Table of Contents
stripShow's powerful organization and comic-entry features are only good for so much. You will also need a means of presenting your comic to the people; you need a theme.
Nearly all webcomics creators will want to have a custom theme for their site. You don't want to run the risk of having a site that looks identical to some other comic out there. But having a solid starting point is essential, which is why stripShow includes a theme framework. Whereas previous versions of stripShow included an example theme which was based on ComicPress, with a lot of my own additions, stripShow 2.0 includes a new theme framework called stripShow Sandbox.
stripShow Sandbox is, as the name implies, based on Sandbox, one of the best-known theme frameworks for WordPress.[6] stripShow Sandbox provides a robust PHP and HTML framework for your pages, which can then be fully styled using CSS.
stripShow Sandbox can be found in your stripShow installation in the folder example-themes. In Chapter 2, Installation, I recommended that you copy this theme (renaming it in the process) into your themes folder. Keep the original around in case one of the changes you make messes things up beyond repair. Never be afraid to mess things up beyond repair, it's part of what makes web design fun.
The stripShow Sandbox theme comes with several different layout options.
Dropdown navigation menu, linking to all WordPress pages, with support for parent and child pages
Context-aware classes added to body and post elements.
Four widget-ready areas -- two sidebars, a sidebar just for comics, and a header support area for things like advertisements.
Highly-configurable "action zones" that you can use to add content to your page without touching the core template files.
Works with stripShow's comic-orientation metadata to automatically format your page based on whether the comic is horizontal or vertical in form. This allows you to mix comic shapes in a single archive without sacrificing attractive layout for one or the other.