How To Customize WordPress ‘Suffusion’ Theme – A Step By Step Guide

Feb 052013

12. Back-end

SEO/Meta Settings

(See what this means in the Glossary)
Force IE7 Compatibility View: “Don’t force compatibility mode”
Enable SEO settings for the theme? “Disable SEO” because we have installed the All-In-One SEO Pack plugin
Select Meta tags: “Select None” for now (that’s just my preference)(*See Meta Tags in the Glossary)
Title Style: “Show the page title followed by the blog title”
Title Separator: I would leave it with the >> symbol (this is what’s used in my breadcrumb)
Blog description/subtitle in page title on home page: I’ve selected “Hide blog subtitle in page title” (I may change this later).
Page numbers in title: “Include page number in the title on the second page and higher”
Homepage Meta Description and Homepage Meta Keywords: Leave blank

Comment Settings

Hide “Comment form closed” Message on Pages: “All, ignoring next option”
Select pages to hide “Comment form closed” message: Leave it blank
Hide “Comment form closed” Message on Posts: I personally prefer to “Hide the message”
Show Trackbacks and Pingbacks? “Show all Trackbacks and Pingbacks with comments”
Allow Replies for Trackbacks and Pingbacks? “Don’t allow replies to Trackbacks and Pingbacks”
Comment styles: “Theme default” for now
Comment form labels styles “Theme default” for now
Comment form labels: You can customize these as you wish. I do select “Hide message for Comment form: HTML Tags. I don’t need commenters to get fancy.

User Profiles

Select Additional Social Networks: I don’t select any because I am the only user.
Show author information for individual posts and pages: “Don’t show author information” because I am the only author, at least right now.
I leave the rest alone: Author information header, Author Gravatar, Gravatar Size, Gravatar AlignmentAuthor information content

Analytics

Enable Analytics? I leave the “Analytics not enabled” for now.
Custom Google Analytics Tracking Code Nothing for now.

OpenID Setup

(See Open ID in the Glossary)
enable OpenID support? “Open ID not enabled”
nothing else for: OpenID Server, OpenID Delegate

Custom Includes

I have included lots here, just because I am not yet confident with creating a “Child Theme.” If I end up doing more with “Child Themes” at a later time, I’ll let you know!
Custom Styles
Here’s exactly what I have included here to get the things that were not showing up after setting “skinning” and other selections:

body {
background-color: #E3E3E3;
}
#wrapper {
border: none;
margin-top: 0px;
}

#nav-top {
font-size: 18px;
border-bottom: none;
padding: 5px 10px 0px 10px;
}

.suf-widget{
background: #fff;
border: 2px solid #D1E0B1;
}

#nav {
font-size: 18px;
border-bottom: none;
padding-bottom: 5px;
}

.searchfield {
width: 24em; 160px;
padding: 4px 7px 2px 10px;
color: #948194;
moz-border-radius: 15px;
-webkit-border-radius: 15px;
border: 3px solid #8FA7C7;
background: #ffffff;
margin-top: 10px;
line-height: 1.2em;
font-size: 14px;
}

h1 a, h2 a, h3 a, h4 a, h5 a, h6 a {
color: #2157D6;
}

#page-footer, #cred {
border-top: none;
padding-bottom: 5px;
}

/*#cred td {
width: 33%;
}
*/

#cred td.cred-left {
text-align: left;
width: 0%;
}

#cred td.cred-center {
text-align: center;
width: 100%;
}

#cred td.cred-right {
text-align: right;
width: 0%;
}

table.exif td { padding: 0.25em 2em 0.2em 0; border-bottom: 0px solid #ccc;}

Modules

Disable Widgets

Site Optimization

Auto-generate CSS file for customization options
Minify generated CSS
Use “Lite” version of JQuery Cycle?

Child Themes

Inherit Styles?