Wu Wei is a WordPress theme that was created with clean, modern, minimalism in mind. Information is presented in a logical manner, without any superfluous elements getting in the way. Just like the Taoist concept of wu wei, it’s knowing when to act, and knowing when not to act.
This theme is based on principles of a grid system. You can break out of the grid with css declarations, as seen in this entry.
Live Demo
Download
Current Version: 1.2.4 (released 06/01/2009)
Changelog
Version 1.2.4
- Added a readme.html manual
- Deprecated the explicit margin declaration for the right-most widget. Through the use of some CSS trickery, widget stylings are now generalized, so they render correctly by default and no customizing is needed.
- Removed css reset styling for sub and sup (so this becomes browser dependent)
- Added a wordwrap for the pre tag
- Added styling for acronyms, abbreviations, definition lists, and tables
- Fixed an issue with the pull-2 declaration being too large (hat-tip to Kaffe for finding this)
- Fixed the link to comments having a double-slash
Version 1.1.2 (06/01/2009)
- Removed all hard-coded links
- Added “text-transform:lowercase” declarations to the header links
Version 1.1.1 (05/28/2009)
- Moved the default RSS links to the top menu for better access
- Used more generic links (users can customize) at the top
Version 1.1.0 (05/21/2009)
- Updated default sidebar widgets to be more generic
- and added empty links to the menu at top
Features
- WordPress 2.7+ compatible
- Two colours schemes (light and dark)
- Widget enabled sidebar (or in this case, a bottom bar)
- Supports threaded comments
- SEO Optimized
- Em based layout (!) (scales both horizontally and vertically)
- Validates as XHTML Strict and CSS Level 2.1
- Renders correctly in most major browsers. (Tested in Firefox 3+, Internet Explorer 6.0, Internet Explorer 7.0, Safari 3.0, and Google Chrome).
- GPL-licensed
FAQ
Jeff, how do I get those fancy grey page markers at the top of the menu in the header like you do here?
Easy! Just add the code <?php if(is_page(‘archives’)) {echo ‘class=“selected“‘;} ?> (if the link is for “archives”) in the anchor. You’ll need to have “nice” permalinks enabled for this to work. Otherwise, you can just use the page_id instead of the page name.
My widgets in the bottom sidebar are overflowing!
Not to worry. Simply change the “margin-right:0px” declaration from .widget_categories to the class of your right-most widget.
This issue has been resolved. There is no need to change any widget declarations, as of version 1.2.2.
Ordered/unordered lists in a comment aren’t displaying correctly!
I believe this is an inherent design flaw introduced with threaded comments in WordPress 2.7. Since comment threads themselves are lists, there is no way to separate a list in a comment, and a comment that’s a list item (aside from introducing extra css declarations). There probably won’t be any support for this, unless the core WordPress code is changed.
Notes
- Threaded comments — These shouldn’t be nested more than three deep, I’d say, to keep the comment form field from shrinking too much.
- Paged comments — No support for this. Yet. If the demand is there, I’ll figure out a way to add this in.
- More colour schemes — If there are requests for more colour schemes, I’ll add these in too.
Feedback
Feel free to contact me for feedback, feature requests, or support. Be sure to put “Wu Wei Theme” in the subject line.
Screenshots
Light colour scheme
Dark colour scheme





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Could I change te head image?
The header isn’t an image, it’s text, so you could change that easily.
Very clean and elegant looking theme, I’ll be using this on my personal website for awhile.
Keep up the awesome work!
Simply beautiful Jeff. I have been looking for something simple and elegant, with function at the center of its reason for being. This is the only theme I have found that perfectly answers what I want.
One question — how do I change the links at the top of the page? Currently “link 1″ and “description” are acting as placeholders. I’m not competent at writing code, but with specific direction I can alter it myself. (I’m looking to include a link to my portfolio and to create an “about” page.)
Many thanks and wishes for your continued success.
–Kristina
Hey.…how ’bout that? I figured it out myself. I’m a hacker!
Do tell me how please..
Please share, I’m stuck here
TIA
K
Hi Ken, please read this comment.
Hey, Kristina. Fancy meeting you here! Good luck with your blog… see around the internets.
John L.
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Dead link, cant download…
You mean the link is broken from the WordPress theme directory? It’s working for me at the moment.
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Jeff,
I love this theme. Is there any way to elimnate the “read more” link right at the top of the page?
