Dark Matter Pro is a template for Pixelpost. In fact it's quite a bit more than just a template because it adds a lot of new functionality to Pixelpost not present in the default version. Dark Matter Pro is the result of over three months of hard work. Choosing for Pixelpost combined with Dark Matter Pro means choosing for the world's most advanced photoblog solution.
Dark Matter Pro was made with the highest possible quality standards in mind. This means clean and valid XHTML output, rock solid YUI powered Javascript, degradability and excellent accessibility. You will not find a more polished photoblog product than Dark Matter Pro.
Dark Matter Pro features a color neutral design that gets completely out of the way of what really matters: YOUR photography. By choosing Dark Matter Pro you are giving your hard work the ultimate online presentation platform.
Dark Matter Pro was created by Marco van Hylckama Vlieg, a seasoned web developer with a strong passion for photography. You can see his photography presented with Dark Matter Pro on his personal photoblog.
Installing Dark Matter Pro is easy if you stick to the following easy steps:
If you want to use Dark Matter Pro in another language than English, please edit the file i18n.php inside the darkmatter directory. This file contains ALL strings used in Dark Matter Pro and is therefore the only file you'll have to modify in order to translate Dark Matter Pro.
Dark Matter Pro allows you to pick your own desired page width between 700 and 950 pixels, in intervals of 50 pixels. You can choose whatever you like best!
For an optimal viewing experience for your visitors, Dark Matter Pro looks best when your uploaded photos have the same width you've chosen to use as your page width. Less wide images will work but you'll see black borders on the left and right side. Larger images will be cropped on the right side. Therefore never use images wider than the page width you've chosen to use.
You can change the page logo with ease by uploading a file in the Dark Matter administration panel. This file may be a jpg, a gif or a png. The image needs to be exactly 28 pixels in height. You can pick any width you want but be advised: The wider the logo, the less space is left in the header for your site title and the menu section.
There is a separate upload for Internet Explorer 6. You ONLY need to use this if your main logo is a 24bit PNG file with alpha transparency. This is because the won't work correctly in IE6 resulting in a strange looking logo. You can use this upload box to upload an alternative logo for IE6 in gif, jpg or 8 bit PNG format. For both logo uploads: make sure you don't forget to tick the checkbox. When the checkbox is not checked the default logo will be used.
Though not recommended, the option to change the page background color is provided. Enter a value in 3 or six digit RGB hex format preceded by a hash. (e.g. #000 or #000000 for black and #fff or #ffffff for white). This page background will be used in both the dark and light version! Leaving this box empty will revert to the original background.
By default, the about page is empty. You can add content to this page by opening the file named about_template.html in a text editor and add content to it. You will find markers labeled <!-- start editing here --> and <!-- stop editing here -->. You can add any HTML markup between these two markers. When you're done, upload your modified about_template.html to the dark matter directory on your server and you're good to go.
Dark Matter supports various add-ons out of the box. Others need some modifications which have been done for you. Various add-ons that work well with Dark Matter have been provided in the extra directory in the archive you downloaded.
The most noteworthy one is RGB Histograms which creates a nice color histogram for your images. A special place is reserved for it in Dark Matter's image info pane. To install it follow these steps:
A few other noteworthy addons are distributed with Dark Matter in a pre-modified form to work well with Dark Matter. They are:
The template tags needed for these addons to work have been placed in image_loaded.php If you only want some of the above add-ons you can use it to find where to place the template tags. If you want all of them you can remove image_template.php and rename image_loaded.php to image_template.php in your darkmatter directory.
For dfGallery a pre-made template is provided. It's name is slideshow_template.html. You'll have to install and configure the dfGallery addon according to the instructions provided with it but can then skip the part where you have to create a new template and add a tag. After installing dfGallery your slideshow will be available at http://www.yoursite.com/index.php?x=slideshow. Make sure you add this link to the menu in all templates. Look for <ul id="menu"> to find it in your templates.
All modified extra add-ons are provided in the hope they will be useful for some of you on an as-is basis. I can not provide support on how to use them.
SoloIT and AJAX Ratings come with some Dark Matter Pro specific instructions. The PayPal addon can just be uploaded to your addons directory and enabled in your Pixelpost admin panel and it will work. Again you'll find the appropriate tag to use and where to put it in the image_loaded.php template.
Before anything else, please double check that the following checklist applies to your installation. Most common problems are related to one of these steps not being completed!
If you need help with Dark Matter you can email me. However you're probably going to get help faster if you try the Pixelpost forum. I read this forum daily. If you ask your question there you may get an answer from a fellow user before I even see it and other users may benefit from your question and the answer.
If you think you've found a bug in Dark Matter Pro, please make sure you:
I cannot respond with proper action to incomplete or vague bug reports.
I'm not a lawyer which is why I won't bother you with endless unreadable license agreements. From hereon, I, Marco van Hylckama Vlieg will be referred to as 'the author'. It all boils down to the following:
By purchasing a license for Dark Matter Pro you agree to the following terms: