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Free Tropical WordPress Theme
I’ve been working on updating some of my older free themes with fresh new designs and most importantly fresh new features! I’ve just created a brand new Tropical Paradise theme ready for you to download that would be perfect for a resort website or a vacation blog! So, if you are currently using the old Tropical Paradise Theme that was previously posted here, you may want to consider a free upgrade for a bright new look and tons of great features!
Theme Includes:
- One and Two Column Page Templates.
- Widget Ready containing widget spaces above the post, below the the post area, sidebar, header (in “photo” slot where current slider is located on the demo site), and four widget spaces available in the footer. Note, because these four spaces are dynamic, you can use one which will cover the entire space up to four that are evenly divided.
- Fancy Font used for Title and Headings.
- Customizable Theme Options on the Theme’s Options page in the dashboard which allows you to change the featured image sizes, sidebar default styling, post excerpt options, footer link and text options, spaces for ads, and much more.
- Horizontal and Vertical Menu Spaces. Make sure to create your menus within the Menu Panel underneath Appearance in your Dashboard. You can easily drag and drop menu items and subitems into place here, change the navigation titles, and much more. Make sure you choose the desired menu you created to set as your “Primary Menu” for the horizontal menu area. To use the vertical menu, you can simply drag the Vertical Menu Widget into your desired location into one of the sidebar areas, and populate it with either pages, categories, or a custom menu you have created within the Menu Panel.
Plugin Recommendations for this Theme:
- Meteor Slides for use in the header. This will allow you to easily add or remove images from the slider as well as add a link to each image and adjust the transition elements. Please note, that the image size which works best for the header area whether used in a slider or just inserted into a text widget is 485 x 295. Note: You don’t need this to be a slider. You can simply use another widget in this area or simply add an image into a text widget.
- Widget Logic: This allows you to choose which pages, posts, or categories you want to display or hide certain widgets. This is a great feature if you want to use a different slider or image on each page of the theme.
Installation:
- Simply click here to download the zip file of this theme. Note: I’ve also included a couple of sample images that can be used within the header.
- Either upload the zipped folder through your WordPress Dashboard by clicking on the Theme’s Tab underneath Appearance.
- Or, unzip the folder and manually upload the theme to your wp-contents folder using an FTP client.
- Remember to go into Menus under the Appearance Tab in your Dashboard to set your Primary Menu. Also, make sure to go to Theme Options within the Appearance Tab as well to set your theme defaults as desired.
Below are some images of this theme. Please contact me if you have any questions or concerns about this theme, and let me know if would like any custom design work done for this theme or others.
© 2011, Sarah Roberts – Reflecting the Designer. All rights reserved.
23 Responses to Free Tropical WordPress Theme
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Hi, that’s a great tip – thanks! The site I have here is my first one based off of WordPress but I’m a bit overwhelmed – I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of options and themes and plugins! But I’ll get it down it sooner or later, or so I hope. Hopefully it doesn’t take forever for me to setup next time. Anyhow… nice blog… I’m subscribed to your feed now so thanks again!
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Well, the nice part about WP is that you can continually add and change things as you need to in order to make it what you want. I’ve changed my site a ton since setting it up, and will probably continue to change it as I learn new things and just for variety sake. I’ll always post what I find out here! Good Luck!
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Hello Sarah,
This is Diana here. I’m building a website for my daughter who lives in Guam, she’s starting up a skincare biz there. We like your tropicalparadise theme. We will be using the theme as a website as opposed to a blog type format. Question- I’m trying to get rid of the comments on all the pages. I have built four of my own websites using wp themes. Can you give me direction as to how to clear the comments. I know I need to go under page.php, archive, nosidebar, and single page… etc… if you can steer me in the right direction.
Also do you have a forum for folks like me that post their questions, share info. etc… so as not to add work for you for multiple-repeats of questions and answers. Thanks again for your time and efforts with designing the tropical paradise theme. Sincerely, Diana-
Hi Diane,
To get rid of comments on a page, you simply uncheck the radio buttons located on the dashboard of the page you are editing, and it will close comments. To get rid of the status message that says “Comments are Closed” simply go to the Comments php and find the following code a little over half way down the page:
< ?php else : // comments are closed ?>A little further under that code you’ll see this:class=”nocomments”>< ?php _e('Comments are closed.', 'kubrick'); ?>
All you have to do is delete the exact words 'Comments are closed." but make sure to leave the quotation marks. This is the simplest way to remove the ability to post comments, while still giving you the ability to allow comments on certain pages should you choose to later.