Thanks,
Josh
Yes there is. Just edit the “header.php” file, and at the bottom, you’ll see the code there for the “read more” link. Delete that, and you’re all set! Let me know if you need more help.
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I’ve got a problem with this template and the rss feed. I look this error, only with wu-wei template.
Errore interpretazione XML: la dichiarazione XML o testuale non è all’inizio di un’entità
Indirizzo: http://www.tetraparts.it/compostc.php/feed/
Linea numero 4, colonna 1:
^
Why?
With another template the feed works correctly!.
Hi Andrea, I’m not seeing a problem with your feed. Could you post the error in English so I can do some research?
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[…] Wu WeiClean, modern and minimal. The theme was based on the Taoist concept of wu wei: knowing when to act, and knowing when not to act. The theme is built on the principles of the grid system. […]
Hi Jeff and thanks for a great theme!
I am having a bit of problems with the two description links (how to edit them) and also with the “read more” link. Any pointers on how to solve them would be greatly appreciated.
Cheers!
Thanks!
Yep, you just need to edit your theme in your WordPress admin, under Appearance -> Editor, and select header.php on the right. From there you should see the source code, and you can edit both the header and “read more” links from in there.
Let me know if you need any more help.
Ah, think I got it now. Cheers!
Wonderful theme!
When trying to change anything in header.php, I get this message:
Warning: fopen(C:\Inetpub\stillanatt/wp-content/themes/wu-wei/header.php) [function.fopen]: failed to open stream: Permission denied in C:\Inetpub\stillanatt\wp-admin\theme-editor.php on line 55
Warning: Cannot modify header information — headers already sent by (output started at C:\Inetpub\stillanatt\wp-admin\theme-editor.php:55) in C:\Inetpub\stillanatt\wp-admin\theme-editor.php on line 70
What does it mean and what I can do about it?
By the way, all this with codes/files isn’t my thing, so baby language is appreciated
Thanks,
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Nice clear and clean design… lov it! Will use it for one of my sites. Cheers.
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Hi, very nice template. clear and clean it’s for me ;-)
I just have a request. I would like to know how is it possible to center the elements in the menu and in the widget in the sidebar (not the text, it’s easy).
thx
As a web designer, I find it almost impossible to design for myself. I’ve never liked anything I’ve done on my own websites.
This is just what I was after — a clean, simple and elegant theme so that I can concentrate on writing.
All I had to do was add two closing ‘s to the bottom of the page to make it validate.
The last line should say “two closing div’s”
There is typo in the html code. In the first line of the sidebar.php there is an opening div declaration, whereas it should be a closing one. This way the code is properly nested (and validates).
Thanks! I’ll be sure to change this in the next update.
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Jeff,
This is a nice theme.
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your design is really a someting clean and neat. Very impressive.
Hi! Love this theme! I am just warning you now– I am probably going to post with a million questions cause I have NO IDEA how to do this stuff and I am just trying to figure it out on my own.
#1– How can I make the menu bar on top into some drop down menus. For example right now the “who we are” should be a drop down with 4 options, which are pages I already created in wordpress.
#2– When clicking the additional links (who we are, information, etc), is there anyway to remove the post-like look? For example, right now when I click on “information”, the page that comes up looks just like a post, with the headline being “investment”. I’d like to remove that headline as well as the date.
#3– The colors. I tried changing some codes but it doesn’t seem to be taking effect. I want to change the orange color to an aqua– is this possible?
More questions to come…I promise!
YOu do a great job, Jeff! Thanks for the work you did on this theme and helping people like me work with it :-)
Figured out #3. :-)
Can I have a new #3?
Is there anyway to add a background image for the header and also for the body background of the entire blog. For example to add the following graphics:
Header= http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y98/a_candelora/NEHStoolbar.jpg
Body background= http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y98/a_candelora/NEHSblogbackground.jpg
To set a header background, edit the stylesheet using the same method as below, and add the code
background-image:url('http://i3.photobucket.com/albums/y98/a_candelora/NEHStoolbar.jpg');in the #header class. Then you should delete the text (anything in the “blog-name” and “description” classes) in the header.php file, and replace it with a non-breaking space, which is
&#nbsp;.To set a body background, do the same thing for the body class.
Hi Alicia, I’ll try to answer your questions as best as I can.
