Current Version: Clean and Mean 3.1
Clean and Mean is a clean theme for mean content. It attempts to bring out the importance in your blog’s content while looking as sleek as possible. CnM has been designed to make finding content a breeze, especially for new visitors, thanks to its native support for many content-focused plugins. It’s also customizable to fit your style.
As of version 3.0, Clean and Mean now supports an optional third column.
Screenshots
Want to see more screenshots or share a Clean and Mean screenshot with others? Check out the Clean and Mean Flickr group.
Plugins Supported
Clean and Mean supports several plugins right out of the box. Just install and enable any one of the following plugins and CnM will handle the rest.
- Brian’s Latest Comments
- Code Auto Escape
- Gravatars
- Popularity Contest
- Quote Comment 1.11 (Older Version, but Better in My Opinion)
- Related Posts
- Subscribe to Comments
- WP Grins
- wpPaginate
Page Templates
Clean and Mean includes a few page templates to help you out. Inside you’ll find the following temples:
- Archives - Template which will output your archives in a handy list format. Highly recommended to use since the archives are not in the sidebar.
- Default with Comments - Template used to add comments to any of your pages.
- Redirect - Just add a custom field with the key redirect and a value of a URL, and CnM will create a page which links to an external URL. Useful for adding links to your navigation bar.
Download Clean and Mean
Current Version: 3.1
Released: 2007-03-30
WordPress 2.5 Required
Extras
If you want to customize Clean and Mean, download the following ZIP archive. Inside you’ll find two Photoshop files used for customizing the header and changing the menu bar color. That should get you off to a good start in making Clean and Mean your own site design.
Download Clean and Mean Extras Package
Version History
3.1 - Feature Addition
- Fixes minor compatibility issues with WordPress 2.5.
- Adds support for WordPress 2.5 native Gravatars.
- Files changed: Most of them. If you modified a previous version, I highly recommend starting fresh.
3.0 - Feature Addition
- Adds support for a third column. To add the third column, visit the Theme Options page under Presentation.
- Adds sidebar meta data for users not using widgets.
- Removes the “Tagged” sidebar header if a post contains no tags.
- Adds pingback information to the header.
- Fixes previous and next links not appearing on certain archive pages.
- Fixes the category archive list appearance in the Archives page template.
- Files changed: Most of them. If you modified CnM 1.x or 2.0 it is recommend to start fresh with 3.0.
2.0 - Feature Addition
- Adds support for WordPress 2.3 tagging.
- Adds support for WordPress sidebar widgets.
- Replaces deprecated template functions with their replacements.
- Removes support for Ultimate Tag Warrior due to 2.3 tagging.
- Files changed: Most of them. If you modified CnM 1.x it is recommend to start fresh with 2.0.
1.1 - Feature Addition
- Will now display your blog title in the header.
- Files changed: header.php, style.css, ie.css
1.02 - Bug Fix
- Fixes spacing issue in Archives page when Ultimate Tag Warrior does not exist.
- Removes development comment from style.php.
- Files changed: page-archives.php, style.css (line 1).
1.01 - Bug Fix
- Fixes an error in the sidebar that occurred when you had the Popular Posts plugin enabled, but did not have Ultimate Tag Warrior.
- Note: If you have already customized CnM, you only need to replace/edit the sidebar.php file.
1.0 - Initial Release
Helpful Classes
Here are some CSS classes which you may find helpful when writing your posts.
- noborder - Removes the border from an image.
- left, center, right - Floats an image to the specified direction and provides padding so content does not get close to the image.
- alignleft, alignmiddle, alignright - Moves an object to the specified direction.
- more - Apply to headers immediately following a to get rid of addition spacing created.
- alert - Styles a box to bring attention to it.

129 Comments
This is a modded kubrick
Actually, no it is not. While K2 (the next-gen Kubrick) did have a heavy influence on the method of coding (such as using a loop file), everything from the design right down to the template files was coded myself.
Sorry if I sound a bit defensive, I just put a lot of time an effort into Clean and Mean and to say it’s just a mod strikes a nerve. Now I’m wondering, why do you say it’s a mod?
I just downloaded it and it’s totally NOT a K2 mod. It’s preatty clear it’s not a mod. Nice theme,Ronald, I’m playing with it a little
I’ve downloaded it. Loved the theme when you were using it, so I think it’s gonna work for me. I’m gonna translate it into dutch en ad some other features like asides and maybe some different colours. Let you know when it’s done
Hi Ronald,
This is really a clean theme. Clean code and easy to customize. We started to use it on our multi author site Murekkep.Org. %80 of it translated to Turkish.
