MiniCard Theme for Wordpress – a cool free business card/social network theme

November 10, 2009 | Published in: Web design & development | Tags: , , , , , , 81
Updated: December 31, 2009

Updated to 1.1.6 with minor improvements to the free theme, and a new feed system in the premium pack to make Twitter feeds more reliable.

minicard

I am releasing my MiniCard theme for wordpress which supports hCard/vCard microformats, tonnes of social networks, showing some portfolio items (optional), and more – all controllable from its own Theme Config page. This theme is free and licensed under GPL – there is also a premium pack available with many theme variations, and the footer feed functionality.

Read more for more information and the download links. I hope you find this theme useful and spread the word :)

About the Theme

MiniCard is a social network/business card Wordpress theme inspired by Tim Van Damme’s excellent website. The theme lets you add links to all the social networking sites you may be a member of, and post useful information such as bio’s and contact details. It also has built in hCard support and (optionally) lets you offer a vCard for visitors to download your contact information.

Another useful feature, for those with portfolios, is the ability to set up a portfolio category in which you can set up items to feature below your card. These items are shown as thumbnails/galleries and pop up in a lightbox when clicked.

To control all of the features of MiniCard the theme comes with a useful admin panel for setting up your networks, theme options, and contact details for your hCard.


Since this is only a lightweight mini theme, widgets are not supported. You can however run a mini blog and make posts – these are all styled and fully supported.

To summarise:

  • MiniCard is free to download and licensed under GPL
  • Loads of social networks supported
  • (Optional) Ajax Loading of main navigation links
  • Portfolio functionality with lightboxes
  • Theme Config section and instructions in Wordpress admin
  • Built in hCard/vCard support
  • Comes with the default theme
  • Each theme contains several variations – burst, diagonal stripe, horizontal stripe, vertical stripe, tartan.

Setting up the social page

If on the Settings > Reading page you have ‘posts’ shown on the front page, the social networking page will show by default. Otherwise if you are setting the front page make sure you give it the ‘home’ template.

About the Premium Pack

The MiniCard theme itself is free, however I have created a premium pack which simply ’slots in’ to the free theme. This pack contains:

  • Feed functionality – pull in RSS feeds or your choice, for example your own blog and your twitter posts. Loaded in using AJAX so the page loads faster.
  • Several sub-themes -
    • Blue Anvil Blue
    • Black
    • Grey
    • Pink
    • Helveticard (minimalist theme based on Jon Hicks’ design for Helvetireader)

You also get a warm fuzzy feeling inside knowing that you have helped support the author (me).

Screenshots

Demo

I personally set up my MiniCard Theme to demonstrate the theme in use. You will notice the feed below my card – this is part of the premium pack.

Download MiniCard (free)

The link to the download is below, enjoy! You can also get MiniCard from the Wordpress Themes Directory.

MiniCard Wordpress Theme (2290)

Purchase the Premium Pack (£25)


Support

Questions? Bug Reports? Feedback? Post a thread on the forums.

Licence & Donate

The MiniCard theme is licensed under GPL (http://www.opensource.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html). You may remove the link back in the footer, but I would appreciate if your attributed my work. Remember, the more popular the theme becomes, the more likely it is maintained and updated in the future.

If you wish to make a donation because you like this theme, you can use the ‘Buy me a coffee’ link below, buy the premium pack, or both :)

Found this post useful? Why not buy me a coffee!

Related Entries

81 Responses to “MiniCard Theme for Wordpress – a cool free business card/social network theme”

RSS feed for comments on this post.

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  1. Susan says:

    I’ve been seeing more of these types of themes (business cards). I think they are quite important especially if you have registered a domain as your name.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 10, 2009 at 6:35 pm

  2. n2j3 says:

    thanks for a great theme :)

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 15, 2009 at 5:28 pm

  3. Mike Jolley says:

    @n2j3: Glad you like it

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 16, 2009 at 1:44 pm

  4. a54 says:

    Mike Your minicard theme is great! Thanks. I tested it and there is no link back to this page to download the theme. I encourage you to correct this. A link back is a great way to promote this theme.

    It’s especially nice the way you use it, with your comments (twitter and whatever else) below. Nice. I’m currently using John Saddington’s Digital Business Card theme. This minicard theme is only the second open source “business card” theme, I’ve come across. Thanks again.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 18, 2009 at 9:36 pm

  5. Rodrigo P. Ghedin says:

    Nice theme, I’ve just installed it on my personal page!

    I really would like to buy the premium pack, but, man… it’s too expensive! I mean, your work is great, but 25 bucks for themes and RSS? Help us help you :-) .

    []’s!

