ThemeEngine.Net: A Theming Engine For BlogEngine.Net

A major item on my BlogEngine.Net wishlist has been the ability to customize the sidebar elements on a page-by-page basis. For example, I'd like to show the latest posts in the side bar, but not on the home page where the body of the page displays the posts anyway. Or  I'd like to show the search box in the sidebar on all pages, but not on the search page which has it anyway in the body.

Extending the trend of thought, why not customize the sidebar on category pages? Wouldn't it be nice to fill the sidebar with information or links related to the category? And going a step even further, why not have the ability to customize the sidebar on any page or post as you can do with Drupal and Wordpress? More...


Replace Label Control With Literal Control

Replace <asp:Label> control with <asp:Literal> control

ASP.Net's Label control is for generating labels for form fields. All too often, however, developers use it to add static text to their web pages - perhaps because so many ASP.Net "demos" use it, incorrectly, as such. When not used for generating form field labels, replace Label control with Literal control. More...


Add a Block Level Element to Blockquote Element

Add a block-level element to the blockquote element

The latest versions of HTML as well as XHTML standards require you to have a block-level element around the text in a blockquote element. More...


Replace b Element with strong Element or CSS

Replace a b element with a strong element or with css

Text is made bold for two reasons:

  1. To put a heavy spoken emphasis on words
  2. To visually differentiate text

When made bold for heavy spoken emphasis: More...


Want To Help Me Develop Themes For Office Live Small Business?

Every popular web platform has concept of themes: something you can simply add to your web site and change its look-and-feel instantly. Themes usually contain hooks to style a web site's headers, footers, and navigation elements automatically. In addition, themes contain a style sheet that applies across the site as well as a specific styles for certain commonly-found pages or elements.

Although Office Live Small Business doesn't have a theming engine, it's possible to design themes for the platform using Advanced Design Features and tables in the Business Applications database. I've played around with the idea and it seems to work pretty well. I've even ported the popular NonZero theme (which I ported to BlogEngine.Net for this web site as well, incidentally) for my own OLSB web site at acxede.com. More...