Bulbous, Not Tapered

Introduction

WuCoco is a simple, meditative theme for WordPress 2.x, available with one-column, two-column, or three-column layouts. You can view screenshots (one-column, two-column, three-column) of the theme when viewed under Firefox.

Update 2010-06-28: WuCoco has had a long and useful life, but I’m not planning further updates at this point. At the time of this writing, the theme does work well with recent versions of WordPress (tested most recently with 2.9.2), but may not support recent features like threaded comments. As WordPress advances, WuCoco will continue to fall out of sync with new development unless another maintainer steps forward. Let me know via the support mailing-list if you’d like to become the new maintainer. Although I won’t be taking a leadership role in development anymore, I’m happy to provide support in getting a new maintainer situated.

Features

• One, Two, and Three column layouts
• Valid XHTML 1.0 Transitional and CSS, substantively compliant with Section 508 accessibility guidelines
• Compatible with Wordpress 2.x (Thanks to Scot Herrick for testing WP 2.3)
• Widgets support in the two-column and three-column themes
• Information-rich archives
• Tested in Firefox 2.x/1.x, Opera 9.x, Safari 2.x, and Internet Explorer ⁶⁄₇

Download

Download the current versions of the one-column layout, the two-column layout, three-column layout, or the image sources in Gimp XCF format. Download legacy versions by visiting the announcement page linked in the changelog below.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why do you use javascript to make it more difficult to edit the linkbacks in footer.php?

I don’t, you probably downloaded WuCoco from a third-party theme repository that has modified the theme to include their own obfuscated linkbacks. The official release of the theme that you can download from this page is completely human-readable and human-editable with no jscript obfuscation. It does include linkbacks to wordpress.org and this site by default, but you’re welcome to remove those links if you wish. See the License section of this page for details.

If you’re seeing unexplained obfuscated javascript on your own site, it’s also possible that you’re having a security incident. MediaTemple has a decent KBase artcile on fixing an infected website. It’s fairly difficult, though, consider hiring someone competent to help you.

After I add content to my site, the columns expand/overlap in IE6. What’s up?

Some of your content is “too wide”. IE6 doesn’t cope well with content that is wider than its containing column, and you need to resize your content so that it fits into the available content area without overflowing. Common culprits are photos, youtube videos, and plugins. In the two and three column themes, post content can be up to 410 pixels wide. In the one column theme, post content can be up to 700 pixels wide.

Can I pay you to add a feature to WuCoco or create a customized version for my site?

Sure. I bill $50/hr (with a two hour minimum even if a project is very small). Since WuCoco makes use of GPL code written by others, any derivatives I make must also be licensed under the GPL. For feature development contracts, that means your feature will be rolled into the public distribution and made available to everyone. For design customizations, your custom theme is still licensed to you under the GPL (copyright cannot be assigned to you, since I don’t own all the code), but won’t be distributed to anyone but you. Ask up front if you have GPL concerns, it’s typically not an issue though.

Can I pay you to include advertising links to my site in WuCoco?

Nope. Theme sponsorship is generally detrimental to the health of the web (which depends on links relating to information value, not monetary exhange), and typical prices for sponsorship deals reflect a market which is exploitative of independent theme developers who are often ignorant of the very high advertising value offered by a link in a popular theme (hint: it’s at least an order of magnitude higher than what you were planning to offer).

Why didn’t you answer my email? Because you didn’t follow the guidelines in bugs and feedback.

Bugs and Feedback

Join the WuCoco-Users mailing list and post a message. The list is currently set up as a Google Group, and you must join to post. Contact me if you’re aware of a better mailing list provider or if you know how to configure a Google Group to accept members who don’t have Google accounts. Please don’t post support questions as blog comments any more, there’s too much traffic to be readable these days.

I get many support requests regarding WuCoco, and as much as I like to be helpful I am not able to answer every question. You can mimize your chances of being ignored by clearly articulating the nature of your problem and including in your initial post all the relevant information that will help me offer a solution. Keep in mind that I typically spend less than 90 seconds reading a support request, if I don’t understand your issue at that point you probably won’t get another look. I also tend to pay more attention to questioners that have clearly made an effort to solve their issue independently before asking for help, and I mercilessly ignore support requests sent to my personal email address.

Changelog

• 09/25/2006, 0.10.2 released: Fixed several issues, including rendering of comments in IE6.
• 07/31/2006, 0.10.1 released: Fixed layout in IE7.
• 07/19/2006, 0.10.0 released: Added three-column layout. Switched to more flexible layout strategy (it’s now easy to change column widths, or to have independent column heights)
• 06/06/2006, 0.9.0 released: Clean archives, author comment highlighting, code refactoring, and bugfixes. This version is also known as 0.5.0.
• 04/25/2006, 0.4.3 released: Documentation updates.
• 03/11/2006, 0.4.2 released: Added two-column layout. Performed code cleanup and small layout fixes. Released image sources as xcf’s.
• 03/09/2006, 0.4.1 released: Converted to one column, fancied up the header, moved navigation into the header.

License

WuCoco is released under the GPL. You’re free to use it and adapt it to your needs at no cost. Although there’s no obligation, I do ask that if you do use and enjoy the theme that you send a link back to this page.

Credits

• Javascript to match column-heights adapted from the Matching Columns Script by Stefan Mischook.
• Development of three-column version generously sponsored by Soulpress.net.
• Column layout based on the Octopus Engine by Dragon Labs.
• Archives code adapted from the Clean Archives plugin maintained by Shawn Grimes (which is an update of code originally written by Sebastian Schmieg for his Blix Theme).
• Javascript and CSS code for the searchbox were adapted from Gespaa, by Phu Ly.
• WuCoco is originally derived from Wuhan, by Meng Gao (itself a descendent of Kubrick, which was originally written by Michael Heilemann but has had many contributors since).