Blog-Views – why so complicate ??

Hi!

There’s no archive/blog template which equals 1) + 2). You could use the “Single Author, big preview Pic (no author picture is displayed, feature image is big)” option: http://kriesi.at/themes/enfold/blog/blog-single-small/ but this template does not show such a big thumbnail on the left side and you’d need to customize the includes/loop-index.php file. Depending on your php/html skills I recommend to hire someone here: http://www.microlancer.com/ or here: http://kriesi.at/contact/customization

The single post layout (no.3) can be selected on the theme option page “Enfold > General Settings > Single Post Style”. I recommend to use the “Single post with big preview image (featured image)” option

Cheers!
Peter

There’s no prob with Enfold overall. It’s by far the most advanced theme currently available anywhere with a custom framework (!). It’s got lesser options to mess around with compared to other themes, but this is for a good reason. Themes with custom frameworks (even those with some modified Options Framework fork) are quite a bit harder to understand than regular themes. The Avia Layout Builder is just one part and it is neccessary to render the page contents in a more or less different way than WordPress may support it with the core API.

Also, nesting objects is a tough part and Enfold doesn’t support this out of the box. It can be done, but I guess a lot of people will run in unpredictable probs with that. This doesn’t stick to Enfold, it’s a major hurdle on WordPress. Nesting plain and easy shortcodes is one thing. Processing serveral layers of shortcodes with dozens of attribs and layouted/formatted contents way different.

As a conclusion, you shouldn’t think about modifying an existing theme if you don’t have enough PHP knowledge. This raises furthermore, if the code is well shaped and object oriented.

As answer to this thread:
The blog can be easily modified by css. There’s no need to touch any of the source files at all. But by default, some views (selectable in builder) won’t provide a featured image in single view. A quick look at the corresponding file shows exactly, where the $thumb is placed and what to do. If you got some pretty much decent PHP/WordPress knowledge. As for the thumb sizes itself… well… Enfold generates a lot of different sizes. It’s easy to modify a existing or add a new thumbsize within functions.php.

Note:
You shouldn’t mess up your installation (and it is definitly messed up). Start fresh and always have a clean backup copy of the database. None of your so called errors/bugs occur on a newly installed WordPress with Enfold. Create a concept instead of messing around with features and stuff – this leads nowhere. Start easy and try to modify the simple tasks by css.

As a personal hint I would recommend using a real CMS instead of a sloppy and pity blog solution for your project. But this could be even more complicated…