My attempt at making the KU Template work in WordPress
It’s not secret that I really dislike the KU Template, or the design the powers-that-be at KU have imposed upon all KU departments to promote uniformity across the campus’s web presence. The problems I have with it are (a) from an identity standpoint, one size really does not fit all; (b) it’s not enforced in any remotely uniform fashion (uh, the design joke that is the KU Athletics website, anyone? We win a freaking national championship in basketball and the Orange Bowl and we’re still stuck with what CSTV gives us?); and (c) the XHTML/CSS coding is terrible. I’m not saying it was an easy task, but it is not good CSS, not good semantic design, and it uses an outdated technology to bring it all together (server-side includes? Seriously?).
Unfortunately, we’re stuck with the design–and rather than sit and complain about it I figured I’d go to work implementing a version of the KU Template I could use with tools I routinely deploy–so, less with the SSI and more with the WordPress. Loosely based on work done by a few colleagues of mine (namely Jason and David), I give you a WordPress-powered site with a theme based on the KU Template:
I’m still tweaking it, but it’s getting more solid by the day. I have this in my group’s secure Subversion server, but if you’re at KU and would like a copy let me know.
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