Widgets Don't Show Up

[Lookwright]

Hey Bill,

I’m just experimenting with the template for my e-commerce site… I’m still using WP e-commerce until I can afford to switch over to Woo Commerce, but I’m still giving it a go at messing around with this awesome template…

Anyway, if I set my homepage as either an “image” or “gallery” format… any other widgets that I attempt to insert into the home sections, whether standard WP widgets or ones that came with the theme, will not work…

Its as if they are in fact there in place, but always a solid blank block.

Any tips? Thanks.

[Lookwright]

Correction… I meant that they do appear for a brief moment while loading and then are taken over by the overall page background color? If that makes sense. Sincere rookie over here.

[Bill Robbins]

Hello Mitchell,

Thank you for your business first of all. Sorry for the trouble there. It looks like a plugin called Gallery Plugin is causing that content to disappear. It’s adding a bit of CSS styling that it probably intended to affect just it’s content, but it’s being applied globally instead.

Let’s try this to fix that:

1. Go to the Theme Options page and select the Advanced tab.
2. Scroll down to the Custom CSS box and paste this:

   
   body.gallery li {
   	float: none;
   }
   

3. Update your settings.

See how that works for you. Let me know if you run into any trouble,
Bill

[Lookwright]

Hey Bill!

Thanks for the prompt response.

Boom! I deleted the plugin as I didn’t even use it and forgot to do so long ago, and right away it’s working.

Thank you very much!

Two more quick questions for you:

1. How were you able to tell that so easily? [Like I said, I’m new to web design… but I have a sincere desire to learn]

and

2. Is it possible to run this theme in somewhat close to maximum capability while using WP e-commerce rather than Woo Commerce? [I simply don’t have the funds to get the extensions I would need to maintain my current setup]. Thanks again and again.

[Bill Robbins]

I’m glad that worked for you. I left a support request for the plugin’s developer to suggest a change to that style. Let’s see about your other questions:

1. There is a tool that I’m a big fan of for Mac called Espresso. It works similarly to the inspectors that are built into Chrome or Firebug in that it’ll let you live edit CSS. What Espresso does so much better is it allows you to extract the stylesheets of any website and make changes to them there.

So what I did was visit your site. I checked to make sure the widgets were being output on the front end by viewing the source code of your site. I did see them there. That indicates that it was most likely a CSS issue. So I examined a few elements on the page and saw a stylesheet other than the one in the theme was adding styles to the slideshow. I extracted that file and deleted all the content in it. Your widgets came back. So I knew that’s where the problem was. I then returned the code and deleted section by section until I found the specific conflicting style.

2. I do believe you could still get quite a bit out of the theme with WP E-commerce. I haven’t tested it out, but that plugin works with lots of themes and even though this one has some unusual elements, the structure is quite common among WordPress themes. I would think that it’ll work pretty well.

If I can help, just let me know,
Bill

[Lookwright]

Hey Bill,

Again… thanks much!

I have Espresso, as it had been recommended to me… but have no idea where to even start with it… so I will keep pushing along and learning until I can get some cool stuff done!

I’ll keep trying out thing with the WP E-commerce plugin and get back to you when I run into a snag, which I’m sure won’t be long from now, hehe.

Seriously awesome customer service… recommending to all that I know!

[Bill Robbins]

Thanks for the recommendations Mitchell. I do appreciate it.

It may take a bit of use for Espresso to really work for you. I largely learned CSS from its predecessor CSSEdit.

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