The wait is over: The free responsive WordPress theme Anaximander is now available for you to use through my new course WordPress: Building Responsive Themes on lynda.com. If you don’t already have a lynda.com subscription you can follow this link – lynda.com/trial/mor10 – and get a free 7 day trial. As you can probably deduce, this theme release is a bit different, so let me explain how and why. But first, check out the features:
Anaximander features
Anaximander is a fully built out responsive WordPress theme built to use all the latest features in WordPress 3.4.1. Theme features include:
- Fully commented and explained theme files
- Flexible height header image functionality
- Custom background colour
- Custom header and link colour
- Full Theme Customizer integration of all theme functions
- Superfish main menu with advanced flyouts
- Responsive menu for smaller screens
- Masonry index front page
- Automatic video embeds on front page
- Responsive videos through FitVids
- Responsive images
- Featured images
- Three post formats: Regular, Video, Image
- Regular displays the post as is
- Video displays any oEmbed video on the front page
- Image displays the featured image at the top of the single post
- Custom social media icons in the super-header
- Advanced search and 404 pages with latest posts
- Related posts feature with option to switch to Yet Another Related Posts Plugin (YARPP)
- Optional footer widgets
- and much much more
A theme you understand
Anaximander was built as a learning tool as well as a modern WordPress theme. The idea of Anaximander was always to ship it in such a way that using it was a learning process. This is how it works: To get Anaximander you have to follow the WordPress: Building Responsive Themes course on lynda.com from beginning to end. You start off with a static version of the theme and end up with a fully responsive theme with tons of extra features like jQuery Masonry, Superfish, and Flexslider built in.
The WordPress: Building Responsive Themes course takes the viewer through the process of converting Anaximander to a responsive theme addressing most of the issues raised by working with responsive themes including how to deal with layouts, images, videos, and menus as well as how to make the theme fit all screen sizes and work well for as many visitors as possible. The course also demonstrates how to incorporate JavaScript plugins and tools properly and provides the viewer with best-practice guides on how to make any WordPress theme responsive.
How exactly is this free?
I’m sure your next question is “How is this a free theme when I have to have a subscription to lynda.com to get it?” There is a simple answer. If you don’t already have a lynda.com subscription you can follow this link – lynda.com/trial/mor10 – and get a free 7 day trial. That’s enough time to follow the course and get Anaximander all set up. I know this looks like some sneaky marketing ploy, but it really isn’t. The whole point of Anaximander is for it to help you learn how to build responsive themes and give you a solid understanding of how the theme works. That’s why it’s not being released as a completed theme. To ensure that the theme would be available to anyone I was able to set the course up so that the static version of the theme is available to everyone including free trial subscribers. Bottom line is the theme is free to anyone who wants it.