Surfarama Theme

surfarama-wordpress-theme-sm1

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Surfarama is a simple, bold and colorful theme suited to blogs and online magazines who like to feature great imagery. See this short video for a demo…

It is fairly customizable right out of the box with the ability to do the following with no coding necessary:

  • Upload your own logo
  • Add social media profiles
  • Set the primary, secondary, background and link colors
  • Choose whether to display category tabs and borders around posts on the home page and archive pages
  • Color code each category

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Top Article:  What WordPress Theme is That?
Charlie has been building WordPress themes, reviewing web hosts and utilizing social media since their respective inceptions.

294 thoughts on “Surfarama Theme

  1. Edward Neale says:

    another quick Q – i’m using the mailchimp widget to capture newsletter signups but wanted to improve the look of the signup box and UI from the default black bar at the top and standar email box etc. how and where can i do this? thanks!

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Edward, this will require that you get into the style sheet for the theme and the plugin too possibly. You can edit the theme style sheet under Appearance > Edit. I’m not familiar with the Mailchimp plugin so can’t comment on that.

  2. Manu says:

    Hello , I just loved this theme….
    What i want to know is i want the same layout as home page in other pages also. But when i try to create a new page it is just a normal blog kind of page
    But what i want is a page similar to home with different posts.
    How do i achieve this

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Manu, there are two approaches here.

      1. Your category pages are a lot like the home page…just put your posts into the appropriate categories and then link to the category pages from the main nav? eg. http://youthjoint.com/alpha/?cat=4
      2. If you really want exactly the same layout as the home page then you’ll need to create a new custom page template based on the home page template and also customize this code so that it only displays the categories you want.

      Cheers

  3. Anne says:

    @Ryan S

    Bäm, that helped!

    Thanks a million!

  4. Anne says:

    Dear Charles and team,

    great theme! It´s perfect for what we do, now just a few questions…

    1) How do I remove the widgets from the footer (and also in general), what do I have to take out of the code?

    2) How do I remove tags in all posts (meaning that they are not visible)

    3) And my site starts going blank when I add www. in front of the website-name, is that becaus of the new design somhow?

    I haven´t changed much in the css yet, so I don´t think that comes from there, maybe you have an idea.

    All the best and thanks in advance,

    Anne

    1. Ryan S says:

      Hi @Anne,

      Thanks for using our theme

      1) It’s in sidebar-home.php file, you can find other widgets in sidebar-*.php file too
      2) It’s in content-single.php file at line #52
      3) No, with www and without are different if it’s going blank first when you open your site means the images, pages, post are being read and cache(first time), and it’s definitely not a part of the theme.

      Hope that helps

      1. David Hill says:

        Hi there, I have the same problem as Anne above: I want to remove ‘Categories’, ‘Latest Posts’, ‘Recent comments’ and ‘archives’ from appearing on all my pages. I understand ‘sidebar-home.php file’ refers to a template in the editor section, but what do I actually need to do it to make these widgets go away?!

        Thank you,
        David

        1. Ryan S says:

          Hi @david,

          Thanks for using our theme

          If needed yes but if not then you can just simply remove it under Appearance -> Widgets

          Hope that helps

          1. David Hill says:

            Thanks a lot, Ryan, I really appreciate it. I’ve done as you say, but it still seems to insist on having at least one widget on the page. I.e. there are/were, by default, four widgets that appear. In order to make them disappear, I created one new one (‘search’). That appears all by itself. However, if I delete it – which means I have nothing at all in my widget boxes on the right hand side of page, the other four return again by default! Any way around this?

            Congrats on the theme. It’s fantastic.

            David

          2. charles Charles says:

            Hi David, try adding an empty text widget. That should hide any widgets but the widget space will still be there. The theme displays the default widgets in the absence of any others.

  5. Bojan says:

    Hi Charles,

    your theme is great, can i have on home page more posts to be large?

    1. Ryan S says:

      Hi @Bojan,

      Thanks for using our theme

      Yes it’s possible but you need to gets your hands dirty
      1. Since this theme is using masonry library and resize grid depending on the body/browser width you have to do this manually under /library/js/scripts.js
      2. Update default size of .grid-box in style.css

      Hope that helps

      1. Bojan says:

        Sorry, my question is not right… is it possible last 3 posts to be bigger, no just last one?

