Hi,
No real rule of thumb, except that maybe you could say that newer themes tend to have more widget functionality, but even that’s not hard-and-fast.
I feel sorry for newbies using WP, because they get all excited about how many themes there are, and how easy it is to build a site. But to modify a theme substantially, they’re pretty much out of luck, and they’re going to have to hire someone. And they don’t want to pay any money. 🙂 There’s a rule of thumb – if you’re super OCD about your site’s look, it’s gonna cost you! 🙂
Twenty Ten is a pretty nice theme, especially for a default.
Atahualpa is another theme that allows massive tweaking. I’m not all that crazy about it using so many HTML tables, but generally it’s pretty hot. Using it, the only problem I’ve run into was with a minor menu display problem, and unlike many themes, the fix to it was not available via auto-update, I had to download and install the newer version of the theme. I don’t know why they didn’t have that in the repository.
If you’re a skilled developer, I would seriously consider learning about child themes, which can be extremely useful.
Good luck,
Dave
Themes within the Theme Directory that were added or updated after June 2010 should offer all of the widget, header, background and menu functionality that is currently in WP 3. That’s because they have to go through a pretty rigorous review process that is designed to ensure that they offer the same functionality (or more) that you can find in the Twenty Ten theme. so choosing newer themes might help.
I’m a theme builder rather than a user but for those that aren’t technically minded, I’d recommend Suffusion. Very customisable and good support.
Thread Starter
wpntn
(@wpntn)
Thanks for your replies.
A couple more questions come to mind now:
Please elaborate on what a ‘child theme’ is.
and also
themes that you pay for, say on themeforest.net. Are those up to date and more easily customizable? As a whole? I mean I know they’re trying to sell them to the public, but don’t want to buy one and see I can’t move stuff where I want it. I do see on their comments that most of the theme developers seem to answer questions on there and that impresses me. As long as I know I have support and instructions, it should be fine I guess.
But you never know what your website is gonna look like when you buy it until you put your website name on it.
When I say customizable, I’m referring to the ability to remove all the blog info such as recent posts, authors, etc. I want to only use them for websites and not blogs.
Thank you.
Esmi,
Thanks for the tip of Suffusion, I hadn’t seen that one, and will check it out!
[Esmi is the guru here, and would definitely know best!]
I don’t buy any themes, I develop them or change existing ones. So I can’t commment on the quality of themes from a particular source. I would bet that quality varies a whole lot, though.
From the way you’re asking, it’s probably not the answer you wanted. The simple answer is that if you want to substantially customize any theme (removing comments, removing and adding components beyond simple widget changes), sooner or later you’ll have to touch code, at least HTML, possibly PHP. And that upsets newbies. You’ve been warned.
I haven’t been impressed with any themes I’ve seen from “theme farms”, at least free ones.
It’s too large to fully explain here, but in essence, a child theme will use the processing of a regular theme, but have its own separate smaller amount of code that will customize that theme. If you need to know more about development, start here:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development
And there are plenty of good tutorials on the net.
Thread Starter
wpntn
(@wpntn)
touch code, at least HTML, possibly PHP. And that upsets newbies. You’ve been warned.
I don’t write code, but I can work with existing code and html.
Thanks for the warning to the newbies.
Thread Starter
wpntn
(@wpntn)
DO you have to leave the author’s name on the page?
Suffusion theme by Sayontan Sinha?
No. The theme is released under GPL so, although I’m sure the theme’s author would appreciate a link back, you are free to modify the theme in any way that you wish.
