Comments on: Build Your Own WordPress Themes the Easy Way

By: charles_i

charles_i — Thu, 14 May 2009 14:31:35 +0000

Thanks cretam. The jestro article is excellent and covers a big piece of the basic setup puzzle. I’m finally getting somewhere with figuring out what the most basic pieces of PHP are, what is needed to setup a basic CMS for an existing site, and what parts of the Dashboard the PHP functions control. All by trial and error – stripping out pieces of code one at a time to find out what they control. I might try writing my own article when I get everything figured out.

By: Ashely Adams : Sticker Printing

Ashely Adams : Sticker Printing — Mon, 11 May 2009 12:16:47 +0000

Very informative and helpful. Themes are a really cool feature on WP. To be frank, I was waiting for a tutorial like this for a long time. I think I’ll get busy changing the theme on my WP blog. Thanks.

By: cretam

cretam — Thu, 07 May 2009 01:07:02 +0000

I read your article as I have just finished adding my own template to Wordpress themes. For those who are interested I found this site excellent and it worked first time http://www.jestro.com/web-design/convert-xhtml-css-to-wordpress/

By: periklis

periklis — Thu, 07 May 2009 00:58:32 +0000

Ok Thanks !!! maybe it’s more easy to build a word press theme
than design a website from a scratch !!! i should try …

By: Grumpy

Grumpy — Wed, 06 May 2009 18:50:00 +0000

@charles_i:

….. I’d be the first to buy it.

Oh, no you won’t! I would be the first to buy it. :)

Robert

By: charles_i

charles_i — Wed, 06 May 2009 17:22:34 +0000

Thanks Raena for the info.

There is a desperate need for up-to-date, accurate, precise, step-by-step instructions on how to build and edit a WordPress theme (just the way sitepoint books are written).

The recommended WordPress tutorials are outdated and do not pertain to the latest version of WP, so some of the procedures are incorrect – as well as the layout of the Dashboard.

There is quite an extensive forum but most of the answers from seasoned WP users are too vague for someone starting out to understand.

The WP website is so blog-centric that its procedures are written about creating a ‘blog’ instead of a website which happens to contain (or be) a blog. They are also written like a blog with so many links within one article that you very quickly find yourself 10 pages from where you started (lost in a thread), which is a confusing way to learn. There are also some pages that have not been updated to reflect the latest version of WP.

I would be happy to write an article myself if I could ever get my head around it, but dissecting the PHP code for so many different ways to write so many different template layouts in order to find the basics is not easy. It’s fine if you’re inside the Dashboard, but information on what’s actually happening behind the scenes in the complex PHP coding is not readily available. You can only get fragments of code explanation from the WP site or posts in the forum.

WP is OK if you want to use one of their themes, but there’s no way to figure out how to start simply to build or alter a simple template to suit your own needs, and slowly build on it. If sitepoint published one of their excellent books on this subject I’d be the first to buy it.

By: Captain Fatnutz

Captain Fatnutz — Wed, 06 May 2009 13:00:54 +0000

I stopped reading when I saw @import directions.

By: Hari K T

Hari K T — Wed, 06 May 2009 03:45:44 +0000

Its a wonderful post. It may have helped a lot of guys who are new to Wordpress. It may have motivated lots of guys to make a custom template for wordpress.

By: raymondselda

raymondselda — Wed, 06 May 2009 02:07:38 +0000

Learning how to develop Wordpress child themes is next on my list and this article definitely helped a lot and got me motivated and excited.

Back then I always start a new theme from scratch and don’t have any idea of child themes in Wordpress. I came across child themes through ThemeHybrid by Justin Tadlock. This will definitely improve my development time and theme skills.

Thank you so much for this article.

By: raena

raena — Wed, 06 May 2009 00:48:41 +0000

fogofeternity and salient, well, I'm sorry you feel that way. I do agree that it's handy to have a complete tutorial, and for my part, I really don't find creating a new theme especially difficult (though I do find it time-consuming). I don't, however, think you can encapsulate all that goes into a good theme in one small blog post. Additionally, we do have readers who are any or all of the following: a) new to WordPress b) new to PHP c) new to web development generally d) short on time It's these people I was thinking of with this post. Of course if you think we ought to have a full sized tutorial, then feel free to inquire about writing us one. I'm not saying this to be a smart aleck, I mean it :D We run more detailed tutorials about all kinds of topics fairly regularly. @charles_i, the import stuff goes in the style.css file. :)