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Best Place to Learn How to Build a Wordpress Theme

by EndGame
8 replies
Hi guys,

I'd really like to know how to create my own custom wordpress themes.

I have been messing around with the K2 theme, trying to customize it etc, but I'd like to know the fastest way and most direct way of learning how to build my own unique wordpress themes that I could potentially use for clients and maybe sell in a marketplace like themeforest?

Any thoughts, recommendations or suggestions?

Thank you in advance for any help anyone can offer.
#build #learn #place #theme #wordpress
  • Profile picture of the author EndGame
    I should probably re-phrase this thread a little better.....

    Can anyone tell me what skill sets I need to build a wordpress theme from scratch? I am probably going to need some graphic design ability and some php. But I could do with a little help on the specifics?
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    • Profile picture of the author casius
      Hi EndGame,

      I guess you better of to start from the scratch. What I mean is just use the default theme for your modifications and try everything what it takes. Firstly I guess if you want do your custom web design template you should create them in photoshop or fireworks, so that you would know what it takes to do for certain theme. After them you will have your theme design (psd file) convert it to html and here we go the programming stuff which you will learn step by step...
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  • Profile picture of the author wkathome
    I've seen software listed just for building a theme, might google it and see what comes up.
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  • Profile picture of the author digital29
    You just need to know how to code a PSD...HTML and CSS
    People say that you need php also, but I disagree..you only need to know the basic stuff and some wordpress functions
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  • Profile picture of the author JMartin
    I agree with going from scratch to a point. Some themes are so poorly organized that you could go nuts and end up lost.

    Ideally, you want a simple theme (like the default one) to look at to see how things work.

    There are books at Amazon.com that go over themes, how WP works, etc, so this might be a route for you. Also, these a great codex wiki.

    When I do my themes, I use Photoshop and either coda (Mac coding program) or Dreamweaver.

    You don't really need to know PHP at all. However, knowing some basics will help you understand what is going on. If nothing else, it will help you keep coding intact when you're building.

    Start simple. Don't try to big theme at first. Do a "hello world" theme. Start by doing some design and then trying to get posts to show up in your design in a simple manner.
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  • Profile picture of the author stma
    I'm sure there are some tutorials out there........ but the best way assuming you understand the basics of php(functions) and a whole mess of css/html is to literally rip apart an existing wordpress theme and make a text file of every function that's called on every page.

    There is a great "blank" theme out there floating around that's easy to customize... and several css frameworks to give you a jump start. Like whoothemes for example uses a css framework I think.
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    • Profile picture of the author Number_5
      Go to W3Schools Online Web Tutorials at w3schools dot com

      For the coding side (non-graphics) portion of the theme building process, you'll need to have a good understanding of HTML/XHTML and CSS.

      You can start out by modifying an existing theme. As you do so, check the results on IE, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, and any other browser you can get your hands on. You'll soon learn quite a few tricks via Google as to how to make all of these browsers show the same design.
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  • Profile picture of the author senderbot
    Hi,

    Artisteer is great if you want to design using a WYSIWYG program.
    If you want to learn to create themes from scratch you could try this book -

    Wordpress Theme Design

    Cheers

    Max
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