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 20, 2009 at 1:04 am

  6. Mike Jolley says:

    @Rodrigo P. Ghedin: Glad you like it. As for the cost, I think of it as a nice sized donation for the theme with bonuses – I mean the theme took ages and I also had to made a bazillion social icons for it too :/

    @a54: It links to my miniblog which in turn links to here – I could link here, but then in the future I may start another post for it..never know.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 20, 2009 at 2:15 am

  7. Dustin says:

    Would it be possible to add a ‘MiniBlog’ tab/section to this? Someone that displays your most recent blog post and perhaps an arrow or pages to previous posts below? I love the look of these vCard type of themes, but I still want to be able to post the occasions blog update/etc.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 22, 2009 at 12:34 am

  8. Mike Jolley says:

    @Dustin: You can add a blog section in the usual way -create a new page and set it up in Settings. Posts etc are supported.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 22, 2009 at 10:14 am

  9. Logan Lindquist says:

    Awesome theme dude! Excellent work! Might have to reinstall wp on my self titled domain because of this. :)

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on November 24, 2009 at 3:36 am

  10. GeorgWP says:

    Very nice. Communicates well.

    It seems as though it does not localize all strings. I am not quite sure why many do translate. WordPress must get them from the default theme textdomain file.

    However, in order to localize all strings, I think you must add the theme textdomain parameter. You must also add a load_theme_textdomain function in the functions.php. It needs only parameter: the name used in the i18n functions.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 4, 2009 at 8:56 pm

  11. Hara Kim says:

    Hmm the only problem I seem to be having is page title issues. Is this using a different system then normal themes? I tried replacing the code with title code I usually use for all my wordpress sites but it doesn’t work properly

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 6, 2009 at 8:27 am

  12. Mike Jolley says:

    @Hara Kim: Its using the_title() which is standard.

    @GeorgWP: Do themes translate like plugins? Ill download a few others and see how they do it.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 6, 2009 at 10:11 am

  13. Kelly says:

    Great theme, but I would like to show my blog, is this possible? because my posts do not show up.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 6, 2009 at 10:12 pm

  14. adcantu says:

    This is awesome! Great work. Is there a way that I could have a static homepage but still have a separate page for the social links? Id rather have some other content show up on first page load rather than those social buttons.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 7, 2009 at 12:02 am

  15. Mike Jolley says:

    @Kelly: Create a page called ‘blog’ then go to settings > reading and set the posts page.

    @adcantu: Like the above, but set the front page to your static stuff. Create another page for the social links (give it the template – youll see it in the dropdown in the right of the edit post screen).

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 7, 2009 at 2:20 am

  16. Jos says:

    Absolutely love the theme, thanks! Considering buying the premium package ;) Got one question for you. The vertical scrollbar doesn’t seem to go away when the page doesn’t need scrolling. You got a solution for that?

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 7, 2009 at 9:05 pm

  17. Mike Jolley says:

    @Jos: Thanks :) It doesn’t? I don’t see the issue, but if you could look with firebug (firefox) or simular to see which element is responsible I’d be grateful.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 8, 2009 at 12:54 am

  18. Rico says:

    Hi,

    Thanks for this beautiful theme. I just bought the premium package. But I was wondering if there’s a way that we can customize this theme to add some Google Adsense ads?

    In fact if I want to add a scrolling ad space on both side (left and right), how do I do?

    Thanks

    Rico

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 8, 2009 at 10:30 pm

  19. Mike Jolley says:

    @Rico: You would need to add this using a few extra div elements (possibly in header/footer.php) and styling with css to position them. Some knowledge of html and css needed.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 9, 2009 at 4:32 pm

  20. francesco says:

    probleM:
    Parse error: syntax error, unexpected T_OBJECT_OPERATOR in /home/mhd-01/www.xxxxxxxx.it/htdocs/blog2/wp-content/themes/minicard/footer.php on line 31

    ?????

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 9, 2009 at 6:15 pm

  21. Mike Jolley says:

    @francesco: WP version? PHP version? It’s the code trying to load in thumbnails.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 9, 2009 at 6:19 pm

  22. francesco says:

    @Mike Jolley:

    wp last version

    PHP Version 4.4.4-8+etch6

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 9, 2009 at 6:23 pm

  23. francesco says:

    WITH PHP 5 NO PROBLEM THANKS

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 9, 2009 at 6:33 pm

  24. Mike Jolley says:

    @francesco: Ok, maybe it’s the current() function, Ill look into it for anyone else.

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 9, 2009 at 6:34 pm

  25. Albert says:

    doesn’t work well on the iphone. other than that.. great theme!

