Headline: A Free Customizable Tumblr Theme

It’s been over 2 years since Headline was released, and I’m thankful to the 9,000+...

Fri, 11 Jan 2013 18:41:00 -1000

It’s been over 2 years since Headline was released, and I’m thankful to the 9,000+ users who have installed it. A big mahalo to all of you (especially you Rolling Stone)!

Things sure have changed over that time, yet Headline has remained the same. As a result, some of the documentation and features have become outdated. For example, the Twitter API integration uses @Anywhere, which is scheduled to sunset in March of this year. Boo. Archive links no longer work as documented. Boo. Un-responsive design!? What decade do you think this is?!

That being said, I’m thinking about completely rebuilding the theme from scratch. Think of it as Headline 2.0. I have some ideas, but now is your chance to share yours. What do you like about the current theme? What sucks? What features should be added? Instagram anyone?

Post your thoughts, comments, feedback, and love letters in the Disqus thread below or fire away at @ckalima on Twitter. I start building tomorrow.

Introducing Starkness, a new Tumblr theme that’s clean,...

Thu, 15 Sep 2011 10:22:38 -1000

Introducing Starkness, a new Tumblr theme that’s clean, refined, and free! Check out the Starkness Tumblr theme demo, or install Starkness right now.

Tumblr Search #Losing

Thu, 14 Apr 2011 05:03:54 -1000

During the last 12 months, we’ve received a number of emails regarding Headline’s search box. Many users are experiencing an issue where searching for a known keyword, one that obviously exists on the Tumblr blog, returns 0 results. As far as we know, this is a known issue at Tumblr, and not directly related to any theme code, but rather a result of Tumblr search indexing lag.

As Tumblr continues to grow (explosively), the search indexing issue seems to be growing with it. Search also seems to be relatively low on the priority list (it’s been a known issue for quite some time), as Tumblr focuses its efforts on maintaining system uptime, rather than improving indexing. After all, at least the system is telling you there are 0 results, instead of showing you this all day long.

If you’ve got the zero result blues, we recommend voicing your concerns on Tumblr’s Get Satisfaction page to let them know search is important to you. If enough people speak up, maybe they’ll start to listen.

how do i make archives page like your, please?

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 07:52:39 -1000

With some Page redirecting trickery.

Is there a way to add a picture on the right panel?

Fri, 25 Feb 2011 07:51:35 -1000

If you share your “Likes,” those will appear in the right column, and may contain photos. However, if you’re looking to insert a static image, Custom HTML is the way to go.

What font are you using for the heading on this site? How can I use it for mine?

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:26:55 -1000

The Headline demo is set in FF Meta Condensed Web Pro and FF Meta Serif Web Pro. Both fonts are embedded using TypeKit.

On the MashableHQ site, they have the Follow Us on the right hand side of the page. How is that done? Thank you.

Mon, 14 Feb 2011 06:23:18 -1000

The Follow Us section on the MashableHQ site is accomplished using custom HTML and an AddThis widget. The functionality is not included in the Headline theme, and we are unable to provide custom HTML support.

how do I add the archive link like you have in your left sidebar?

Tue, 18 Jan 2011 19:59:00 -1000

We use a little Page trickery to implement the archive link. The link is actually a custom page, that is set to URL redirect to “/archive”. You cannot use the actual word “Archive” because it’s reserved by Tumblr. You can use “Archives” however, which is what we’ve done.

Hi,

Love the theme. Here's my site.

http://www.originalmovieideas.com/

I'm a total newbie on all things blog related. But I noticed here on your site the 3rd column on the right has a "Share" heading and then the Twitter, Facebook, Digg icons and links. I really want that to be on my site as well. How do I go about doing that? Sorry if this is a basic question. Thanks again for the theme.

Matt

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 16:02:55 -1000

The Share sidebar is included automatically, but only on permalink pages.

Hi! I love the theme. I looked through the .css file and couldn't figure out where the spacing between the posts is governed - I would like to add css to make this a tad smaller. Thanks!

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:59:00 -1000

Post spacing is controlled by the following CSS code:

#index .post, #permalink .post {padding-bottom: 3em; border-bottom:1px solid;}

.post dl {margin: 1.5em 0 2em 0; overflow: hidden; padding: 1px;}

Adjust the padding and margin as you see fit by overriding the selectors via custom CSS

Is there a way to customize the number of "likes" that are displayed in the righthand column? The default is 3 and I would like to increase it.

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:52:42 -1000

No, not without customizing the HTML. If you choose to do so, look for the following code:

{Likes limit=”3” summarize=”100” width=”210”}

You may adjust the number of likes displayed via the “limit” variable.