Only one thing we couldn’t solve. How can we change the titles in the comments area like “Name/Email/Website URI” ? I found it’s place in comments.php but even i change the text, it still appears in English.
We put the credits to your site in our about page.
The text behind the comment form is actually an image. From the trends directory, open the images folder. In there you’ll find the three images used to create the text.
Hi, I tried to use your theme on WP 2.1. I activated the theme, and when I went to view the site, I got this error:
Parse error: parse error, unexpected ‘}’ in C:\WWWfac\wp-content\themes\CnM\header.php on line 36
I am running wordpress in a development environment on my laptop as a localhost. I can use other themes that I normally use with wp without any problem. Thanks!
Redownload the archive. It should be corrected now.
Dear sir, I would like to use your theme, but it does not seem to support multiple-page posts. Why not? and will you support it in a near future? I want to use it for my master, but it needs support for multiple pages (the tag)
I will look into adding it. I never used multi-paged posts, so I never had that functionality built in.
In return, I will leave al links going to your site and you will added to my “thank you’ page of my “project” (it’s something Dutch, but it’s the most important thing you do while studying).
This may help, but my PHP knowledge is not ‘good’ enough to do it myself.
http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/angsumans-multi-page-plugin-wordpress-2x-plugin-to-create-multi-paged-articles/
This might help: http://blog.taragana.com/index.php/archive/angsumans-multi-page-plugin-wordpress-2x-plugin-to-create-multi-paged-articles/
Hi, great theme. I’m using it right now. I’m having a minor problem, though…I’d like to put a copyright message in the footer between the RSS link and the link back to your site. I’ve tried just about everything I can think of, but I can’t get it to align without throwing off the other two divs.
I’m pretty rusty at CSS, any advice is appreciated! Thanks!
John, emailing you the code.
I’ll suggest http://www.lesterchan.net/wordpress/readme/wp-pagenavi.html for navigation (I’m using it on wp 2.1.2)
Hi, I just downloaded/Uploaded this great looking theme. WP says that it needs a CSS file. It was not in the download. I am attempting to use this theme with WP 2.2. It was on the compatible list, but It won’t show up in my presentation tab.?
The file should be in the ZIP. It would be in the CnM folder under the name style.css. Perhaps the CSS file was not uploaded correctly to your site or the ZIP was damaged on download. If you can’t find the CSS file in the ZIP, try redownloading it. I know it’s in there.
Hey thanks for the wicked fast - middle of the night - response! :-O I just downloaded from the link above for a 3rd time and I swear there is no CSS file in it.
There are 13 files plus the Hack folder and the Images folder. (15 total) is that the right amount?
Tom
Ok Strange - sorry for the alarm, but I went to and older version of stuffit and I could see the files in there and was able to extract them. Same for the extras package.
Thanks for making this available and I guess I’ll have to get my Expander checked!
Clean and Mean WordPress Theme…
Hi, I just love your theme!
Especially the nice locking menu in the top. This menu shows the WP pages on the blog but would it be possible for the menu to show the categories instead?
Best regards
Martin
It works now!!
Just this line:
Glad you figured it out Martin.
Hi,
What do I do if I only want three posts on the startpage?
At the moment i uses all posts…
Best Regards
Martin
Martin, I recommend you look at the query_posts tag.
Thank you
In love with this theme… one weird thing though… I’ve never had this happen, see what I mean when you click below? it’s like the CSS is missing?
http://www.gotogreenla.com/blog/
Zach, did you resolve the issue? I don’t see any problems, but I of course don’t see Clean and Mean installed.
No, I still have not resolved it. I put it back up so you can see:
http://www.gotogreenla.com/blog/
Thanks much!
You’re right. The CSS simply isn’t there. Well, it’s there, but it’s either a blank file or something else.
Have you tried reuploading the style.css and ie.css files? If they are there, your host may have incorrectly set the mime type for css files in that directory. Try deleting any .htaccess files in the CnM directory. If that doesn’t work, I’d contact your host and let them know you’re have a mime issue with css files in that directory.
Any clues on how to add native tag support for WP2.3 instead of UTW?
The problem I have (adding tagcloud and posts tags is easy to solve) is that when I go to see all posts that have a tag, I can’t get anything to show except the tag name in plain text.
Thanks in advance.