#1 — If you’d like the menu bar to have drop down items, then you need to add a javascript code to implement this. Unfortunately, it’s beyond the scope of support I can provide because there are many ways to do it (and requires extra coding to style it), but there’s plenty of documentation on the internet about it. Here’s a link I just pulled up on <a href=“http://javascript-array.com/scripts/simple_drop_down_menu/ rel=“nofollow”>a simple drop down menu.
#2 — Yes, it’s possible to remove the title and the date/time stamp. Go to your WordPress admin panel, and click Appearance -> Editor, then select Page Template from the right. From there you should comment out anything inside the post-info class. So right after the
<div class="post-info">line, add<!--and after the<div class="clearboth">line, add-->.#3 — Good job on the colours. :)
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Thanks so much for your help! You are dah bomb dot com!
Now another question– Is it possible to add a comment box to the end of each post as seen on http://www.justinmarantz.com and http://www.heidimitchellphotography.com/blog/?
Hi Alicia, it is possible to add the comment box at the end of a post, but that’s quite complicated, and also beyond the scope of support I can provide. If you’d like a custom theme, or a modified version of Wu Wei to suit your needs, I’m available for hire.
Hi Jeff,
Using your great theme.
Have a problem — I can’t remove or change the links at the bottom of the page. I have deleted all links from wp admin but they are still there. Also if I add a new link it doesn’t appear here.
Can you tell me what I need to do.
Thanks
Don’t worry — I’ve worked it out.
Cheers
Do I need to install a plugin to embed a video in a post or page? If so, which one?
Nope, you can just use (copy and paste) the embed code provided to you by the video service, such as YouTube or Vimeo.
How can I add the Twitter & Facebook FanPage Widget on the footer of this theme and remove links, etc etc.…
Hi There,
I’m thinking about upgrading to WordPress 2.9 but am not sure how this will effect your lovely Wu Wei 1.2.4 theme.
Also, do you know if the theme is compatible with Font Burner Control Panel?
Thanks in advance, Emma
I just upgraded to WordPress 2.9 and everything appears to work fine, so I’d go ahead with that upgrade.
As for the Font Burner Control Panel, I’m not sure about that one so I’m not sure. If you test it out and it works, please let me know so I can add it to the documentation.
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Hi Jeff,
I found break out of the grid CSS “pull-1″ class doesn’t works if I include Caption with the picture, Caption text also not shown because the text are in white color…
Do you have any idea how to correct the problems?
Many thanks, Samson.
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Thanks man! great theme
Jeff,
How do i solve the issue of too many tags causing a gang up/over-write on a singular entry?
Regards
Richard
Sorry Richard, I don’t have a solution to this at the moment. Wu Wei was designed for plenty of space in the tags area, but it can’t account for all possibilities of content.
Awesome theme. How can i get “twitter minipost” like you in this blog using Wu Wei?
Thanks
Hi Jeff — I so want your personal blog theme — any plans to release a similar one to yours?
Any way I love this theme but I do not like the grey colored font for the date, etc. is there a way to change the color to black and leave the hover over link orange?
Thanks
Yes, just change the
a:link, a:visited {color:#ff8a00; text-decoration:none;}declaration in the CSS to the colour of your choice.
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Jeff… Thanks for the clean, simple, readable theme. I just installed it for my wife who will begin bloging for the first time. Florago/Notes.
If you are ever in Seattle email me I will buy you a drink.
…Tom
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Dear Jeff,
I realy like your Wu Wei theme. Many thanks for sharing it with us. I use your theme for my dutch webstite and I would like to translate it to Dutch. I’ve tried to make a pot file but i did not succeed in it. Do you have a pot file of the Wu Wei theme and would you like to share it with me?
Best Regards,
Arno
Arno, I’m not sure what a pot file is, but I’ll do some research and see what I can do for you.
Dear Jeff,
Love Wu Wei how can I ad and series of ad spaces to this theme?
Kind Regards
Ian
Hii Jeff…
Very amazing i found your themes, I have download and already applied Wu Wei in my site. Wu Wei is simple, clear, readable and look elegant… many thanks for sharing it with us. What is the meaning of “Wu Wei” this make me curious to know? Btw, could I chance the site’s tittle to own logo or something?
GBU and keep rockin the world :)
warm regars,
Prast
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Great theme!
Please can you tell me how to adjust category hierarchy to be more visible. I want subcategorys to be indented.