I love the theme, but have troubles with showing tags. When I tag a post, and then click on the tag, it only shows the following message "The URL you requested could not be found." I am also having troubles with the search function of the same kind. Is this a bug, or maybe due to the fact that my blog is a secondary blog?

Thanks for your help.

Wed, 05 Jan 2011 15:50:20 -1000

There is a known issue with Tumblr’s tag and search indexing that causes a delay in results. Eventually your tags will be indexed by Tumblr’s servers, and clicking through will produce the correct result, you just need to be patient.

Check this Get Satisfaction thread for more information.

Just want to say I love your theme. Question though: how do you enable the "Following" and the "Likes" on the sidebar? They seem to have disappeared when I enabled the Twitter sidebar function.

Mon, 18 Oct 2010 10:41:11 -1000

Some Tumblr features only work for your primary blog, such as “Following” and “Likes”. If Headline is installed on a secondary blog, you will not be able to display either. For more information, check out Tumblr’s documentation.

Headline Updated to v1.6.1

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 11:52:37 -1000

A new update to the Headline theme has been approved by Tumblr and should now be live on all standard installations.

v1.6.1 fixes a bug with the background image CSS style that would cause background images to repeat, even when the Tile Background Image toggle button was not selected in the Appearance panel. Thanks to Mark for the heads up!

NBC News Chooses Headline

Tue, 14 Sep 2010 10:26:00 -1000

NBC News Chooses Headline:

NBC News chooses Headline for their recently launched Tumblr blog.

Any chance you can add support for Clicky analytics as an alternative to Google Analytics? http://getclicky.com. Scientific, double-blind studies and 4 out of 5 dentists agree that Clicky is up to 20 times better than Google Analytics, and it only contains half the calories, too.

I use your theme across a network of tech sites (http://finerthingsin.com), but I have to use Custom HTML to add Clicky, which breaks my ability to get theme updates easily. If you require a small child or a goat for this work, we can talk.

Wed, 08 Sep 2010 09:24:00 -1000

Chartier, we’re pleased to announce that we’ve submitted an update to Tumblr that includes Clicky Analytics integration. No more custom HTML required!

To enable Clicky (you’ll need an account) simply find your Site ID in your Clicky site preferences page (typically a six-digit number). Copy and paste this number into the new “Clicky Site ID” text field in your Tumblr Appearance panel. Save your settings and voila! Real-time statistics via Clicky!

This is part of a v1.6 update that also fixed our fix to those pesky Twitter/Facebook/Digg icons. Doh! Maybe we should fire our monkeys and hire your goat.

Hello. Great theme! I see it's available for both Tumblr and Posterous (as matter of fact, I installed it in both Posterous and Tumblr at different times without realizing I'd chosen the same theme for both). Is there a version of it for Wordpress? And, if not, might there be a WP version in the future?

Thanks,
Victor Davila

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:39:31 -1000

A Wordpress version of the Headline theme does not exist, and there are no immediate plans to develop one.

When a post is tagged with #facebook, #twitter, or #digg, the Facebook/Twitter/Digg icons that are used for the "Share" links show up next to every link in the post. Is this how the theme is supposed to work, or is this just a bug?

Mon, 16 Aug 2010 09:22:00 -1000

This is a bug and we’ve submitted a revision to the Tumblr Theme Garden that should address the issue.

The issue was caused by the use of user tags as class names for individual post “div” blocks. When using the social media names Facebook, Twitter and Digg as post tags, the theme would insert those class names, triggering the default CSS styles which display the service icons.

We’ve remedied this bug by adding a “tagged-” prefix to these class names. If you’ve implemented custom CSS to style individual posts using tags, you’ll need to update your classes accordingly.

All users who have not customized their HTML will be updated to v1.5 once the revision is approved by Tumblr. If this post has a Digg thumbnail icon on its links, then that has not happened yet.

How do you get the number of comments to display on the main page? Right now it just says "Comments" with no counter. Thanks.

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:38:23 -1000

Thanks for pointing this out ultimatehoops, it appears to be a bug in the theme code. We’ll post an update when this issue is resolved.

10 Terrific New Tumblr Themes

Fri, 23 Jul 2010 09:32:59 -1000

10 Terrific New Tumblr Themes:

Headline was chosen by Mashable as one of 10 terrific new Tumblr themes. The author Christina Warren had these kinds words:

Great use of space, columns and post types, along with lots of great elements and little touches. If you’ve ever wanted a magazine-style theme for your Tumblr blog, check out Headline!