i’ve read it =/
and im still lost
If you don’t have a knowledge of css based layouts, you may want to start there. Without knowing about that it would prove to be very difficult to understand the template structure.
jenmurley,
do you want to download/upload another theme (out of the more than 200 available) or do you want to make your own? Or, eEventually to modify an existing theme?
In Administrative Panel under Presentation you can change your current active Theme.
If you want to install new Themes then follow the developers instructions on installing that Theme then use the above to change the Theme.
i would like to put a new theme up for now, but eventually make my own.
any help/comments on making my own?
<3
Lorelle, please adjust the urls for the last three links (that is, remove the ending /).
For an existing theme, as MichaelH said: download it, unzip it, FTP to your site in wp-content/themes/themename/ directory… and etc.
For creating your own, start dissecting the Classic, the Default and/or several others – meanwhile intensively reading the Codex: Theme Developement, Themes, Templates etc. 🙂 – and the start making your own.
The theme and templates system looks basically like this.
Hey Jen,
Try reading the article, “First Steps With WordPress”, and then go on to “WordPress Lessons”. These two will get you started off nice. On the WordPress Lessons page, “Designing Your WordPress Site” is the first article. You said you’ve designed sites before, so this should be a review. The articles after this, “Template Tags”, “Features and Functions”, “Templates”, et cetera, are chock full of ways to modify the site using the templates. WordPress uses PHP, which is an Object Oriented Programming approach to web design. You and I come from good ‘ol fashioned html, which is Procedural Programming. An example given in Professional PHP5 by Wrox Press states:
As an analogy, when a house is being constructed, the plumbers deal with the pipes, and the electricians deal with the wires. The plumbers don’t need to know whether the circuit in the bedroom is 10 amps or 20. They need to concern themselves only with their own activities. A general contractor ensures that each subcontractor is completing the work that needs to be accomplished but isn’t necessarily interested in the particulars of each task. An [Object Oriented] approach is similar in that each object hides from the others the details of its implementation. How it does its job is irrelevant to the other components of the system. All that matters is the service that the object is able to provide.
So, when programming with PHP, you can imagine your index as the “general contractor” of your website, as it is responsible for building your page, quite literally, every time someone visits it. It has nothing to do with whether the links in your sidebar function correctly or not, it only has to make sure said sidebar loads correctly in the buildup; whereas, when coding with html the index is micromanaging the entire operation. That’s akin to the way people built houses 100 years ago, not to apply that obvious deprecation to html or anything; I’m still a big fan. 🙂
~Jonathan
Edit: Props to Lorelle for beating me to the links. I was too busy getting my book copyrighted! 🙂
~Jonathan