Your forum idea is a good one, although I don't have time to set up and moderate one right now. Glad you like the theme, and I'm always happy to answer specific questions people have. Good luck on your daughter's site!
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Thanks Sarah. I’ll copy of this info. at my office tomorrow. Thanks again for your time and talents.
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Sarah, I think I may not have communicated properly regarding getting rid of comments. I know how to get rid of comments once they are on the page. What I do not want to show up are all the comment boxes on each page. In otherwords, my daughter will not have comments on any of the pages. I have deleted the comments are closed from info. above. Now I just need to figure out how to get rid of the comment box on each of the pages?.
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There shouldn’t be any boxes if you’ve closed the comments. Sounds like something weird is going on. I used the steps listed below for my own site, although I do allow comments on certain pages. However, on the pages I didn’t want comments (for example, the Home page), simply choosing to not allow comments got rid of the comment box, and to make sure that there was not even any text there “Comments are Closed” I just removed that from the php as mentioned. Can you post the link to your site. Sounds like something else is going on that isn’t working quite right.
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Antoine Barthell says:
This is a good and organized site.
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Nick says:
Says theme is broken following errors when installing.
Warning: fopen(/home/cablivin/public_html/wp-content/themes/Professional_Grunge/style.css) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in /home/cablivin/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4284
Warning: fread(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/cablivin/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4287
Warning: fclose(): supplied argument is not a valid stream resource in /home/cablivin/public_html/wp-includes/functions.php on line 4290
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Make sure that you don’t just try to install the zip folder by itself onto the theme. You’ll need to unzip the folder onto your computer first because it contains an extra folder entitled “Extras” which includes the additional images that can be used in the header. So, unzip it, save that Extra’s folder inside of the theme folder if you want or just to your computer, then send just the theme folder itself to the zip folder and install. Hope that helps! I just did a test drive install using an ftp client with the exact folder provided online and it works fine.
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I love your themes and am using one on my other site. This new tropical one is great, however, I was wondering if you could do a bit of customizing for me? My husband and I teach scuba diving and we are attempting to set up a site to help promote our services. I love the set up of the tropical theme, but was wondering how hard it would be to replace the flowers with some scuba equipment or scuba related graphics? I have no training for doing website design, so I am learning as I go. I do have Artisteer, but am not very proficient at using it. With instructions, maybe I could do it or maybe you would be willing to do it? Let me know and let me know if there would be be any fees. I could even supply you with some graphics if that helps.
Your site is great and I have learned a lot!
Tina -
Hey! I absolutely love this theme! You have done a phenomenal job. I am having a bit of trouble inserting my meteor slide show into the theme. I was wondering if you could tell me exactly where I am supposed to insert the php code? Thanks a bunch!
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You shouldn’t need to add any php at all, but simply add the Meteor Slides Widget to that top widget area. Hope that helps.
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Laurie says:
I downloaded this theme but I was wondering if it was possible to open it in artisteer and if so how do I go about doing that?
Thanks.
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Laurie, exported themes can not be reopened within Artisteer. All of my tutorials on this site relate to how to edit already exported themes. Hope that helps.
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Laurie says:
Having never used meteor slide then I have a quick question about the plug-in. I wanted to have a static picture in the photo spot on the header. Is there a different plug-in that would work better or would you still use meteor slide to do that?
Thanks for the help.
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You don’t need a plugin to just add an image. You just need to add the image into a simple text widget. I’ve got basic instructions of working with text widgets here.
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Roland says:
I love the tropical theme and i’m using it right now. I installed the meteor slide and i was able to make a slide on a post however i cannot put it on the picture frame on the header just like on the screenshot above. Please give some advice on how can i do it. I will really appreciate your help.
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Annie says:
Beautiful theme, but the palm tree image just won’t appear, no matter where I put the files
there is just a big white empty box.-
Hi Annie, as I mentioned in the post, that area in the header is just an extra widget space so that you can insert an image, slider, or whatever you like into that spot. If you want to add one of the pictures I’ve included in the theme, you’ll need to go to the widgets page and select a text widget to put into that header widget space. Then, you can add the following code if desired:
<center><a href="linkaddressifdesired" rel="nofollow"><img src="urlofYourImageHere" /></a></center>
You can also use a plugin like Meteor Slides as I suggested in the post, and then just add the slider widget to that space.
Hope that helps.
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Annie says:
Thanks, it works beautifully now
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M Porter says:
What would be the image sizes and/or the meteor slide plugin (settings) for the picture frame so that it appears correctly?
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