Zeusli, I plan to make Clean and Mean compatible with WordPress 2.3 (including tag support) this weekend. I hope you don’t mind waiting.
No problems. I’ll wait for the update
Any chance you’ll ever make it into double-sidebar theme?
I have no plans at the moment, but if someone would modify it, I would have no problem hosting/linking to the mod.
Well, it seems like it should be a fairly simple process. If I will ever have time to do it, I’ll let you know.
Just an update for those of you waiting for a 2.3 compatible version. My weekend turned out to be really busy, but I will be working on the update tomorrow. There isn’t too much needed to make the theme 2.3 compatible, so I should have it out tomorrow. Thank you for being patient.
Clean and Mean 2.0 is now out with support for WordPress 2.3. Enjoy!
Very nice theme. Don’t suppose you’re working on a three column version? =)
Not at the moment, but if requests keep on coming in for a 3-column version, I’ll consider it.
Updated my modified theme with the updates. Working fine
When I upload and activate the theme it doesn’t show a ‘meta’ header on the main page with the Admin link on it.
Any ideas?
Ronald, could you share the code that is specifically responsible for remembering the person who has already commented? My PHP knowledge is rather limited and all of the attempts to extract that particular piece of code have failed so far
I’m sure what exactly you’re referring to. Are you talking about the admin bar that appears on WordPress.com websites? Self-hosted WordPress sites don’t have that bar, or if they do, the bar is built into the theme.
Sure. The code can be found in comments.php lines 109 - 131. The important parts are the first PHP line, the Javascript function, this link:
<a href="javascript:show_hide('comment-author-details'); javascript:show_hide('commentinfo');">Change »</a>the PHP closing tag on line 121, the PHP on line 122, and the div ids. Hope this helps.
It sure does. Thank you very much.
By the way, I am working on 3 columns version. It’s not that much work, but I want to make sure I get everything right.
In your opinion should columns be on each side or next to each other?
Typically, three column designs are on both sides.
Just came across CM50 and I must say CNM is a Wordpress theme I have never seen before, but utterly respect! It’s very clean-cut and stylish, yet perfect for supplying some monster content. If you don’t mind, could I base a CakePHP layout off of CNM? I’ll keep a credit to you on a page when I’m done, but I just won’t be using Wordpress. Let me know on AIM (sameoldspud) or Twitter (cellrdoor).
Thanks in advance Ron!
Hi!, just a little tweak to add “previous/next posts” links to archives and search pages
just add:
|| is_category() || is_day() || is_month() || is_year() || is_search()
after <?php if(is_home() statement on theloop.php.
this is essential to be able to read entire categories like trip logs I have
Thanks ZeusII that is useful. I think Ronald should consider fixing that, ot at least including it into some documentation.
No, I mean the meta box with the ‘register/login’ links on it.
I’m using Wordpress 2.3
I loved how category list in archive page looked with the old funcion wp_list_cats, three columns
Now, with the non deprecated wp_list_categories function just shows as a list.
I’m trying to tweak it to show like before but I can’t. Meanwhile, I replaced the new with the deprecated function.
Could you see if there’s any way to recover the old look? ;D
First, to everyone, I’m going to try my best to add all the features requested. I have a really busy schedule this upcoming week and will most likely have to pull an all-nighter somewhere. I will eventually get to these requests, but it probably won’t be until next weekend or later.
In addition, I plan to have a three-column option for the next release thanks to Karolis.
I don’t mind. Feel free to adapt the theme for CakePHP.
Thank you for making me aware of that. The missing previous/next links is a bug from me stripping the Ultimate Tag Warrior code from this past release. I’ll fix that bug in the next release.
Ok, I’ll add the links for the next release. For now, you can drag the Meta widget to the sidebar and you’ll have those options when logged in.
Again, this is another bug. I didn’t intend for the the list to become hierarchical. To solve this add
&hierarchical=0to the wp_list_categories query string so the whole function looks like this:I’ll have this fixed in the next release.
Thanks Ronald!
&hierarchical=1 did the trick for me.
actually I want the list hierarchical but in three columns (without adding this par. showed as a list).
thanks, that’s the only thing I didn’t try >_<
I’ll be waiting for this release more than Xmas
also, add “is_tag()” to allow browsing trough tagged posts
Some of my blog readers who use [poorly calibrated] LCD monitors started complaining that they can’t see which comment field means what.
I suggest replacing background images with JS code like the one on the search field.
