This is the fourth day I’ve had this blog, Thesis Theme Tools, but that is a lie. Actually, it’s the first day, and I had another one called Thesis Tools built off a subdomain of my main blog Anxiety, Panic & Health, for three days.

A dumb mistake

Let me explain: Just today I got the domain name for this blog and set it up. Stupid me erased the subdomain before I got everything moved over, though I did have copies of my custom.css, custom_functions.php, images, and an article I had written.. I lost all my Thesis settings, the first 3 days’ posts, and a couple of widgets, but I think I got off pretty clean for such a dumb move.

Anyway, in these 4 days you can see that I’ve got the basic setup done, my button images and header made, the fat footer in, and a few widgets. I decided not to try to replicate the posts, because you don’t want to read them, and I’ve got better things to do.

Fortunately, I have the whole day (mostly) to tinker with TTT. So far I’ve:

• Set up the new domain, email, and installed WordPress 2.8 and Thesis 1.5.1.
• Copied over the custom files, and found and copied the images I had made. Also did a search-and-replace on the domain name in my custom_functions.php file (145 of them!) so things wouldn’t break.
• Made a new header image for TTT. It was the same size, so all I had to do is change the file name and it just worked — menu adjustments and all.
• Made new dummy pages so my button bars will work.
• Brought in some plugins and set them up.

Pretty good for 3 hours’ sleep, huh? So what’s to do after I take a nap? Here’s my list:

• Finish this post and get it up.
• Set up a FeedBurner account for Thesis Theme Tools.
• Set up Google Custom Search for Thesis Theme Tools.
• Decide where I want the search bar. I was thinking in the header, but it’s already pretty crowded. May just put it in the sidebar for right now. I do want to have a cute little spyglass, though.
• Work on the footer widgets more to get the fonts larger in the heading and body.
• Do my image-based RSS, email and Twitter for the sidebar that I lost. Fortunately, I’ve still got the images!
• Do more detailed planning of the menu tree. I’ve decided not to make dummy pages for all my planned documents, because users would get irritated if they clicked on something and it was just a placeholder.
• Replicate the tutorial on Contextual Submenus I lost in the move.
• Finish writing the tutorial on Image-Based Menus/Submenus. Try to think up a better name for it. Button Bar Menu/Submenu?
• Start writing content, such as the landing page and some content pages. I can take some of the latter from the DIY Snippets document where I keep some of the more common and/or long-winded replies on the DIYthemes Forum.
• Think and research what it would take to do video tutorials.
• Decide whether I want pictures on the blog and teasers. If I do, I need to contact HostGator about some necessary server setting changes for the teasers.

Is the design too garish and busy?

I’m concerned about the header. The design looked good as “Thesis Tools” but a bit crowded and busy using the same basic design for the current one. And I’m beginning to think that the whole color scheme looks a bit garish, what will all the different button colors. I actually do have a color scheme, and tried to get as close as I could to it with the button colors, but it’s hard when you have 8 of them. I’m still tinkering, so you may come back one day and it will be all different.

That’s enough for any day, especially since I need to spend some time on Anxiety, Panic & Health as well as visit the DIYthemes Forums a few times.

See you tomorrow!