zen habits

breathe

Theme

zh2 theme

‘The best minimalistic blog theme out there just got better … and even more minimal!’ ~Brian Green, Brian’s Backpacking Blog

Zen Habits is now running a version 2 of a minimalist theme I’ve hand crafted myself, and it’s uncopyrighted and free to download. (Install page.)

The zh2 theme focuses on the site’s content, and nothing else.

There’s the content, a footer with some navigation links, and that’s about it. It’s meant to be a perfect reading experience for the reader. It’s the theme running on the site you’re reading right now.

This theme is characterized by what it does not have:

  • A sidebar
  • Comments
  • Widgets
  • Animation
  • Second sidebar
  • Dynamic sidebar
  • Functions
  • Popups

What it does have is a minimal, clean look. It is offered as is, uncopyrighted.

Update: By request, I’ve added in the ability to have comments if you want them. See the install page for more.

What’s New

This theme is entirely revamped, with some things I’m proud of:

  1. A responsive design. It should look pretty good on most mobile devices, though I haven’t tested on all devices and don’t promise perfection.
  2. Just one column. The old design had a content column and a sidebar, but this one is simplified so it has just the content column. Navigation is now in the footer.
  3. Better fonts. I like the body and title fonts better in the new theme. You’re welcome to change them in the style.css file.
  4. A fading header & credits (not by default though). On my site, the header of the site and the author credit fade away after a second or two. They fade back in when you hover over them. This is turned off for mobile devices, since they can’t hover a mouse on a touchscreen. HOWEVER: The fading out of header & credits is turned off in the theme you’re downloading, by default. It’s in the style.css code, but you have to remove the comment code (/*) before and after the .top and h6 code to activate it. See the install page for more.
  5. Faster. The site loads faster now due to some code improvements. There are no images on the site, no javascript, no comments or widgets. I recommend WP Super Cache to make the site even faster.
  6. Cleaner code. While I’m no CSS wizard (though I do have a wand and hat), I have worked hard to make the CSS and HTML more standards compliant, and easier to read. I’ve used numerous tools to verify and bring my code into compliance. That should make it better across various platforms and devices. There’s also now a CSS reset, which helps make it more consistent in different browsers. Old IE browsers, of course, will always be janky in their rendering.

Please read the install page for important notes.

Note: I don’t offer support for this theme, but if there are problems/questions, you can ask here.

Download zh2

Version 1

You can still download the old version 1 of the theme here: Version 1. Also see the Install Page for v1.