Retro-inspired TextPattern theme

agovella · 2025-06-28 17:49:55

After last week’s look for the classic theme, I decided to branch off a little bit and create a retro-inspired blog theme for Textpattern. It takes cues from Textism, Cardigan Industries, and the classic Textpattern theme.

I’d love any feedback and criticism. What looks off? What’s missing? What do you just not like? What would be cool to have?

Here’s the deets: This is the homepage, everything is dynamic (Site name, slogan, publisher, category list). Archive, Links, Contact, and Search all go to new pages.

Last edited by agovella (2025-06-28 17:50:27)

jakob · 2025-06-29 07:20:07

Nice. Does the links menu item show anything different to the links in the right-hand sidebar?

agovella wrote #339929:

I’d love any feedback and criticism. What looks off? What’s missing? What do you just not like? What would be cool to have?

It’d be cool to have some image/video width classes in the css to indent / outdent or full-width images / figure elements. I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but there are various tutorials for that online depending on how you have set up your css.

Another idea: if you style your base styles using CSS custom properties, you can allow the theme user to change the styling by putting overrides in a Presentation › Styles stylesheet (e.g. @:root { —body-font: font-name; } and assigning that stylesheet to the relevant section in Presentation › Sections.

Bloke · 2025-06-29 08:04:21

That’s lovely and clean. Fab work to update the classic elements of the design.

Edit: P.S. from a branding perspective, it’s Textpattern, lower case ‘p’ :)

Last edited by Bloke (2025-06-29 08:05:55)

bici · 2025-06-29 23:19:29

Congratulations! I am looking forward to trying out your theme.

It’d be cool to have some image/video width classes in the css to indent / outdent or full-width images / figure elements.

I agree, this should be nice to have

Any chance that the default fonts also be larger to take advantage of screen sizes… unless you think this would stray too far from the classic theme.

agovella · 2025-06-30 02:04:31

jakob wrote #339933:

Nice. Does the links menu item show anything different to the links in the right-hand sidebar?

Links in the right-hand sidebar are from a single category. The Links page would show all links in all categories. Thinking we could make it conditional, so it only appears if there is more than one category of links available.

It’d be cool to have some image/video width classes in the css to indent / outdent or full-width images / figure elements. I’m sure you know what you’re doing, but there are various tutorials for that online depending on how you have set up your css.

I thought about this, but on this homepage, the sidebars constrain the column width. Maybe on the article detail screens, we can do this because it’d be nice to give horizontal images plenty of breathing room to extend beyond the text column.

Last edited by agovella (2025-06-30 02:04:50)

agovella · 2025-06-30 02:07:32

bici wrote #339937:

Any chance that the default fonts also be larger to take advantage of screen sizes… unless you think this would stray too far from the classic theme.

The default font size is 22px now, but maybe we can make it proportional to the browser width on desktop (and something sensible on mobile). That way, no matter the size of your desktop, the page is really fully responsive. I’ll have to poke at the math and the new CSS units to see what’s possible.

jakob · 2025-06-30 07:57:57

agovella wrote #339943:

The default font size is 22px now, but maybe we can make it proportional to the browser width on desktop (and something sensible on mobile).

See Utopia for a fully-fledged solution, but there are, of course, simpler ways.

Bloke · 2025-07-01 06:41:17

jakob wrote #339947:

See Utopia for a fully-fledged solution

And this is why I love this forum. Thanks to the above link, I’ve just learned of the clamp() function about five years after everyone else. Mind blown.

I’m off to remove all the media queries from my stylesheets… 😆

bici · 2025-07-01 15:43:31

Bloke wrote #339949:

I’ve just learned of the clamp() function about five years after everyone else. Mind blown.

it is indeed mind-blowing. But I need help in understanding

font-size: clamp(2rem, 5vw + 1rem, 4rem)

what does rem and vw mean – in old terms?

Bloke · 2025-07-01 16:10:26

bici wrote #339950:

what does rem and vw mean – in old terms?

expertbeacon.com/learn-css-units-em-rem-vh-and-vw-with-code-examples/

phiw13 · 2025-07-01 23:04:29

agovella wrote #339929:

After last week’s look for the classic theme, I decided to branch off a little bit and create a retro-inspired blog theme for Textpattern. It takes cues from Textism, Cardigan Industries, and the classic Textpattern theme.

[…]

Is there a site where I can see your theme in action ? Did I miss the link?

agovella · 2025-07-01 23:35:49

phiw13 wrote #339952:

Is there a site where I can see your theme in action ? Did I miss the link?

No link yet. I posted a mockup in the first post to get feedback from the group.

I welcome any thoughts, ideas, criticism, etc.

Textpattern CMS

Textpattern CMS support forum

#1 2025-06-28 17:49:55