Okay, know how when you get some programs from the Internet, like Firefox or music players and such and they all you to change the “skin”? Themes are like that but not.
The simple explanation is that Themes use CSS and modular template files that act like building blocks to create your page. Everything is styled with CSS, but the page is divided up into blocks.
In the Default Theme that comes with WordPress, when you view the mutli-post pages like the font page, searches, categories, archives and such, you will see a list of posts in the content section and a sidebar for navigation around the site. But click on any of those posts and the sidebar disappears. The designer felt that people should be able to read a page without the clutter of a sidebar, so he “dropped that block” from that page.
You can change any of the “blocks” to look different and respond differently based upon some PHP questions and answers. Questions like, if this post is in a category about blondes, then make the page feature a blonde woman standing next to a car in the header. If this post is in a category about redheads, then feature a header with a redhead sitting on a bale of hay. Or much more complicated questions and answers, but I’m sure I’ve titilated enough folks.
Everything in those “blocks” called template files are styled with CSS with are the “styles” (Cascading Style Sheets).
Here are the more complicated answers:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes
http://codex.wordpress.org/First_Steps_With_WordPress
http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Lessons
wow… thanks Lorelle, I have printed out your explanation so I can read it s l o w l y to try and absorb it. I thought I was brilliant when I understood html… but RSS and blogs have made me a jibbering idiot. (or was i like that before?)
Well… not the jibbering part.
The reason for my question is that I am struggling a bit with a php coder whi is installing for me… I think I have had an ‘aha’ moment, when it struck me, that possibly I need two specializations:
(a) php to install WP with plugins etc etc… and,
(b) css xhtml knowledge to customize the design, “look” as it were.
‘ey ??
PS
You have a great site
Here is a short version: styles are for WP v.1.2.x; meanwhile themes were introduced with WP v.1.5. The latest stable version is: 1.5.1.2.
If you are using ready made themes, you don’t need anything.
If you are planning to be a “weekend webmaster” = having your own website, you’d need anyway some HTML and CSS. (XHTML is a little bit more sophisticated HTML, just for confusing the outsiders 🙂
If you want to design your own themes, you’ll need some basic PHP.
Thanks that makes things a bit easier to follow since we have just loaded 1.5.1.2
vv