        Thank you

        1. Ryan S says:

          now its more confusing “is it possible last 3 posts to be bigger, no just last one?”, what you need all 3 posts to get bigger or just the last one?

          What ever you want on the grid sizes you still end-up updating .js file because we’re using Masonry in the theme.

  6. Arnold says:

    Charles, I updated the theme and forgot to save a few style sheet changes.

    You had suggested a way to remove the yellow border on top of adsense ads.

    Unfortunately the answer is in the stuff you did not bring over to this site.

    Thanks

    1. Ryan S says:

      It’s the ins tag in style.css, remove the background in there and you’re to go, also I suggest use child-theme instead so new update won’t overwrite your changes.

      Hope that helps

  7. Bryan Tevreden says:

    Hi Charles,

    I remember asking this on the old comments/threads page, but where do I find the changelog of the new version?

    It helps with knowing what to strip out of my functions.php 🙂

    Thanks, Bryan

    1. charles Charles says:

      The release notes are always in the readme.txt file bundled with the theme. You can view this on your own site via FTP, or you can click the svn link for the current version of the theme hosted on WordPress.org and find the readme.txt file there.

  8. Tim Schmidt says:

    I have a quick question, is it possible to add the categories widget to the menu, in drop down form?
    I tried doing it using these instructions here:http://justintadlock.com/archives/2009/04/15/how-to-widgetize-your-page-menu-in-wordpress, but when I added the categories widget to it, it does not show up in the menu. Or is there a plugin you would recommend to accomplish this? I basically just want the categories to be up on top and more easily viewed by guests to the site.

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Tim, is there a reason you don’t just create a custom menu and add links to your categories directly to that?

      1. Tim Schmidt says:

        Thank you for the quick reply! I thought the theme only supported 1 menu, I must have misread that. The main reason I don’t want to add all the categories is it tends to appear cluttered, which is why I would prefer a drop down menu simply titled “categories”. I will try creating a custom menu and see how that works. Thanks again!

        1. charles Charles says:

          I see. In the custom menu you could create a top level item “Categories” which doesn’t actually link anywhere (use a #), and then nest links to your categories under that and they’ll appear as a drop down when the user hovers over the Categories link in the nav.

          1. Tim Schmidt says:

            That works perfectly, thank you!

  9. ipunk says:

    Love this theme. But Polldaddy wordpress plugin is not compatible with Surfarama, can you fix it? http://wordpress.org/support/plugin/polldaddy

    thanks

    1. charles Charles says:

      In what way is it incompatible?

      1. ipunk says:

        Usually when you make poll there’s bullet list.. so visitors can select and vote.. and with surfarama, the bullet list not showing up.

        example http://oi61.tinypic.com/317jqdt.jpg

        1. charles Charles says:

          I see, so the themes style sheet is overriding the plugin styling. That is odd. Will take a look.

          1. ipunk says:

            Is the new version 1.1.0 fix it?

          2. charles Charles says:

            Yes

  10. harriet says:

    Hello

    I’ve managed to change my ‘destinations’ page so it now looks the same as the homepage layout, but I can’t remember how I did it, and I want to do the same for the ‘crash pads’ page.

    Can you help?

    Many thanks!

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Harriet, looks like you have applied the Alt_homepage template to your Destinations page. You could do the same to the Crash pads page but I’m not sure why you would do this as you’ll then have 3 pages showing all the same posts.

  11. steve says:

    Thanks for help!

  12. Edward Neale says:

    Great theme! Really enjoying it after so many other rubbish ones. Was wondering, is it possible to remove the footer widgets (‘Categories’ ‘Latest Posts’ ‘Archives’ etc). Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!

    1. Ryan S says:

      Hi @edward,

      Thanks for using our theme

      Yeah it’s possible you can remove it in index.php or sidebar-home.php

      Hope that helps

      1. Edward Neale says:

        thanks a bunch!

  13. Ulrik says:

    Hi.

    I have tried to add line breaks to split up a paragraph on the home page but either the Surfarama theme or wordpress ignores and removes it.

    Is there another trick to this?

    Cheers!

    1. Ryan S says:

      Have you tried   instead?

  14. steve says:

    Great theme! I just had one question, is it possible to resize the logo? I uploaded a logo but I would like the height to be about half what it is currently. Any quick tips?

    Thanks. Keep up the good work!

