artaudo

Thanks both of you. I feel like I jumped into the river, with calmer expectations, and someone was there to throw me a towel. Not a white one. Anyhow, thanks for the telescope “esmi.” Seems you do quite a bit of posting, and Buena Vista & Collegiate Peaks are in my backyard “14er.” I’m concentrating on Practical WordPress Themes. I’ve also tried to provide you, and others that will stumble here with some early sign-posts, with pearls to come

What I’m looking for, now:

A really big downer, is the HOME link that is stuck on most menus and theme templates. Extremely annoying, when your trying to catch a rhythum. It seems the index.php is being read as a Home link, and thrown into the menu; and I’ve spent time swimming inside the loops and conditionals trying to find it and can’t.

Looking for a flexible theme with some liquidity …without asking for the world. It’s not all going to be a downhill ride I can see.
Themes that have got the box, or interface, as it were, chopped up in divisions for widgets, are limiting …and content is supposed to be king. In the end, I think I’m really hoping to duplicate something of the Amazon (I said the ‘A’ word) experience, with the WP Tools. The theme builders seem to want to own you, kinda … So, registration, profile builder; with a login/remember me plugin are still on my list, trying not to feel whipped by the currents so far.

Otherwise, here’s my work so far I hope will help others:

Two things have helped me get a focus. I am using the PixoPoint horizontal menu. This is compatible up to 2.8.4, and I am running the brand new WP 2.8.6, and it works well with a couple of templates I’m banging on. Then, there is a video I stumbled upon, on how to manage parent/child page arrangements, as far as implementing them in a horizontal menu with the pages widget left sidebar, from the McBuzz.Com on YouTube. Seems simple, but it was a helpful fundamental for me.

I am noticing a lot of themes really are restrictive. When you’ve been banging out code with independence on your side for awhile, it’s not a little distracting. So, I found this tutorial, from ThemeShaper.com teaching you how to build a theme from scratch. I’m thoroughly familiar with Xampp, as well as PHP/Mysql, and have installed Xampp Lite.

I am beginning to notice the ceiling and walls with wordpress themes, though by no means do I feel I own a comprehensive world view.