WordPress theme: Paper Trail
I love it when business and pleasure coincide. I had to look into styling widgets today for an upcoming project, and decided to use my Paper Trail theme as test material. Turns out the markup of widgets gives you surprisingly (frustratingly) little to work with in terms of CSS. Still I managed to get the widgets to look like I wanted them to, thus completing the theme.
Paper Trail is a two column layout with fancy Flash post and blog titles.
- It requires Flash and Javascript (although it doesn’t break completely if these are missing). If your blog targets mobile users (for instance), this is not the theme for you.
- This is my first theme where I’ve paid any real attention to widget styling. Third party widgets may not look as intended. Chances are they will.
- Thanks to Geoff Stearns, the use of flash will not affect search engine ranking.
- The Flash titles contain complex algorithms that change things like line breaks and font size in order to best accommodate your post’s titles. Let me know if they act up. Using very long words in titles might render them unreadable.
- I’ll not be releasing the source code for the Flash movies. Mostly because I’m afraid you’ll laugh at me for my poor coding skills, but also because I fear you’ll ask me to explain how they work.
- Paper Trail was built for WordPress version 2.3, and will spend most if it’s time looking for missing things like tags on older versions (and not actually work).
- Because of limitations in the way Flash handles dynamic text the theme supports basic Latin characters only. Sorry about that.
If you want to give it a try, you can download it here.
This is the personal blog of Roy Tanck, designer, geek, entrepreneur and WordPress enthusiast. It's also the home of projects like 
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roytanck (813):
great looking theme. i really love the simplicity. does the fact that he headers are in flash kill any of the SEO?
Comment by Malan — March 13, 2008 @ 6:02 pm
@Malan: No it doesn’t. The theme uses SWFObject to provide alternative content (regular titles in this case) to non-flash users.
Comment by Roy — March 17, 2008 @ 12:37 pm
Hi Roy..
I just landed on your site and thought Wow I like the looks of this, the colors etc, and the cealniness of it.. then when I saw your theme was available to use I thought Yeaa..soo, I just downloaded it to give it a whirl but when I activated it and go to view the site, theres nothing there, just Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage, page not found sort of thing..
Im running it on xamps local server at the moment, do you think that could be the prob? ie does it need to be hosted to an online server for the flash to work etc?.
Thanks again for creating and sharing this great theme
Martin
Comment by Martin — March 17, 2008 @ 6:01 pm
Hi Martin. I can think of no reason why it wouldn’t work on a local server. This isn’t one of those themes that use all sorts of custom code. All it needs is WP 2.3 or better.
As for Flash, even if the movies fail miserably you should still see the other content. Are you sure everything is “uploaded” correctly? The zip should contain 12 files and a ‘pics’ folder with a single image.
Comment by Roy — March 17, 2008 @ 7:14 pm
Hi Roy,
Thanks for your reply!. and yeah its really strange, I cant figure it out either I checked and all the files are there. I de-activated all the plugins too but its still the same.. soo, I’m going to try it on my test domain and see what happenes there. I’m using 2.3.3 I think. Anyway, I will report back..
M
Comment by Martin — March 17, 2008 @ 8:37 pm
Hi Roy..
Heres an update (sorta). to the chase…
I did have another go at it, and some other things, but Its really strange I got no idea why it just shows as page not found. I’ve tried on both my local server and my test domain and looked through the code etc.. but Im clueless. soo.
I am going to keep at it, so I will keep you posted.. Thanks again!.
Martin
Comment by Martin — March 20, 2008 @ 2:01 am
Man Roy. Another great theme! Love it. Thanks.
Comment by Adrian — March 27, 2008 @ 5:39 am
I’m Vietnamese. I don’t speak well english.
title post not work with vietnamese. Can you fix this problem ? I like this theme
Comment by wOw!bloggiNE — March 28, 2008 @ 9:51 am
Hi Roy,
It seems that i am having the same issues as what Martin has.
For me, it was really weird. I’ve installed the theme on my blog and activated it.
THan it was fine. all things worked and it was great.
Than, just now, I went back to check out my blog, and the design doesnt show at all.
I’ve tried to uninstall the theme and and reinstalling it. And it doesnt work.
Not sure what happened.
WHat i see on my screen is just the right side bar, all in text, with no design elements.
On top, i get this :
so.addVariable(“tagcloud”, “”); so.write(“tagcloudflash”); // ]]> –>
So… not sure what’s wrong with it.
Any suggestions?
Best Regards,
Eugene
Comment by Eugene — May 19, 2008 @ 2:06 pm
oh i forgot, i’m using wordpress 2.5
Cheers.
Comment by Eugene — May 19, 2008 @ 2:07 pm
Hi Eugene. It appears you’re also using my WP-Cumulus plugin, which is causing trouble for some users. I’m still trying to find out why this happens, but for now I’d recommend you to disable it. PLease let me know if this restores your blog.
Strange thing is that I’m also at 2.5(.1), with this theme and use WP-Cumulus without issues…
Comment by Roy — May 19, 2008 @ 2:15 pm
hi it’s me again.
I was trying to fix the problem which I and martin is facing.
