which you can control a number of layout-related options. Here’s a screenshot:

Now, let me explain what each of the options does exactly.

Header

• Exclude Pages: Pretty self explanatory. If you have any top level pages you would like to exclude from the page navigation menu, simply input a comma separated list of page ID numbers here.
• Include Home Link: Disabled by default. This might be useful if you have a main index of posts on your front page and want the “Home” link to show up in your page navigation.
• Page ID of First Link: If you have the “Home” link disabled, you might want to input the page ID of the first page that shows up in your list here. This will eliminate the left border on the first link of the page menu.
• Right Description: Overrides the text where you currently see “Put a Nice Little Description Here.” Can use <span class='bigger'> for bigger text. Make sure to use single quotes.
• Right Box Title: Overrides the green title which currently says “Put Some Contents Here” over in the box on the right side of the header.
• Right Box Text: Overrides the text that is currently inside the box on the right side of the header.
• Right Box Read More Link: Disabled by default. Enter a full URL in here if you want a “Read More” link to appear.

Main

• Main Index Heading: This will override what currently says “latest news” on the main index page. Can use <span class='green'> for green text. Make sure it’s in single quotes.
• Sidebar Heading: This will override what currently says “browser news” on the blog’s sidebar. Can use <span class='green'> for green text. Make sure it’s in single quotes.

Custom Page Templates

As mentioned above, this theme has two custom page templates included. There is a “two column sidebar” template along with a “three column sidebar” template. These are used if you would rather not have the default sidebar on your static pages, which usually display the category and archive lists (or whatever you set your widgets to). You can see these page templates in action on the demo site.

The first step is to select which custom page template you’d like to use from the “Template” dropdown list on the left. Both of these are configured through custom write panels available on the Add New Page menu. Here’s what it looks like:

And here’s what the options mean:

• Page Heading Override: This option lets you override the page title. Can use <span class='green'> for green text. This also works on regular page templates as well.
• Sidebar Heading: This option lets you override the sidebar headings on the custom page templates. Can use <span class='green'> for green text.
• Column Thumbnails: If you want to use a thumbnail in a certain column, input the full URL to it here. Below are some included thumbnail images you can use.
• Column Titles: This is where you put the title to the columns.
• Column Text: This is where you put the content for the various columns.
• Column Read More: If you want a “read more” link displayed, enter the URL you want to link to here.

If you’re using the “Two Columns” template, you can ignore all the options which refer to “Three Columns” and vice versa.

Remember, you don’t need a blog on your front page, and that is especially true for this theme. I currently have the “Three Column Sidebar” template set up on my homepage with some thumbnail images included in the theme.

Included Images

If you want some generic thumbnail images to use in your posts, and custom sidebars, there are a few included in the theme.

Image	URL
	http://yourwordpressurl/wp-content/themes/wp-rs14/images/img1.gif
	http://yourwordpressurl/wp-content/themes/wp-rs14/images/img2.gif
	http://yourwordpressurl/wp-content/themes/wp-rs14/images/img3.gif
	http://yourwordpressurl/wp-content/themes/wp-rs14/images/product1.gif
	http://yourwordpressurl/wp-content/themes/wp-rs14/images/product2.gif
	http://yourwordpressurl/wp-content/themes/wp-rs14/images/product3.gif

There are also a couple pictures of Tony Montana and Vito Corleone, but you probably wouldn’t want to use those on a professinal business site. You can check those out on the “About” page of the RS14 demo site.

Widget Areas

As mentioned above, there are two widgetized sidebars with one on the left and one on the right. These are visible on the main index, single posts, archives, search results, and normal page templates. In addition to the two widgetized sidebars, there is also a widgetized 404 page.

Conclusion

For those following me on Twitter, thanks for being so patient. I know I’ve been tweeting about this theme for a couple weeks now, but I just wanted to make sure everything was ready before it was released. This may not be my most advanced theme coding-wise, but it probably is options-wise. I actually had to set up a whole new demo site for this theme, which is a first for me.

This theme took me a long time to port and get everything right, coding in all the CMS theme features and such. I have been listening to your feedback and I hope this isn’t just another “boring blog theme” although I will try to mix it up between CMS themes and blog themes in the future.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this theme in the comments. Although, if you have any support-related questions, please post them in the forums and not ask via e-mail.

Oh yeah, and there’s some big news tomorrow. Some of you who have been following this blog for at least a year might know what I’m talking about, so if you do – try to keep it a secret.

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