Thanks!
Hi Andrija, Wu Wei was not meant to display category hierarchy, since the categories are outputted onto a single line. However, you may try using the wp_dropdown_categories() template tag. There may also be a way to do this by playing around with the “style” attribute of the wp_list_categories() tag.
Absolutely nice work!
But, I just gonna say that, what if comments are more than two numbers?
So, I see that it’s designed for just two numbers count, and changed comment count from 13 to 133 with FireBug and saw the background image is not enough to place 133 comment count.
I think, you can change it by replacing to bottom of that area for example a triangle image as background and body of it also might be redesigned.
Just simple:
Regards!
Hello,
I am working with SPIP and wu wei… I would love to be able to have a jpeg instead of the title in texte and include as well images in the home page. Can it be done easily with SPIP ????
Thanks for your help
Hi isa, I’m not sure what SPIP is, so I’m afraid I can’t help you.
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Hi Jeff,
Do you have any plans to upgrade Wu Wei for WP 3.0 ?
Yes I do! Keep an eye out for updates soon. :)
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I used this theme on the wordpress.com site and it looked great. But when I uploaded it to my webserver (using wordpress 3.0 from wordpress.org) it looks significantly different. Is there any way to get the wu wei theme as on wordpress.com?
You’re right, the wordpress.com version has been modified to be slightly simpler and more universal. I’ve yet to decide if I’m going to move in this direction with the next update of Wu Wei, because these changes are also a little more limiting.
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I am a wordpress newbie, i would love to learn how to change the orange color (when the gray words are moused over) to a different color. Thanks!
Yes, you can edit the styles.css file in your theme. There’s a line that says:
a:hover {color:#feb925;}
Simply change this color hex value to whatever value you wish.
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Would like to change the menu links, can you give me an idea how to do this. Perused your comments file, but whoever asked figured out for themselves, not me though, thanks, ray
Please take a look at this thread.
First, I ‘d like to thank you for designing such a beautiful blog. I do have a question for you. How can I make the blog posts on the front page into excerpts and make the newest one full size. Also, can I limit the amount of blog posts on the home page?
Thanks,
Jessica
Unfortunately, it will take some heavy editing to get all entries on the home page to display as excerpts aside from the newest entry, beyond the scope of support I can offer for Wu Wei. It’s definitely possible though; I’d recommend reading this article on the WordPress loop, which also include customizing options.
As for the number of blog posts on the page, this can be changed in the WordPress dashboard, under Settings->Reading.
Hey Jeff,
Thanks for your awesome template. Is there a way to remove the date on the home page entry? Was told to try this but didnt seem to work.
Thanks in advanced.
small {display: none;
}
I llke your theme, I made a few mod’s but think I have stayed with the intent.
Tka e a look if your so inclined .…
http://www.recentdvelopments.ca
Thanks, Ray
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Jeff,
Thank you again for sharing this wonderfully clean theme. I’m having some difficulties with:
- displaying shortened summaries of each post, like on the Wu Wei live demo
(already selected ‘summary’ in the “Reading” settings)
- locating my archives page with categories, links, etc like on:
http://projects.equivocality.com/wu-wei/archives/
(my categories don’t seem to appear at the footer either)
I truly appreciate any tips.
Best regards,
Ron
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Hello,
I am having trouble trying to remove the date & time stamp. I don’t really understand css code at all but purchased the upgrade and still can’t work it out from your explanation.
can you please tell me exactly what to put where?
Sarah, what upgrade did you purchase? Wu Wei is a free, GPL-licensed theme.
To remove the date and time stamp, you’ll need to comment out the date function in the index.php file.
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Hi,
This is a very nice theme, but the wordpress.org version is very disapointing !
All the features explained on wordpress.com (http://en.blog.wordpress.com/2010/06/14/new-theme-wu-wei/) are not in the wordpress.org version !!
I have to edit nearly all the theme files to get it nice. So it is no more a ready-to-use theme, and I’m not sure I will use it…
Is it possible to download the wordpress.com somewhere ?
Thanks !
Note : if I can work with the wordpress.com version, I will use it on one of my blog, so I will translate it in French. And so I will be able to give you this translation.
Thanks!
Hum, not sure this is possible, as all the texts are hard-coded…
A bug this time : the theme do not use the date format configured in the Settings (General). the_time(get_option(‘date_format’)) would be nice.
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