You can’t, WordPress doesn’t work off of static HTML files. In a sense, your main index file is the index.php file, and everything is generated dynamically by WordPress depending on what’s being viewed, what theme you’re using, and dozens of other settings.
The best way to make changes like this to a theme is to use a child theme, so your tweaks won’t be overwritten when updating the theme.
Additionally, here’s a great guide for building a theme from scratch: https://themeshaper.com/2012/10/22/the-themeshaper-wordpress-theme-tutorial-2nd-edition/
And, don’t miss the Theme Developer Handbook: https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/
(written before James’ comment appeared)
You have me confused. For a number of reasons:
- WordPress does not have any index.html files, just index.php
- Your question suggests that you might not have downloaded the file properly, since correctly downloading and uploading are very similar
Correct downloading and uploading is normally done with FTP, though some hosts provide a File Manager in their Control Pannels.
FTP is described here: https://codex.wordpress.org/FTP_Clients
That’s a lot of good information I forgot to mention, thanks! 🙂
I downloaded the page by rightclicking on the page and downloading it or by doing ctrl + s
Yeah, that’s just the static page generated by WordPress. Modifying it doesn’t result in anything usable.
Follow the advice in the replies above for how to properly adjust the design.
I downloaded the page by rightclicking on the page and downloading it or by doing ctrl + s
Yes, I was afraid of that.
Editing that page will not do you any good as WordPress dynamically generates that HTML and such. It is not stored in a file or database in that form, so you cannot replace it.
The index is php , never worked with it before , is php similiar to html and will i be able to make changes as easily
No, it’s very different. PHP is used to dynamically generate HTML content based on the HTML of the specific post/page content stored in the MySQL database, the content of the theme’s files, and dozens of settings/widgets/option plugins/etc.
See the guides linked to above for details.