    ReplyReply

    Comment made on December 11, 2009 at 5:41 am

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About this site

Blue Anvil is the online web design journal & portfolio of , a web designer from Norfolk, England. Read More »
ThemeSlice

  • Featured work - More

    • Beefjack
    • Integrity
    • theotaku.com

  • Latest Tweet - More

    • New blog post: MiniCard 1.1.7 Update http://blue-anvil.com/archives/minicard-1-1-7-update/

  • Out of the blue - More

    • MiniCard 1.1.7 Update

      I have just uploaded 1.1.7 of MiniCard here and to the WordPress theme directory. This updates includes:

      • New networks; xing, gowalla, yelp, foursquare, mobileme, google buzz
      • A way to change link text and define multiple links of the same network
      • A way to define your own custom links + icons
      • Improved admin panel

      Hope you like it, and don’t forget you can show your support by purchasing the premium pack from here.

    • Switched: From Shared to VPS

      It’s been about two weeks now since I made the transition from a shared reseller hosting account to a VPS (Virtual Private Server) account – impressions so far, excellent performance but fiddly to configure.

      The reason I wanted to change from shared hosting was the fact the server was always being hacked (even though ALL my scripts were secure), there was frequent downtime, support blamed me for problems every time, and it was slow as hell.

      Those used to a shared hosting environment would probably not know where to start when faced with configuring a VPS. Luckily, a lot of it was pre-configured when I received my account – certainly some of the major security holes were patched. I was not satisfied with those however. As a victim of hacking in the past (previous host swears it was not there fault, something I don’t believe) I took extra care to secure it as a much I could – configuring brute force detection, the firewall, installing mod security (excellent rules for that here: http://www.atomicorp.com/wiki/index.php/Atomic_ModSecurity_Rules) and going though multiple guides (like this one: http://www.webhostingtalk.com/showthread.php?t=468168) with a fine-tooth comb.

      The result? My pages are loading at least 6 times faster, I have had no down time (or at least have not noticed any), and I feel in control and happy. No longer am I at the mercy of shared hosts :)

      If your interested, I chose ServInt as my provider as they offered a great deal, as well as being a managed service (so I’m not on my own if I screw things up). I was tempted by the bells and whistles of Media Temple, but felt the ServInt service was better value.

    • Download Monitor 3.2.2 Maintenance Release

      Download Monitor has received some more love and has been updated. Here’s the change log from the new version:

      • Small bugfix in uploader.php – cat ID
      • Changed stats graph calculation – thanks lggemini
      • Changes to headers in download.php to avoid caching
      • File Browser fixes – $root was clashing with something….
      • exclude_cat works in all sections of download_page now
      • Removed hardcoding of /uploads/
      • Added action to download.php – should be able to use it to stop a download if you want – maybe limiting downloads per day or something? Whatever you want…
      • Made it so if you post new file on ‘edit’ screen, the post date is updated.
      • Fixed the ‘blank meta’ section which blanks out custom field values when nothing is set.
      • Moved ‘allow_url_fopen’ check.
      • Someone said downloads don’t work with spaces in the name. They do! Wasting my time sonny…
      • All work and no play make jolley a dull boy
      • Had to rename capabilities so they work. Apologies if you have to set this up again! Cheers to Mark Dingemanse.
      • {category_ID} custom format tag added. Useful if you want to send someone to its category on the DL page I guess. Also added {category_other} so when no category is set “other” is shown – this is because the download page can show an ‘other’ section if you want it to.
      • You can now manually edit the post date on the edit download screen.

      If you have edited capabilities for download monitor user permissions, you’ll have to again sorry! This is because I named them too long. Also, you should check your forced downloads still work because there was a logic error meaning they may not have been forced after-all…

      Enjoy.

    • Mahousive update to Download Monitor (3.2)

      Today I completed the update for the Wordpress Download Monitor Plugin – many tweaks, fixes, and features added. There were no changes to the database structure so people upgrading should be fine. Here is the list from the change log:

      • {user} tag added for custom formats
      • ‘autop’ option fix
      • Download page buttons applied with CSS so they are easier to customise/translate.
      • Fix for pagination bug after editing a download
      • Category output fix on edit downloads screen
      • Category urls on download page use ID rather than name to prevent errors when cats have the same names.
      • exclude_cat added to download_page shortcode
      • Localised ‘hits’ ‘date’ ‘title’ on download page
      • Option to disable the download logging
      • Read file ‘chunked’ some people found large files were corrupted so this should help (fingers crossed)
      • Added show_tags option to download page – displays x amount of tags on the download page.
      • File Browser root setting and download.php logic/mime types modified thanks to Jim Isaacs (jidd.jimisaacs.com)
      • Interface Improvements
      • Bulk edit categories, custom fields, tags, member only downloads
      • Added roles for download monitor admin – should be able to use with a role manager plugin if you want anyone other than admin to access the admin section e.g. http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/capsman/
      • Change redirect after add
      • Edit Cat names/parents
      • Dedicated tags and thumbnails fields (they still use meta table though)

      And yes, those category link bugs are fixed at long last, and you can edit category names finally. Phew!