Karolis, I tried JS code in the past and it doesn’t work. If the user fails to fill in fields like the Website URI, the text Website URI is submitted to WordPress as the user’s URI. Thus, every user has a URI regardless.
A better solution would be to use my Safari fall back hack (Safari doesn’t display input images). Just remove this CSS in style.css:
I didn’t think of that :-/
OK, I’ll have tro try your sollution.
Another thing I just found missing is the following code in header.php for the ping system:
<link rel=”pingback” href=”" />
Thank you for pointing that out Zeusll. Yet another feature to add to this update.
Now regarding that update, I’m crossing my fingers for this weekend. If I can manage to avoid a major assignment in my remaining classes for the week, I should have some time to get it done. Thanks to everyone for being so patient.
Hi and congratulations on making a wonderful theme.
I had no problems with CnM 1.1 but when I installed CnM2.0 and activated it, I got this error when I try to open my blog.
Fatal error: Call to undefined function is_tag() in /www/110mb.com/b/2/b/w/i/l/d/_/b2bwild/htdocs/blog/wp-content/themes/CnM/header.php on line 6
I have a very limited knowledge of PHP. Any idea what I’m missing?
I’m using Wordpress 2.2.
Many thanks in advance…
this theme is very clean, very beatiful.
I apply to my blog.
thanks a lot…
Thanks everyone for being so patient. I just released Clean and Mean 3.0. Hopefully I managed to include everything you guys requested. If I happened to miss something or you found another brain fart of mine, feel free to let me know. Enjoy!
Still didn’t have a chance to lay my hands on it, but I’ve just had an idea: why not making a “showcase” – some dedicated place where everyone could post the address to their blog that is using CnM.
Now I know you might say that all I want is to abuse your reputation, but I didn’t say this “showcase” has to be on your website, right?
We just need to collectively decide where we can put those links.
First off, sorry for not seeing your comment sooner. Akismet managed to eat it.
Anyway, the problem is you’re using WordPress 2.2. I had to modify CnM to work with WordPress 2.3, and the new template tags effectively break CnM under 2.2. I recommend you either upgrade to WordPress 2.3 or stick with CnM 1.1.
Would a Flickr group work? I initially tried maintaining a list of CnM users, but that became less useful as people switch to other themes. I think a Flickr group would allow self promotion and make sure people can actually see CnM working on websites.
Ronald, flickr will work if people use it. I don’t
On the other hand, if you’re saying it didn’t work before, maybe there’s no need for it. I just thought it would be interested to see how other people modify CnM.
If you want to see CnM in action, visit http://www.awooga.nl
Thanks for making such a nice theme! Am currently using 2.0, but will be upgrading to 3.0 soon. Have done a bit of customisation on it, but nothing major. An attribute of a great theme
Thanks Q!
For anyone interested the Flickr group is now live. Feel free to post your Clean and Mean modifications.
Ronald,
Thanks for making this great Theme… I’ve modded it a bit for ScalpEm.com and my users are overwhelmingly please.
I tried to send you an email the other day… do you take donations for your work?
Hello Bill, glad you enjoy Clean and Mean! I do take donations via PayPal at ron at cavemonkey50 dot com.
Regarding sending an email, did the email bounce? The reason I ask is you’re not the first person who mentioned having issues sending me an email this week.
Hey Ronald, it didn’t bounce. Dunno what to tell you on that. I just never got a reply so I thought I’d try a comment! Check your Paypal… many thanks!
Bill, thank you very much for the donation. Your donation is greatly appreciated and will be put to good use.
If you have any suggestions for Clean and Mean, feel free to let me know. Thanks again and enjoy!
First of all thank you for this great theme!
I only would have one suggestion, what should be changed: Could you make it liquid, so that it can use the whole width of the browser and only have left and right borders with 1 or 2 em? Fixed layout is not very usefull in my eyes.
I understand your personal preference with fluid layouts, but unfortunately Clean and Mean is not a fluid theme and never will be. Fluid themes make predicting content display difficult, expectably when dealing with larger resolutions. In addition, making Clean and Mean fluid would require some substantial rewriting of the theme code, and I’m just not willing to do that.
If you’re looking for a fluid layout, there are a number of other free WordPress themes that I’m sure would fit your needs. I’m sorry, but Clean and Mean just isn’t a fluid theme.
I know
I have already tried to modfiy the css, but didn’t work how i would like it.
No thanks. Clean and Mean is really cool, so i will still use it in future