What i ddi was to deactivated all the plugins, and presto it works!.
Than i reactivated the plugins, one by one, and realised that there is one
plugin that seem to be incompatible with PaperTrail plugin. This plugin is
All in one SEO box.
But i suppose that would not be a big issue for people who are using Wordpress 2.5 isnce
the features provided in All in One SEO Pack (tagging feature) is generally provided for in Wordpress
2.5
Hope this helps,
Cheers.
Comment by Eugene — May 19, 2008 @ 2:21 pm
Actually, I have the All In One SEO Pack plugin installed here as well…
Comment by Roy — May 19, 2008 @ 2:25 pm
I just found a major error in this theme, and have fixed it. Please download it again if you’re having any problems. Sorry about this.
Comment by Roy — May 20, 2008 @ 1:24 pm
Hey, really cool theme.
Any chance of releasing the flash source if I ask super duper nice??!
Just want to change the colors.
puh puh puh please….
Comment by Max — June 5, 2008 @ 5:29 pm
Hi Max. What would you like to change exactly?
Comment by Roy — June 6, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
Hi Roy,
very unique and nice theme but the sidebar drops down below the main content in IE6 (on a 1024px screen), on both your blog here and my test blog
Comment by Ata — July 8, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Hi Ata. Are you using IE6? I’ve seen the effect you’re describing happen on older browsers. I’ll have to look into this, but unfortunately, I’m quite busy at the moment…
Comment by Roy — July 10, 2008 @ 2:19 pm
Hey,
Nice theme. I was just wondering whether a browser not supporting flash would throw in alternate text or just a blank? Like lets say a iPhone browsing this page. What would happen?
Comment by Rohitbalasub — July 12, 2008 @ 9:10 pm
Hi Rohitbalasub. It throws in alternate texts, but thos currently do not look very nice. If you’re targeting a mobile audience, this is not the theme for you.
Comment by Roy — July 13, 2008 @ 7:17 am
Do your headings support fixes for widows?
Comment by Pasquale — July 17, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
Hi Pasquale. I’m not quite sure what you mean…
Comment by Roy — July 17, 2008 @ 2:14 pm
http://shauninman.com/archive/2006/08/22/widont_wordpress_plugin
Comment by Pasquale — July 23, 2008 @ 12:17 pm
Hi Pasquale. Ah I see. No the titles don’t have a specific fix for widowed words, but the Flash movie does try to create lines of the same length, which could end up widowing all words or none.
Comment by Roy — July 23, 2008 @ 3:11 pm
Great theme !
I’m curious about your title.swf ? Is the source available ? If i want change the fonts ? so if you can tell me… thank’s !
Comment by Sebus — July 25, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
@sebus: No, I’m not currently releasing the source file for the titles. Sorry about that. I’m getting a lot of support requests for my themes, and releasing the Flash files will likely open the floodgates because the code is rather ‘fragile’…
Comment by Roy — July 27, 2008 @ 10:34 am
Roy, Been using Papertrail since pretty shortly after you released it and only just recently have the need (read desire) to add a custom header image. I dabble with the php-files on a lot of other themes, but am not sure where to begin with papertrail. ?
Is this possible?
Thank you,
Pablo
Comment by Pablo DiCiacco — August 24, 2008 @ 10:53 am
Mr. Tanck,
Q: I have created a custom page for use with a flickr album, but it does not appear as an option when I post the page. Also, can the page be stripped of the header and sidebar?
Thank you,
Pablo
Comment by Pablo DiCiacco — September 3, 2008 @ 7:27 am
Thank you for this theme. It is great!
Question: can I change the color of the post headline?
Thank you!
Comment by Cristi — September 4, 2008 @ 12:40 pm
HEY IM TRYING TO MAKE MY ARTICLES SHOW ONLY THE EXCERPT ON THE HOMEPAGE, ANY HELP WOULD BE APPRECIATED….
Comment by salim — September 20, 2008 @ 9:23 am
Hi Roy! Any chance to change the color of the post titles from black to something else?
I tried to add here the “colour” element but it is not working:
.storytitle {
width: 240px;
height: 240px;
float: left;
color: #bb0000;
}
Any help will be appreciated! Thank you!
Comment by Lorentz — September 28, 2008 @ 7:05 pm
Hi Lorentz. The color is pretty much fixed for now. If I ever find the time to do an updated version of this theme it might include a setting for colors, but since the titles are all Flash it’s something that I need to build into the movies.
Comment by Roy — September 30, 2008 @ 9:41 am
OK. I hope you will get some time to give us an updated version of the Papertrail
I have another question: if I am trying to insert an image in the beginning of the post, the image will go bellow the post title – even it has the right dimensions to fin near to it! Any clue about how I can fix this?
Thank you in advance!
Comment by Lorentz — October 3, 2008 @ 6:33 pm
@lorenz: This doesn’t happen on my blog. I usually choose ‘none’ when WordPress asks me how to align the image. This may be needed to get the image to align properly.
Comment by Roy — October 3, 2008 @ 7:47 pm
just to say thanks, really nice theme
Comment by alberto d'ottavi — October 13, 2008 @ 10:41 am
Thanks for the post. Poznovatelno.
