Customising Twenty Eleven theme

start by creating a child theme http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes

this is to avoid that any customisations are overwritten with the next upgrade of your wordpress version; it is also important to have an unedited default theme as a fallback theme in case of serious theme problems.

once your child theme is setup and working, it may be neccessary for you to post a link to your site, to get suggestions for some of your questions.

It seems to me that it’s necessary to activate a theme if you want to customise it; otherwise, the theme’s files (style.css, header.php etc) are not accessible for modding.

you would need to select the theme from the ‘select theme to edit’ dropdown in the ‘appearance’ ‘editor’ page in the dashboard, above the list of theme files. the theme has to be in the themes folder of your wordpress installation.

there are ways to work on a theme while another theme is active in the front – have a search on the web or forum –
for instance: http://digwp.com/2009/12/develop-themes-behind-the-scenes/ (this is not a recommendation, as i haven’t worked with it)

and then there is the possibility to install wordpress locally on your computer; search for ‘wordpress local installation’ or ‘wordpress local installation xampp’

I was under the impression that if you made changes to the child theme they were not also made to the parent theme.

you are right – i don’t know what the text refers to.

1. I want to make the tags that appear at the end of each post invisible. Is this easily doable, pls?

try and start with adding this to style.css of your child theme:
.tag-links { display: none; }
if you want to remove the tags links from single posts, copy content-single.php into your child theme; edit it and find:
$utility_text = __( 'This entry was posted in %1$s and tagged %2$s by <a href="%6$s">%5$s</a>. Bookmark the <a href="%3$s" title="Permalink to %4$s" rel="bookmark">permalink</a>.', 'twentyeleven' );
change to:
$utility_text = __( 'This entry was posted in %1$s by <a href="%6$s">%5$s</a>. Bookmark the <a href="%3$s" title="Permalink to %4$s" rel="bookmark">permalink</a>.', 'twentyeleven' );

2. Can I easily decrease the size of the header (especially the depth)?

add this to functions.php of your child theme (if you don’t have a functions.php in you r child theme, create one and put <?php at the beginning):

//after theme setup section
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'twentyeleven_child_theme_setup' );
function twentyeleven_child_theme_setup() {
define( 'HEADER_IMAGE_WIDTH', apply_filters( 'twentyeleven_header_image_width', 1000 ) );
define( 'HEADER_IMAGE_HEIGHT', apply_filters( 'twentyeleven_header_image_height', 160 ) );
}

3. Can I get rid of the blog title and subtitle from the top of the page and ‘float’ (superimpose) it over a customised header image?

add this to style.css of your child theme:

#branding { position: relative; }
#branding hgroup { position: absolute; top: 0px; }

4. Alternatively, could I make the whole header a clickable link, and ‘hide’ the blog title, while still having it there so search engines can continue to pick it up?

the header is clickable by default; under ‘dashboard’ ‘apperance’ ‘header’ tick ‘display text’ [no]

5. Can I reduce the depth of the white area above the header? Or get rid of it entirely?

#page { margin-top: 0; }

6. Is it easily possible to move the ‘Search’ box down so it is ‘floating’ (superimposed) over the header – say, in the top right corner?

comes automatically with fix no.3; don’t do fix no.4

7. Can I get rid of the Comment bubble and just have a text link (eg: ‘Add a Comment’ or ‘Reply’) next to the blog post date?

get rid of comment bubble:
.entry-header .comments-link{ display: none; }
copy content.php into your child theme; edit it and locate:
<?php twentyeleven_posted_on(); ?>
directly after it, for instance, add:
<?php if ( comments_open() ) : echo ' - '; comments_popup_link( 'Add a Comment', '1 Comment', '% Comments'); endif; ?>

open to improvements

Hi RossB,

Check your ISP – you might be able to have two installations of WP with no extra cost. If so, that gives you a development option without the hassle of installing locally or making hacks. (It also gives you a backup against hacks, but not server loss, if you synch it regularly when not developing.)

1)
possibly the easiest way is to add something like this to style.css of the child theme:
#branding #searchform { display:none; }

2)
refer to: http://www.transformationpowertools.com/wordpress/twenty-eleven-sidebar-on-single-posts-and-pages

3)
copy single.php into the child theme and edit this section there:

<span class="nav-previous"><?php previous_post_link( '%link', __( '<span class="meta-nav">←</span> Previous', 'twentyeleven' ) ); ?></span>
						<span class="nav-next"><?php next_post_link( '%link', __( 'Next <span class="meta-nav">→</span>', 'twentyeleven' ) ); ?></span>

for instance to:

<span class="nav-previous"><?php previous_post_link( '%link' ); ?></span>
						<span class="nav-next"><?php next_post_link( '%link' ); ?></span>

or keeping the arrows, to:

<span class="nav-previous"><?php previous_post_link( '%link', __( '<span class="meta-nav">←</span> %title', 'twentyeleven' ) ); ?></span>
						<span class="nav-next"><?php next_post_link( '%link', __( '%title <span class="meta-nav">→</span>', 'twentyeleven' ) ); ?></span>

http://codex.wordpress.org/Function_Reference/next_post_link