Title: Unable to control templete html Last modified: July 20, 2017 --- # Unable to control templete html * Resolved [whitemw](https://wordpress.org/support/users/whitemw/) * (@whitemw) * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unable-to-control-templete-html/) * Want to learn how to build a Theme from scratch. I am a retired software engineer, so my goal is to understand how everything works before starting a real Theme. I have WordPress 4.8 installed on a local Ubuntu Server with Apache, PHP and MySQL. I use VI to edit and have been using the Live View of my theme to check results. I am not a Web expert but have developed some sites and know the basics of css and have coded some php application etc. * I started with a style.css and index.php and noticed a lot of canned HTML when I viewed the source. Doing a lot of research on the web I decided to code a simple header.php and include a hard link to my style.css which was also bare bones. I got more styles, javascript, etc but not the ones I coded. Again lots of canned html and not the , or I coded. I can place text in my header. php and I see it so header.php is being called but my formatting is not honored. * I finally coded a functions.php with the wordpress.org prescribed method to specify my style.css; add_action( ‘wp_enqueue_scripts’, etc. That got the same results as the hard coded method no change, Included is stuff I don’t want yet because I don’t understand it. * Bottom line, I want to understand all the stuff that is getting added on my behalf so I can control it. My approach is to get rid of then add it back as I learn. * Where can I go (web or book) to understand what is added and where it comes from, so far I haven’t found that location, and I have looked at several books also. * Can some one please direct me to a location that will: * 1. Help me learn where the canned stuff comes from. 2. Trace the building of html (so far I haven’t found tracing to help). 3. Get my html back to only that code I place in my header.php and index.php. * Thanks in advance for your help and understanding about how I want to proceed with this effort. Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total) * Moderator [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/) * (@t-p) * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unable-to-control-templete-html/#post-9337105) * > my goal is to understand how everything works before starting a real Theme. * [https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/getting-started/](https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/getting-started/) * [https://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development](https://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development) * Thread Starter [whitemw](https://wordpress.org/support/users/whitemw/) * (@whitemw) * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unable-to-control-templete-html/#post-9337144) * Thanks for the update, have been working with those links and they are really good. Of course part of the process of development is sharing issues and many times that process triggers a light to come on and one did. I realized that viewing my theme through live view adds live view markup so I used live view to make sure the page would display and then activated my theme and then view the source and was very happy to see my html. It does contain some red lines, I assume attention is needed so progress has been made. * Again thanks for your post. * Moderator [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/) * (@t-p) * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unable-to-control-templete-html/#post-9337155) * You are welcome 🙂 * Thread Starter [whitemw](https://wordpress.org/support/users/whitemw/) * (@whitemw) * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unable-to-control-templete-html/#post-9337231) * Looks like I’m back on my way, closing this post. * Moderator [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/) * (@t-p) * [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unable-to-control-templete-html/#post-9337273) * Glad to know it 🙂 Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total) The topic ‘Unable to control templete html’ is closed to new replies. * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/) * 5 replies * 2 participants * Last reply from: [t-p](https://wordpress.org/support/users/t-p/) * Last activity: [8 years, 10 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/unable-to-control-templete-html/#post-9337273) * Status: resolved ## Topics ### Topics with no replies ### Non-support topics ### Resolved topics ### Unresolved topics ### All topics