Comment by Faina — November 6, 2008 @ 2:58 am
Hi Roy and thanks for a great theme.
I do have two problems though: at the bottom of the page it doesn’t link to older posts, it links to newer posts. Or atleast it says that it does but if you click it you end up in the archives as you’re supposed to. I cannot find where to change that?
And if I would like to have a picture on the “inside” of the posttitle, how do I do it then?
Thanks again!
Comment by Anna — December 16, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
Hey Roy. Your theme is amazing. It’s just what I was looking for since I started blogging. Although (there is always an although
) I miss a single.php file. I want to insert Google Ads in the posts, but I don’t want them to appear in the index. I only want them to appear when viewing the post’s page.
Can you help with that? If you know any PHP crazy magic trick that could help me, please, answer me.
And another little problem: I just cannot implement Gravatars in the comment form. Is someone having the same problem?
Comment by Fábio Buchecha — December 28, 2008 @ 6:17 am
Hi Fabio. You can simply create a copy of the index.php template, name that single.php and edit it to you liking. There are also conditional tags (see http://codex.wordpress.org/Conditional_Tags#A_Single_Post_Page) that let you show stuff on single pages only, so that might be another route.
Comment by Roy — December 28, 2008 @ 8:57 am
Thank’s Roy! With the conditional tags I solved that problem
And about the Gravatars? Can help me with that?
I know I’m asking too much, but my old theme (with Gravatars built in) was just too ugly compared to yours.
Comment by Fábio Buchecha — December 28, 2008 @ 11:04 pm
Roy! Don’t worry about my Gravatars. I just solved the problem. Thank’s for the attention
Comment by Fábio Buchecha — December 29, 2008 @ 4:05 am
Hey! Is there a limit on the size of a post?
I had problems with my first post but solved it by going into html mode then publishing… after that though, all my posts are cut off around 180 characters or so.
I need mine to be a bit longer than that.
Thanks.
Comment by Anthony — February 4, 2009 @ 10:28 pm
Hi!
Nice work. What’s the name of the font used for titles please ?
Thanks.
Comment by TiBo — February 6, 2009 @ 12:15 am
@TiBo: That’s Boton. Love that font.
Comment by Roy — February 6, 2009 @ 9:25 am
“very unique and nice theme but the sidebar drops down below the main content in IE6 (on a 1024px screen), on both your blog here and my test blog”
Geez.. I spent 2 hrs trying to find out what I did wrong before seeing this comment above. Still no fix? Everybody I work with uses this browser (company mandated).
Comment by jeff — February 10, 2009 @ 11:08 pm
The quickest fix is to reduce the main column’s width a little. I don’t currently have this theme installed, so I can’t really talk you through it. Please look for the #content class in the styles.css file and change the 720px to 700px and see if that helps.
Comment by Roy — February 11, 2009 @ 10:45 am
Hello again Roy – still adore this theme but am having trouble adding widgets. I tried to add a ‘Recent posts’ widget which worked fine but it stripped out all other side bar info. Any idea what causes this?
Comment by Liz Hover — February 25, 2009 @ 4:25 am
Hi Liz. Did you use WordPress’ built-in recent comments widget? I have to admit I was very new to the whole widget thing when I did this theme, but the ones that come with WP shouldn’t break it. The side column may have become too wide, pushing everything else down. Unfortunately that is a common issue with this theme.
Comment by Roy — February 25, 2009 @ 3:38 pm
Hi Roy – Essentially some plugins and widgets work and others don’t. I’ll fumble through. I really love this theme. Thank you again for making it available. I’ve fiddled around with margins and padding and got the layout looking how I want it.
Comment by Liz Hover — February 28, 2009 @ 11:44 pm
Roy – I love this theme enormously. I’ve worked out my differences with the widgets. I’ve made it mine. I thank you for your design. My only fear is that you won’t upgrade the next time WordPress does their thing. Tell me you will and I won’t have to grovel to my code friends?
Comment by Liz Hover — April 12, 2009 @ 7:19 am
I’m sorry Liz. I consider this theme to be EOL (‘end of life’). It was experimental to begin with, and I don’t have the time to update themes when WordPress does their thing (as they indeed do). When I released my other three themes, things were still relatively simple, and they’d continue to function over many WP versions. Nowadays that’s no longer so, which is the main reason I don;t do themes anymore. They’re even harder to support than plugins are, and most of the good ones are complicated applications instead of simple design templates like they used to. And I’m not sure this is a good thing.
Comment by Roy — April 14, 2009 @ 8:35 am
Love this theme so far. Thanks.
Comment by Mike — June 23, 2009 @ 5:13 am
Hello, I like very much your theme and I have a question.
How to change the flash file transparent?
Thak you.
Comment by Sergio — July 28, 2009 @ 12:57 pm
That’s good man, keep it going.
Comment by amenodimeno — July 31, 2009 @ 6:45 pm
how about wordpress 2.8.4?
Comment by mancai — August 25, 2009 @ 8:29 pm
Paper Trail has been long abandoned, and running it under 2.8.4 is not recommended I think.
Comment by Roy — August 26, 2009 @ 9:29 am