In Alex King’s theme viewer (not sure if it’s kept current with the WP theme viewer), there is a download link.
What theme is it? (Usually the theme author will put a link to their site in the footer area or the “Credits” or “Site Info” area of the sidebar. Did you see anything there?
Thank you…I found it!
I can change anything on this I want, correct? I just need to leave the bottom part where it says who designed it?
At the bottom of the pages where I would edit it says “If this file was writable you could edit it.”. So I can’t edit it?
That means the files aren’t writable by the server through WordPress. You could either edit through FTP or change the file permissions to 666.
It’s perfectly alright for you to edit ANYTHING involved with WordPress.
Heather, once you upload your themes (and I’d do this for each one you have), be sure you go into your FTP client and CHMOD all the *.php and *.css files to 766. That way, you CAN edit them from within the WordPress console.
Do be sure to leave a link to the designer’s site in the footer (or wherever they had it). That way, others can find and enjoy the theme too. And yes, as far as I know, you can tweak the themes (it’s practically expected of you!), change some things around, mess with the stylesheet, etc.
Jalenack, what’s the difference between 666 (the BEAST! ha!) and 766? is 666 safer? I’m curious.
OK, I give…what’s 766? Is that the extension? Like I would put header.766? Sorry, I’m clueless on this 😉
“Jalenack, what’s the difference between 666 (the BEAST! ha!) and 766? is 666 safer? I’m curious.”
In unix, every file is assigned a set of permissions designating the level of access. The 3 possible permission types are Read (R), Write (W) and Execute (X).
Each of these is given a bit pattern or in other words, a numeric identifier:
Read (R) = 4
Write (W) = 2
Execute (X) = 1
Hence, assigning a permission type of 7 means giving Read, Write and Execute as 7 = 4+2+1. Assigning a permission type of 6 instead will mean giving Read and Write as 6 = 4+2.
Now that probably makes sense, but why then do we pass 3 numbers to Chmod? That’s because in Unix, the permissions are given to 3 entities: The owner (i.e. the person that owns/created the file), the group (i.e. the group which the owner belongs to) and others (i.e. everyone else).
Hence, Chmod 766 means give full permissions to the owner and RW permissions to everyone else.
OK, I give…what’s 766? Is that the extension?
To give permissions, type at the shell prompt (command line)
chmod 766 filename
Noooo! Heather, that is a UNIX term, CHMOD. You would use it in your FTP client (e.g., CuteFTP, WS-FTP); isn’t that how you upload your files to your server?
All FTP clients have ways of changing a file’s permissions. You can also do this through cPanel (if your web host offers that pleasant interface). Just go to your File Manager and change the permissions there.
Here is a link to explain it:
http://www.tamba2.org.uk/wordpress/ftp/chmod/index.html
Joni
IfElse, I understand the concept of CHMOD, but my query was what is the ADVANTAGE of 666 over 766 (which is what is suggested). THAT was my question. Is there a major difference (or was that perhaps a typo on Jalenack’s part?)?
J
“Jalenack, what’s the difference between 666 (the BEAST! ha!) and 766? is 666 safer? I’m curious.”
Just realised that in my previous post, I gave the theory without actually explicitly answering the question.
There’s no need to chmod it to 766 instead of 666 as you won’t be executing the file. If it’s not a shell script or executable program, then don’t bother.
It’s redundant work and you should stick to 666.
In fact, it’s best practice to be as restrictive with permissions as possible. Depending on the file, if you can get away with assigning less permissions, the better.
That’s what I suspected. Why, then, do most instructions indicate to use 766?
Habit, laziness or a just in case mentality? 🙂
Bad news – I changed permission to 666 and now my blog doesn’t come up at all. When I go into the themes part of the admin, it just tells me permission denied. I even tried 766 but that didn’t do any good either. I did this in cPanel and now it’s all screwed up. What was the permission set to begin with so at least my blog is showing?
CHMOD shouldn’t affect its visibiilty. Even at 644, a page can be visible. Did you by chance mess around with the permalink options? Sounds like an .htaccess issue.
WHICH FILES did you change? You should only change those files that have the *.css OR *.php extensions and ONLY those files in the subdirectory /themes.