    1. Ryan S says:

      Hi @steve,

      Thanks for using our theme

      Yes it is possible, login into your WordPress admin panel, then in Media select your logo and resize in there instead, click the button or link that says “Scale Image”, and add your image size in pixel.

      Hope that helps

  15. Michael says:

    No, I realized now that I that wordpress “reading” setting set to show just 1 post on the front page. Stupid mistake on my part, the theme is working just as you intended. Really like it. Thanks!

  16. Michael says:

    Hi —

    I have just downloaded Surfarama and it looks amazing, great job. However, I’m having trouble right out of the gate. Every post creates a new page. I can only get one image on the main page. What am I doing wrong?

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Michael, I’m not sure I understand you problem. It sounds like it is working just as intended. The home page layout shows the feature images from the latest posts, each linking to the individual post. You do need to set the featured image for each post using the regular WordPress featured image function. Does that answer your question?

  17. Mel says:

    Hi,
    finally found the perfect theme for me, but I really, really need it responsive. Any chance for future?
    btw, works fine with the Jetpack Galleries!

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Mel, the Surfarama theme is responsive. What part isn’t working for you? What phone/tablet are you testing on? Try the Surfarama.com demo here: http://www.studiopress.com/responsive/

      1. Mel says:

        Hi Charles, sorry I was too quick, it seemed not to work first time, now its only the jetpack carusell that isn’t working on a Samsung Galaxy. The pictures overlay.
        Work’s well on other devices though!

  18. ala says:

    Hi Charles,
    thanks for this great theme, really loving it!
    I got a question that I tried to post in the support forum, but I got no response so far, so would you mind looking into this for me please?
    The hp is working great! I linked the pages to categories. Now the pages show me the page text and list of post titles (for the category). Now I´m trying to show little more than just title list on the page, I would like to have titles+post excerpts (with thumbnail preferably) on the page, so the pages/categories are more sexy, but i´m lost in the codes.. I use default page template for the page. Charles, please would you know how to help me with that please?.. or would it be possible to add the function to the template.. ? :).. In that case, it would be also great to show the excerpt/title with the category background color, but.. I´ll be happy with any solution.. thanks in advance!

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Ala, can you provide a link to your site or a screenshot? I’m not understanding your question. This is the category template which sounds like what you are asking for: http://surfarama.com/category/snow/

      1. ala says:

        Hi Charles, sure, thank you and sorry for me being too confusing. Can I send it to the [email protected]?

        1. charles Charles says:

          Sure thing.

  19. Paul says:

    Charles, Dude, sweet theme! Way versatile bro! So how can I only show the posting title without a snippet on the homepage. Got any code mods I could add ‘somewhere’?

    http://www.TexomaSPCA.org <— requirement is for only pet name to show on home…

    On a side note:
    http://www.AmericanMusclecarMagazine.com <– love the versatility of this theme man! Good job.

    1. Ryan S says:

      Hi @Paul,

      Thanks for using our theme

      To do that open content.php and comment or remove line start from 57-68

      Hope that helps

  20. Melissa says:

    Hey Hey 🙂

    Can I implement Jetpack Galleries into Surprama Theme?

    Cheers, Melissa

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Melissa, should be able to. Give it a shot and let us know how it works out.

  21. Fernando Morais says:

    Is it possible to have a “fixed/sticky” post on the home page 1st position??

    1. charles Charles says:

      Sure is. Have you tried setting status of the post in question to “sticky”? Just use the regular WordPress function: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PtNJx-m5_r8

  22. Bernd says:

    Hey, I like the surfarama theme a lot und have just one question. Is it possible to change sort order on the Homepage from descending to ascending?! Thanks a lot for this wonderfull theme!

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Brend, this will require some customization of the style sheet. We had a video which might help you with this a little while back: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zSUIm1KrPs

      If you would like some help with this please email the details of your change request to [email protected] and we’ll work out an estimate to make the change.

