Stuck at square one!

  • Resolved gettingthere

    (@gettingthere)


    16 years, 9 months ago

    Hi,

    Two questions:
    1) I was under the impression that all I had to do to customize the default theme to match my existing website was to copy and paste from my site CSS into the WP CSS file. But with all the questions I see here, I’m getting the idea it’s not so easy after all. Do I at least have the basic idea right?

    2) Assuming the answer to #1 is yes…I do OK coding in CSS and HTML, and I don’t mind experimenting a little to get it all exactly right. But at this point I can’t even get into the theme’s CSS file. No matter what I attempt to do, I get a message that says I don’t have permission. This is a one-person site, and I’m listed as the administrator, yet my logging in only seems to apply to posting, not making changes to the theme. I can’t even do the “upgrade to 2.8.2” that’s recommended every time I log in–no permission. So I figured the default files must be read-only, so I tried making a copy of the default theme and renaming it. No dice–same message. Where do I even start???

    So frustrated already. Someone please tell me it’s really not this hard.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
  • @mercime

    (@mercime)

    16 years, 9 months ago

    all I had to do to customize the default theme to match my existing website was to copy and paste from my site CSS into the WP CSS file.

    Yes. The thing is, are the divs/spans/etc ID’s or classes for your WP theme’s wrapper/s and/or container/s the same as those of your existing site’s template? If so, then I see no problem straight off.

    But at this point I can’t even get into the theme’s WP CSS file.

    Basically, you mean you cannot edit the style.css of your theme in Admin dashboard, right? It might be because of permissions setting of your theme’s folder/files. My question is how you were able to customize a WP theme to approximate your own existing site’s template if you could not access the themes folder, but that’s neither here or there.
    Why not try to FTP upload (filezilla is a good FTP program) the revised or custom style.css you made?
    Once you get the hang of it, it will become very easy the next time 🙂

    Thread Starter gettingthere

    (@gettingthere)

    16 years, 9 months ago

    My question is how you were able to customize a WP theme to approximate your own existing site’s template if you could not access the themes folder, but that’s neither here or there.

    Actually, it’s both here and there. 🙂 Exactly–I haven’t been able to. I can view it, but I’m not allowed to change it.

    I thought everything was supposed to happen through the dashboard for WP. I’m out of time tonight, but I’ll try what you said and directly upload through my FTP instead of the dashboard, just like I do all the other website files. Will let you know what happens. Thanks!

    doc4

    (@doc4)

    16 years, 9 months ago

    gettingthere,

    You will need to change the permissions through FTP in order to allow WordPress access through the dashboard. Once you get going it really is a lot easier than your typical web site.

    @mercime

    (@mercime)

    16 years, 9 months ago

    I thought everything was supposed to happen through the dashboard for WP.

    Yes it can be done. But like doc4 mentioned above, you will have to change permissions through FTP – usually folders 755 and files 644, but in some servers permissions need to be folders 777 and files 755, which is not quite safe. Personally, I prefer the “old-fahsioned” way, I like to upload CSS theme changes via FTP 🙂

    Thread Starter gettingthere

    (@gettingthere)

    16 years, 9 months ago

    Thank you both! What a wealth of info I’ve gotten from this forum already.

    I’ve gotten a sudden influx of work this week, so the new blog is having to wait a while (again). But I will definitely post and let you know how things are going once I get back into it.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

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