Wordpress confusion

Duane

If you see a theme you like - take a look at the copyright line in the footer and you can generally see which theme it is. In the case of Roamsters - it's the Revolution News Theme (recently changed to StudioPress). Click on the link to find out more info.

I appreciate the response here. First of all, I can't really spend any money right now and Revolution News is a paid theme. Moreover, I don't see it any more on his site. The themes are all updated. I think I should be able to get something similar to that for free, at least to start. I have trouble knowing what I can change and what I can't on all these themes. Can I have different numbers of columns and widgets (pictures, videos, links, etc.) on each of these themes along with different or no backgrounds, or am I stuck with the themes as they are? I probably need a step by step tutorial that includes selection of a theme. I especially don't want to pay for something and find out it won't do what I want - if I finally decide to pay. I still don't really know what I am getting, paid or not. I only usually see screen shots and maybe a short description.

I would appreciate that. Thanks.

It is really hard to tell someone how to customize a WordPress theme because all of them are coded differently. But if you know a little about HTML and CSS then you should be able to figure it out in little time. Most themes have one stylesheet that would get most of the editing, but again as themes get more complex it would be very difficult to tell anyone how to edit a theme... some use a lot of background images that would need changed for a different color.

As far as customizing a theme its best to find one that has at least the general structure you want. It can get tricky trying to move or add sidebars or make the header or the actual theme a different size. Find the structure as close as what you want then you can easily change the little things like the colors, header and text... Oh and most all theme authors don't mind you changing anything on a free theme as long as you keep their link on it, usually in the footer.

You can usually see the more about the copyright in the themes style.css file.

Dear Duane, I use one called Flexy with two side bars and content in the middle. If you PM me I will send you a zip of the theme. I can't post my site signature yet as I'm new to the forum. So, PM me and I'll send what I can to help. It;s frustrating at first, but it does get better!

I am starting to gather that these themes are more rigid than I thought. Maybe you can answer one question for me. It is about the header images, and the other images, as well, for that matter. If you want to change the images, do they have to be exactly, to the pixel, the same size as the old image?

Also, if you change themes back and forth, do you lose the posts and images that you put in before? For example, if your old them had 3 columns, and you change it to 2, obviously 1 column would be missing. If you go back to the old one with 3, would the posts and images be back? I am nervous to keep experimenting because I don't know if I will lose everything.

You don't lose posts when you switch themes. Those are part of the database, not the design itself. If you change from 2 col to 3 col and then back, MOST of the time your original sidebars will go back to what you had with that 3 col theme.

The Revolution theme does come in a free version which you can find on the site.

Duane,

Welcome to Wordpress. You've hit the wall that I hit some time back when developing themes. What with the simply bizarre, rare PHP "loop" coding (endwhile? I thought that had died in the days of PHP 4! ), and a general confusion over documentation at Wordpress (sorry, but I've yet to see anything clearly explain how the *whole* system works logically), it's no wonder when you come to develop a theme you get stuck.

I want you to download the Elegence theme (Google it) - it has what I consider to be the bare minimum of PHP files required for a theme. You might also want to try Thematic (Thematic, A WordPress ThemeFramework) - it's a framework for creating Wordpress themes. I've not used it, but I'm told it's good.

Themes are easier than you may think - bear in mind that Wordpress is a sort of a "framework" that handles a lot of requests e.g. when someone wants to see a page, category of posts or an individual post. All you have to do is edit the file in the theme relevent to these to choose *how* to display the information. All the processing is done for you.

When it's a more sane hour here in the UK (i.e. not 2am!), I hope to have a blog post detailing the basics to get you started. It sounds daft - even for experienced programmers - but there are a few simple tips that made it all click and work for me.

Tim.

While wordpess is the topic can anyone tell me how to delete my original wordpress and do a fresh install.

Thanks

Pretty simple to add a header graphic Duane.

Just create your header image then upload to the images theme folder you use and if you want to make it the same name and size however for SEO I like to make my image name relevant to the site.

If you want to be a bit more creative then all you need to do is make it the same width and any height you want. Go into the theme editor and the style sheet and do a search for the original header and adjust as required.

Here is a little tute for the old wordpress but basically the same just in 2.7 called appearance.


This was using the clean copy theme mentioned above.

Quentin

Thank you for all the help. It's obvious I am in over my head. I just thought Roamsters.com just had a few simple aspects. I didn't think it would be hard - 2 or 3 columns, 2 rows of categories, a header image, a footer bar, etc all on a white background. That's all I wanted - something like that.But I guess Revolution News as described is no longer available, either free or for a price. Nevertheless, you all chimed in and gave me some useful information. Thanks again.

I am still completely lost. I do appreciate the suggestions, but am wondering if there is a book for complete idiots on this subject. I didn't realize I was so thick - I thought being a VBA programmer and database developer (and having a 2 year degree in Web development would at least qualify me to easily pick up the basics on Wordpress customization, but this is worse than ever. I think I have too many gaps in my knowledge so I must need to start completely from scratch.

Would it help to know how WordPress themes are put together? (Apologies if I'm underestimating you and you already know this much - it's very late in my part of the world and brain is trying to do 'helpful' while firing on only one cylinder.)

There's a lengthy tutorial here that seems to have been around for donkey's years, but it does at least give you the basics and might be worth a read...

WPDesigner So you want to create WordPress themes huh?

WordPress changes so fast and so often that I think a significant proportion of any book you might buy would be outdated before it hit the stands.

There's also the WordPress Codex...

Main Page WordPress Codex

...brilliant for finding out more if you want to do something specific, but less useful for helping you form an overall picture.

I thought this one would get me from here to there, but alas, on that first link, I was going good until I had to get the "easy to install" XAMPP on my computer along with a local installation of Wordpress. I went in circles for hours with that part, only to go to bed in defeat. I could get only so far. So, now I sit with no blog and nothing working and seemingly no closer to my goal. I am very computer literate. I can get through almost anything else, but this is unbelievable. I hope someone can help and maybe publish it on line for others. I wonder how many have just thrown in the towel here. I have some good ideas. I just need to understand how to get going.

Don't let that defeat you. I do a lot of my work and experimentation with a site that's already online rather than one that's installed locally anyway, it just feels more natural to me. I use WordPress installed on a spare domain or subdomain, with the 'Down for Maintenance' plugin activated so that I can do all my damage behind closed doors

Edited to add link to plugin...

http://sw-guide.de/wordpress/plugins/maintenance-mode/

Don't be defeated - there's almost always another way.