Designing a custom archive.php inspired by the Autofocus theme

Question

I've been trying to use the front page from the Autofocus theme in a different theme by copy pasting the code from index.php in the Autofocus theme to my new archive.php file. I have also copied the related functions from functions.php from Autofocus, I also tried to get some of the css over to the new theme.

I have tried this for a long time and with multiple tweaks but I can't get it to work. I get both images and text, but not in the same style as in the Autofocus theme, and definitely not with the cropping autofocus has on its front screen.

Am I missing something here? Shouldn't it work if I copy the whole fuctions.php in to the new one and copy all the css?

Answer 1

I think if you just copy-paste the functions and styles, you're still missing a lot of code in the actual templates (those PHP files). Like others said, you might be missing classes... you might also be missing entire DIVs and other stuff, too, though.

Answer 2

Is the copied Autofocus CSS taking any effect at all? You might have to place it beneath your theme's other CSS so it gets priority.

Answer 3

It's really hard to say what is wrong, when we are working blind. Give us a screenshot or an URL to visit so we can help you debug.

On a general basis, copy-pasting a theme page to another theme is very "difficult". Not impossible to do, of course, but it's usually not just copy-pasting and expect it to work.

Answer 4

Are you aware of that Autofocus is based on Thematic? Thematic injects a lot more css classes. I'm not sure if Autofocus just cogs up completely without Thematic or if it just does everything it can do without. So check if you go Thematic installed.

To do a proper job, though, you'll have to really dig into how Autofocus processes stuff in it's functions.php...like not just copy-paste, but understand what it's doing when.