    2. charles Charles says:

      Hey Bernd, I just realized I answered someone elses comment in reply to yours! Changing the sort order will require some changes to the template code. I’ve not done this before myself, but I’m sure if you search around someone will have posted a tutorial on this. Again, if you need help you can email details to [email protected]

  23. FB says:

    Hey, just wondering what exactly the latest update includes? Any big bugfixes?

    thx

    1. charles Charles says:

      No bug fixes, just style improvements. You can always see the release notes in the readme.txt…from the latest version:

      * homepage displays the manual excerpts if present, if not then the auto excerpt will be displayed instead
      * post-format:video now displays the video in the homepage grid
      * added more styles to different post formats

  24. Anrry says:

    Hi Charles,

    I really liked Surfarama theme. I used for my website.
    I have one question to ask, in the widgets area, there are category/archive widgets and full page widgets. I tried put some plugins to those widgets area but nothing display on my website. post widgets, page widgets and homepage widgets are working great.

    1. Ryan S says:

      Hi @anrry,

      Thanks for using our theme

      These widgets are displayed only for specified pages
      e.g. Category/archive widgets for Category and Archive pages and Full Page Widgets of course for Full page too, and I’ve tested here and it works fine.

      Hope that helps

  25. Robert Soar says:

    Quick and dirty fix – having tried various visual form creation plugins and all fail to show radio buttons under Chrome – change themes!

    I found a very usable and good looking theme that works out of the box with visual form builder and Chrome. Just what I need, saves changing loads of stuff on my site

    Called WP Barrister; it’s from a very helpful New Zealand outfit called WP Dev Shed …

  26. Robert Soar says:

    Hi Charles,

    Impressive response time – I saw you in the site logs only a few minutes after I sent my message!

    I understand your need to charge for a support issue not of your own making, I’ve tried another contact form and that didn’t display radio buttons either. Looks like a fight between Chrome, Jquery, your theme and any of the plugins that I use that may also affect the issue.

    Do you happen to know of a contact form builder plugin that does work with Surfarama and Chrome?

    Thanks for your help,

    Regards, Rob

    1. charles Charles says:

      Lucky timing I guess 🙂 I’m a fan of Gravity Forms which I’ve had no trouble with myself in the past, but of course I can’t guarantee that it will work problem free in any given scenario.

  27. Giovanni Mancini says:

    Hi
    Have a problem with the Google rich snippet. I get this error: Missing required field “updated”.
    I try to add the update class in the content-single.php but does not work. Help me pls

    Thanks

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Giovanni, The theme doesn’t support all the rich snippets. Can I ask the purpose of trying to implement this? Are you wanting to get Google Authorship to work?

      1. Giovanni Mancini says:

        I simply added the reference to the author of the posts. And doing the test for the structured data to google, I get that error. But it is not important. Thanks for the reply

  28. Robert Soar says:

    Hi Charles,

    Apologies if a support query is inappropriate in this area, please delete if necessary.

    I recently switched themes from Suffusion to Surfarama. The site looks far cleaner and more modern. My site promotes my military vehicle club and its yearly show.

    I had created online application forms with Visual Form Builder which worked fine in Suffusion. In Surfarama the radio buttons and check boxes do not show up. See form at http://www.solentoverlord.co.uk/blog/overlord-2014/traders/

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Robert, glad you like the theme. I note that it is just Chrome which has this issue. Everything looks fine in Firefox and IE11. It is the visual form builder which controls the styling of the form, and apparently clashes with the theme styles in some way that impacts display in Chrome. We could spend some time to help, but this is beyond the level of free support we can provide here in the comments sorry. If you’d like some assistance with this please email us at [email protected] and we’ll take a closer look and give you an estimate.

  29. Bryan says:

    No particular question but I just wanted to thank you for the elegant solution of including the excerpts when available. And I thought of doing that in the thread we had going.

    You might consider NOT bringing the old comments back, save this place only for praise and redirect/handle all support questions on the wordpress.org theme page. Less fragmentation that way.

  30. Bryan says:

    Hi Charles,

    What happened to the support page/mail thread for the surfarama theme?

    1. charles Charles says:

      Hi Bryan, I moved all the theme posts across from the old domain but not the comments. If I find an easy way to do this I might move them over, but can’t promise that. Did you have a particular question?

      1. JAaron Anderson says:

        Charles I was MOST impressed w/ this theme as it serves my goal well! but is there ANY way I can restrict front end dynamic cubical thumbnail posts to be a given category(ies) not just all which are posted ? many thanks !

        1. Kris says:

          Create child theme first then make a copy of index.php file from surfarama theme folder to your child theme folder and before line #12(while loop) of index.php file, add this code,
          <?php query_posts( array( 'category_name' => 'insert-category-slug-here') );  ?>

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