Cimy Header Image Rotator and the Twenty Ten Theme

Update Note: This piece referred to older versions of WordPress and Cimy Header plugin. With the arrival of WordPress 3.1 and version 4 of the Cimy Header plugin some of the details have changed but the basic idea will still work 😉 You are looking for:

// Houston, we have a new header image!
echo get_the_post_thumbnail( $post->ID );
elseif ( get_header_image() ) : ?>

Insert your amendments here

This was the original post:

With the recent arrival of the very wonderful WordPress 3 comes a neat new default theme called Twenty Ten which you are now looking at. Within the theme’s clean and simple layout there are plenty of options for tweaking for that individual touch. I had added an image to the header (and other featured images to head individual pages) but after snapping some passing clouds (get it?) and the occasional [wikipop]paraglider[/wikipop] while sunbathing, I wanted the header image to cycle through several images (as above)…

[Note: If you only want to rotate through the images supplied with the theme try the Twenty Ten Header Rotator plug in]

Enter the Cimy Header Image Rotator plug in which looked like it was up to the job but needed some simple tweaking to fit in with the Twenty Ten theme. This is what I did…

Once the plugin is installed and activated you need to create a folder as detailed in the documentation. In the WordPress Settings section you can adjust the speed of image change and the duration of the fade etc. Set the width and height to the theme’s default 940 x 198.

In the Appearance section select the Editor and then click Header from the list on the right. It may be a good idea to select all the contents of header.php, copy it and save it in a text document somewhere safe. Then when it all gets screwed up you can put the original code back 😉

The given code to insert is:

Loading images...


which we want to insert into the header code to replace:

which can be found between an

else : ?>

and a

towards the bottom.

My code ended up looking like:

Which amounted to removing the Loading images text, moving the NoScript bit up to the top – this kicks in if the visitor does not have JavaScript enabled so provide a link to some image that will load for them, and editing the Style section thus…

The rotating images will probably align with the right hand column in the theme and hang off the page to the right – the clear: both; will bring them back onto the page. The border top and bottom keeps the look the same as the standard Twenty Ten theme image and ties in with the menu under the image. The width and height are corrected to the theme’s default values.

And that was that.

Update: This will all be broken when you update to the new versions of WordPress / Twenty Ten Theme – like what I just did :-/

I have moved the whole thing into a child theme so as to avoid further breakages.

Pond Life (part one)

In the murky depths beneath the lily pads lives all manner of creatures but an hour’s worth of video only revealed a newt (or possibly two) passing by momentarily…

Get the Flash Player to see this video.


The second visit was an hour after the first with the sun overhead hence the golden hue.

Worst Website of the Weekend (or perhaps ever)

Even allowing for the expected degree of incompetence and stupidity that masquerades as an education system…

Welcome to the functionality that has been provided by Student Finance England!

Functionality Drivel
Functionality Drivel

As if having one of the most convoluted log in procedures ever devised involving multiple emails, a customer reference number (I am not a customer), a password and a secret answer (which was SXMLAR38 so what was the secret question?) is not disturbing enough one is then dropped into the most ridiculous illogical exercise which actually amounted to nothing more than answering half a dozen questions.

Are we done already?

Who knows?

Tick what?

HInt: The question is “Do you have other sources of income?” The answer will be either “Yes” or “No”.
Note: Even if the answer is “No” you are not allowed to ignore boxes that do not apply you have to type £0.00.

And so it went on, too tedious to dwell upon, but apparently my experience was somewhat different to Martine‘s but not in a good way.

Perhaps they should shake out a few more slackers further down the ladder. They do provide a guide to error messages which includes:

This message is caused by a system error, and Student Finance England is working to fix it. Please ignore the message

Ho-hum.

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