WordPress Theme Development

Honestly, and this isnt to be rude or insensitive — and bear in mind, youve opened up a potentially “sore” subject (atleast for me you have).

There are 100’s of 1000’s of web sites that already cover “everything including CSS and XHTML from the ground up” Unfortunately, people do NOT seach out those sites for information before coming here; for instance, a recent thread here involving removing a border around an image.. and thats just one example.

We exist in a world where people not only think they are entitled to whatever information they need or in most cases, they just want, but the vast majority of those people also think they they dont have to do anything to get it.

“_______ helps those that help themselves” no longer applies.

Couple that with the fact that blogs are trendy, and well. “wordpress looks so easy” and “ohhh look at that site, I want one too”, and you have forums like this one and others, I might add, that are deluged with people trying to “run” and “tweek” wordpress when they have nearly a clue about what running a static web site entails.

In other words, they dont know shit, and they want their hand held. And, in my opinion, they do not want to learn.

They just want the end result, without the work.

I liken it to people that install some Linux distro and are then shocked that they might actually have to read something in order to be successful at it.

Web mastering takes work. It also takes dilegence and patience, and a WILLINGNESS to seek out information in diferent areas. Far too many people fail to realize that before going down that trendy little road.

We dont need more web sites. We need better users.

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** I do realize that you were specifically adressing theming .. my entire post applies to that as well. How many people have actually cracked open the files they have downloaded and tried to figure out what makes what tick.

Last time I checked, every browser had a view source option somewhere in it, and yet.. its so damn tough for people to look at the source, and compare what they see to their files, even just for the sake of understanding a little better ..

Hell, these days you get grief when you try to tell someone they need to validate their site. “ohh, you mean those 200 changes i made to the theme, trying to add a middle column, and reduce the other column screwed it up?? That’s why my site looks like horseshit?? I just figured it was the theme.

Guess i should have read http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0764501712/103-8105340-8682267?v=glance&n=283155″

http://wordpress.org/support/topic/79160?replies=1 <– need i say more 🙁 Im going to bed, its that or implode.

I’m kind of with whoo on this… I learned how to tweak WP and make changes to themes by using MY brain, and MY time. Sure, if I get stuck after working on something for hours, I come here. But there is far too much of non-WP-specific help being asked around here. I’m guilty of helping people through their CSS/theme issues when I can, but to be honest, most times I’d rather tell people to go to Google and teach themselves like I did.

Sure, WP is “easy” – out of the box with a premade theme. But anything else takes a brain, and I’d like to throw in an old (slightly twisted) adage myself: “Give a man a fish and he eats for a day. Tell a man to go spend his own damn money on a rod and bait, as well as some “how-to” books, and he eats for a lifetime.”

I taught myself everything I know, and started over 10 years ago. Today I own my own web design and SEO/Marketing company. No one held my hand along the way – I made use of PROPER forums, search engines, and other help sites.

I’m about to start sending people to http://www.lissaexplains.com for their CSS/xHTML help!

It wouldn’t help. We would have the same amount of questions. So, I consider it a useless exercise…

I have to chime in and agree with Whoo about a certian pet peeve of mine — validation.

It seems that many of the sites people post links to here don’t validate XHTML Transitional — let alone CSS. Yet people like their themes. Fine. No problem there. Run whatever you want on your own site — but for the love of all things good, how come when I download themes that people release many don’t even validate??? That’s just lazy.

Okay. I’ll get off my soapbox.

As always, just my $0.02

Billy, you can do whatever you want. If you think youre more of an “expert” on WordPress than the gobs of people here that support this site, and have something to offer, then go for it.

Ive no doubt that you might generate some traffic, so dont forget to toss up that google adsense code all over the place. C’mon, you KNOW you wanna. EVERYONE wants to jump on the WordPress money bandwagon, if they can find a way. My guess — thats your intent, and well thats fine, I guess.

Im too smart to buy that sappy “I want to help people” bullshit, sorry, especially when someone is trying as hard as you to convince..

Finally. I hate to tell you but the fact is, and will always be, that THE best support for WordPress comes from this site, and ONLY this site, even under the worst of circumstances, and even when crotchetly old bags such as myself are the ones doing the helping.. Nothing you have to offer will ever match the entirity of this site. Nothing.

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Notice I delineate helpers and askers.