{"id":2250,"date":"2007-04-16T22:06:40","date_gmt":"2007-04-16T16:36:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2007\/04\/switched-from-2-to-3-column-wordpress-theme-easily\/"},"modified":"2014-03-10T13:41:41","modified_gmt":"2014-03-10T08:11:41","slug":"switched-from-2-to-3-column-wordpress-theme-easily","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/2007\/04\/switched-from-2-to-3-column-wordpress-theme-easily\/","title":{"rendered":"Switched from 2 to 3 Column WordPress Theme Easily"},"content":{"rendered":"

I modified my WordPress template from 2 columns to a\u00a03 column wordpress theme<\/strong> today. As more stuff was available to add to my WordPress blog, the long time 2 column theme was limiting the blog growth. Check out the new format as I now talk about the benefits of 3 columns<\/strong> and how I converted it easily.<\/p>\n

3 Column Themes<\/h3>\n

The easiest way was to select a new WordPress theme, upload by ftp to the themes folder and switch to the new theme in one click! But I was trying to find a simple solution to convert from 2 columns to 3 columns without switching to an entirely new wordpress theme, as that would require lots of tweaking to customize the blog again to a familiar feel.<\/p>\n

I decided to use CSS to split the sidebar into two columns<\/strong> rather than use tables. I found some amazing 3-column wordpress themes out there and studied the CSS style sheets of these themes to arrive at a simple solution. I created two columns with fixed widths (via div tags) within the sidebar and float-ed them right and left. Fill in the content and its done. I just needed to edit the CSS stylesheet and sidebar.php, nothing more. Remember to backup the original file before tweaking it.<\/p>\n

I also got the flexibility to add full width sidebar links for my latest posts and even fitted in a 336px width Chitika unit. I could easily break away from the 2 split css columns by using the “clear:both” tag in another full width div box.<\/p>\n

Now I can hopefully attract some Blogads advertisers<\/strong> by placing these ads in a premium top right sidebar position above the fold (which I am told Blogads guys really like). If I manage to get some Blogads advertisers, these large ads can easily align along the side without affecting the links to my search and feed subscription options which I want to stay on top also. I now have more space to fit in the long list of categories and archives links. The scrolling has reduced as I fit in more content is a smaller space.<\/p>\n

A disadvantage of the 3 columns is that the effective width of the blog has increased<\/strong> and readers with 800×600 screen resolutions (used by around 7-8% of my readers) now get some horizontal scrolling to do.<\/p>\n

Can you believe this was originally a Blix theme which I have heavily customized over the last year. You don’t need a professional web designer to make your design unique, you just need to modify the CSS really well. What are your thoughts on the new wordpress design? Maybe I should add a dash of more color…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I modified my WordPress template from 2 columns to a\u00a03 column wordpress theme today. As more stuff was available to…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[6,36],"tags":[17],"class_list":["post-2250","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blogging","category-about","tag-wordpress"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2250"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2250\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.quickonlinetips.com\/archives\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}