Mingle - Connections

Unfortunately, out of box, the Connections templates are not compatible with the Mingle theme. However, there is a solution, read on…

First, the easy thing. For some reason the theme designer decided to float tables by default instead of just targeting the the instances in the layout where the design requires the table to be floated. You may run into problems with other plugins because of this design choice. The fix for Connections is quite simple. On the “Design Settings” admin page for the theme, click the “Default skin” button and add the following to the custom CSS area:

div#cn-list table { float: none !important; }

That should fix that.

The other fix is a bit more involved. First, a brief explanation without getting to technical. The Connections templates registers its required javascript files which then hooks into the wp_footer action. Somehow, the theme runs the wp_footer() action before the template can hook into it. Basically this means that the template’s javascript is never loaded in the page, which is, of course, bad. This very same issue might cause you headaches with other plugins. Or maybe it won’t. I go thru great lengths to keep javascript loaded only when needed. Most plugins just load it in the header on every page and call it a day. This adds unnecessary weight to the page and also increases the risk of stuff breaking. With that said here’s the edit you need to make:

Open the footer-default.php file found here:
/wp-content/themes/parallelus-mingle

Look for this line:

wp_footer();

Change it to:

//wp_footer();

Save the file and overwrite the one on the server.

Open the layout-and-design.php file found here:
/wp-content/themes/parallelus-mingle/framework/theme-functions

Look for this block of code:

// bottom content area
startblock('bottom');
 
	// Include footer design file.
	get_template_part( 'design', 'footer' );
 
endblock();

Change it to this:

// bottom content area
startblock('bottom');
 
	wp_footer();
 
	// Include footer design file.
	get_template_part( 'design', 'footer' );
 
endblock();

Save the file and overwrite the one on the server.

Now, Connections should work fine without negatively effecting the theme. The only real change is altering where the wp_footer() action is run.

Please note this FAQ was written based on Mingle 1.5.1, this solution may or may not with with other versions.