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Theme Dreams (or What's Up with Themes These Days?)

by professorrosado
6 replies
  • WEB DESIGN
    • |
Is it just me, or are these themes becoming so "easy to use" that I can't get them to do what I want?

I used to do all my websites in html from scratch. Now everything is php which for me stands for Pain, Headache and Pisses me off!

So now I'm getting the hang of Wordpress (there is a God!) but now they're designing these new themes that are supposed to make life easier - NOT for me!

I am used to changing a theme and have everything in my previous theme transfer go and find a seat in the new digs - -but NO! Now, I got to go and "set" things up for my new easy theme and it represents another hour of time I shouldn't have to waste!!!

Just last night, I changed a theme with my own banner (already uploaded to the wordpress install and in media library - mind you) and wala! I have to now upload the banner to my new easy theme. Of course, whoever designed the new easy theme never thought that I may already have a header in the media library - you'd think! Why couldn't I get the wordpress standard media uploader (is it really that hard?) that also - OMG! - gives a homo SAPIEN a choice to use an already uploaded header wonder! How simplistsic!

Of course I didn't have a copy on my PC due to last year's virus attack - thank you non-sapien _____ (used as per the scientific term - no pun intended & absolutely no offense intended to anyone of any sexual orientation - I am a craftsman of words and ideas, simply) out there for that one!

So I had to download the header using Cpanel to my PC and that made it easy for my new "easy" theme to get ...."hachem".. some header.

So the reason now for this thread - which I hope isn't a repeat of some other (I searched first and found nothing specific) is to list our complaints about themes and what we want to see in themes for the future. It is hoped that theme designers can chime in and give us some insight as well as gather a few of ours to implement into future theme development.

Also, to alert our thread subscribers to new themes or new uses and tweaks for older themes. And maybe, hopefully...someone will make an "Easy Theme, truly EASY!
#days #dreams #theme #themes
  • Profile picture of the author professorrosado
    Another problem I see is that we have blogs with review categoriies already full of reviews and auto-blogging or curators and scheduled posts for the "review" category, but now with the new easy themes, they have their own separate review - is it a category? - section, whatever.

    What a major pain! Now it looks like new themes should only be put on new sites not yet populated with posts. But a developer like myself, I like to dress up and down a site as I go tweaking features until I get the right look and functionality.

    I think the new themes are geared to new sites and people who just need a "template" to realize a website that "looks good".

    Any insight? Am I barking up the wrong tree? Should I just learn php and make my own instant wonders? I like what the new designs offer - I just hate their incompatibility with established sites - for their main features of course!
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    You just described what always happens with such things...

    Ignorant users are crying and demanding(?) themes (plugins, gizmos, a$$wipers...) that do everything for them and they don't need to learn even elementary steps - like copy/paste a line of code.

    Developers eager to serve the bottom of this population - would start adding new and new "features" to their work, meaning: they successfully overcomplicate everything, the code becomes bloated and difficult to modify... all this in the name of "it's all done for you" BS-marketing concept.

    When the level of complication of the theme (gizmo, plugin etc.) reaches the "completely-unusable" grade, then they will release a version 2.0.

    Use simple themes that don't want to do 'everything' for you and make the tweaks yourself.
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  • Profile picture of the author RichKent
    As Istvan said, this is standard. What I'd recommend is use WordPress and a theme framework - I prefer Genesis, but Thesis is excellent too. Child themes are easy to modify and change if you know HTML/CSS and they save you from needing to know PHP for the most part. This also allows you to change the child theme without breaking anything, and there are lots of child themes available if you don't want to design your own.
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  • Profile picture of the author Istvan Horvath
    OK, here are some links and explanation to clarify things - and to get a better grasp of what a WP theme is...

    Historically, for displaying your content WP had a single "template" file called index.php; and it was a very traditional type of file (think of a complete HTML page starting with <html> and finishing with the closing </html> tag) - nothing fancy. Plus a stylesheet.

    Then, in the next step, they "sliced" up that index file in several pieces, like:
    header.php
    index.php (what was left from the original)
    sidebar.php
    footer.php
    The names tell the whole story... The new idea was to be able to use a different file replacing the "index.php" in the middle - in order to show different views of the posts, so more template files were introduced: archive.php, category.php. page.php, single.php etc.

    Finally, to make the themes even more versatile (and to use widgets) the functions.php file has been introduced into the themes.

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    At the beginning people just started to tweak a theme's files, edited the stylesheet (putting in their own name), adding new graphics, re-named the folder and... a "new theme" has been born. Look at the early days of theme "development: 90% of the themes were a tweaked version of the default Kubrick.

    Later, two different approaches emerged to help theme developers:
    - theme frameworks
    - parent/child themes

    There are similarities and differences between the two approaches and you can read about it in the Codex:
    Theme Frameworks « WordPress Codex
    Child Themes « WordPress Codex

    Hint: If you are familiar with HTML/CSS > making children themes is easier. If you are comfortable with programming/coding > go for a framework.
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