This is the Connections theme for WordPress, customized for AdSense, cleaned up, and made compatible by PRMoney. (The original version can be found at: http://vanillamist.com/blog/?page_id=64)

This theme has been fixed and tested to be compatible with WordPress versions 1.5, 2.0, 2.3.3, 2.5, and MU v1.3.3 (2.3.3) in FireFox 2.0, and Internet Explorer 6 & 7.

WordPress v1.5, 2.0, 2.3.3 & 2.5 users:
You’ll need the Simple Adsense plugin (based on the AdSense Share plugin)

You’ll also want to read this post regarding the new “unimproved” widgets in WP 2.5. It explains how to easily revert to the old 2.3.3 way of dragging-and-dropping widgets. The new interface is a nightmare, and ruins this theme’s widget capabilities.

WordPress MU v1.3.3 users:
You’ll need the AdSense Share plugin, which allows you to set site-wide AdSense Sharing options.

Details:

The Connections theme won the Grand Poobah award in Alexking’s Competition.

It starts off with a great image of a solitary car in a winding tunnel. Above the image is where you will find links to your WordPress blog pages. On the bottom of the header image are four Google AdSense Text Links.

The main body is a two-column layout that contains blog entries on the left, and a special widgetized side bar (WordPress v2.3.3 & MU only) on the right.

The default widgets on the sidebar are Blog Search, Meta, Links (Blog Roll), Recent Posts, Categories, Archives, RSS Feeds, and an AdSense vertical banner on the bottom. If you’re using WordPress v2.3.3 or newer, you can arrange those sidebar widgets however you like, and there are several more choices available for you - Google Search, Tag Cloud, and Text 1.
NOTE: If you’re using WordPress v2.5, please read the note above about the ruined widget functionality, and how to easily fix it.

The blog entries have a nice header above each that contains a calendar-looking date square, post title, and meta information just below. If you are viewing a single page, navigation links will appear before above the post (feature added by PRMoney.)

A horizontal banner AdSense unit will randomly appear after pages with multiple blog entries - archives, search, categories, & post lists. It will appear once after posts 1 through 4, and again after posts 5 through 8. Which post it appears after is random and changes every time the page is loaded. If your viewer is looking at a page with a single post or page, the banner ad will always appear after the entry.

Either way, each ad randomly uses one of 8 color schemes embedded in the theme (post_ad.php). Depending on the color scheme, the ad will either blend or stand out aggressively.

Theme Preview:

Feel free to check out this theme in action:

A Post With Images
A Post With a Video
A Post With Text Formatting
A Post With Comments
A Post With a Password
A Small Post

Download:

Download the latest version here:
Connections Theme v1.1

12-22-2008 - v1.1 update: Fixed a small bug in single.php that prevented correct display of navigation links.

Installation:

Simply unzip into your wp-content/themes directory, activate it (if required), and then select it from the presentation menu.

NOTE: For the AdSense units to display properly, you’ll also need to download, install, and activate either the Simple AdSense plugin, or AdSense Share plugin.

WordPress MU admins - download the AdSense Share plugin
All other WordPress admins - download the Simple Adsense plugin

Feedback:

G2Y has gone to great lengths to ensure all of our AdSense-ready WordPress themes work in the latest versions of WordPress, as well as the three major browsers.

The hardest part of modifying an existing theme for use with AdSense is dealing with the messy code found in almost every theme out there. It takes us anywhere from 30 minutes to several hours to fix all the CSS bugs and them implement the AdSense ads in the most profitable locations of the theme.

We’ve also found that theme authors don’t usually bother to actually test their theme to ensure it displays properly in FireFox & Internet Explorer (6 & 7!), or other versions of WordPress. Most theme authors also fail to test various other aspects of their themes, like the widgets, tag cloud, calendar, etc.

Every template on G2Y has been thoroughly tested in FireFox v2.0, Internet Exploder v6 & 7, and WordPress versions 1.5, 2.0, 2.3.3, 2.5, & MU v1.3.3 (2.3.3), but there’s no doubt we’ve missed something, Don’t hesitate to email support@g2y.net with bug reports, or simply leave a comment below.