2. Add this lines to the very top of code in archives.php:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Archives
*/
?>

3. Edit the <?php the_content(”); ?> to <?php wp_get_archives(’arguments’); ?> (if you want other format, please read this).

Remove other unnecessary code to meet with what you need.

4. Publish a New Page, call it Archives. Change the Page Template from Default Template to Archives.

There are many tutorials about creating Archives Page. I just want to make it simpler and flexible. If you can understand the point here, you can make your Archives Page in any format. You also can create as many as pages you want, not only Archives Page.

I prefer to combine my archives page with Clean Archives Reloaded plugin.

For default, installing this theme will create regular blog in the home page.

How To Create A Site With STATIC PAGE on the Home Page

1. Published a page, name it Home, and choose Homepage as the Page Template.
2. Published another page, name it Blog, and choose Blog as the Page Template.
3. In the Setting - Reading, change the Front page displays to A static page (select below):

• Front page: Home
• Posts page: Blog

Preview of static page in the home page:

Screenshot below is preview of blog:

View live demo for Minimalist Vintage Wordpress Theme.

Download this theme for free: Minimalist Vintage Wordpress Theme (428)

Update July 7, 2008:

To make the sidebar on the right side, open the style.css from the Theme Editor, find this code and change it to:

.content { width: 460px; float: left; background: #fff; margin: 0 0 10px 0; }

.sidebar { font: 10px 'LucidaGrande', 'Lucida Grande', 'Lucida Sans Unicode', sans-serif; width: 170px; margin: 0 0 10px 0; padding: 0; text-align: center; float: right; }

First page indexed by Yahoo:

Following the instruction from Google XML Sitemaps Plugin:

• Create YAHOO Application ID to notify YAHOO about updates of this site.
• Create robots.txt file in blog root which contains the sitemap location.

Today, only 1 page indexed in Google:

Jun 25, 2008 at 06:51 - Installing Wordpress on this domain.

Jun 25, 2008 at 17:23 - Installing new theme.

Jun 25, 2008 at 16:57 - Installing Platinum SEO Pack.

Jun 26, 2008 at 21:22 - Installing NextGEN Gallery Plugin.

Jun 26, 2008 at 09.00 - Create link back from my personal site.

PS: I do not submit this domain to Google or Yahoo or other search engine/directory until today, and I don’t plan to. Wordpress already has this facility when installing Wordpress for the first time. When I typed site:webminimalist.com on Google search yesterday (June 26 at 18:00…), my pages already indexed.

Below is screenshot of pages indexed by Google today:

When I checked it on Google search, the permalink is still the old one. And when I clicked on the old permalink, it is redirect to the new one.

Font-family property is a prioritized list of font names. Here are the list of font-family. I use this to help me designing website.

Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
‘Times New Roman’, Times, serif
‘Courier New’, Courier, monospace
Georgia, ‘Times New Roman’, Times, serif
Verdana, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
Geneva, Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif
‘Arial Black’, Gadget, sans-serif
‘Bookman Old Style’, serif
‘Comic Sans MS’, cursive
Courier, monospace
Garamond, serif
Impact, Charcoal, sans-serif
‘Lucida Console’, Monaco, monospace
‘Lucida Sans Unicode’, ‘Lucida Grande’, sans-serif
‘MS Sans Serif’, Geneva, sans-serif
‘MS Serif’, ‘New York’, sans-serif
‘Palatino Linotype’, ‘Book Antiqua’, Palatino, serif
Symbol, sans-serif
Tahoma, Geneva, sans-serif
‘Trebuchet MS’, Helvetica, sans-serif

I also add screenshots of how they look in different web browser:

The main idea is: make a website with static page on the home page, and set up a blog that has link to the home page, with only single installation of Wordpress in the root folder/directory.

I duplicate the Page Template / page.php and rename it homepage.php (or home.php, or intro.php, it’s up to you).  Add this code to the top line:

<?php
/*
Template Name: Homepage
*/
?>

Then I published a page, name it Home, and choose Homepage as the Page Template.

I also duplicate the index.php, and rename it to blog.php. Then I publised another page called Blog, and choose Blog as the Page Template.