How to Create a Custom Theme for Your WordPress Blog with Minimal Coding Required

Simpler than the method outlined above is to install a child theme of an existing well coded theme. After installing your blank child theme, your default is the mother theme. You then make all your changes to just two files (style.css, functions.php) in your child theme without touching anything else (and most especially you don't touch files of the mother theme). That way you don't have to worry about various best practices related to typography, css coding, setting up widgets, etc. More importantly, when WordPress updates, the mother theme can get updated by WordPress experts and you can install these updates without breaking your child theme. Specific example: I personally use (now barely maintained) Thematic on my own blog. [wordpress.org] And you can see how different my "FilterJoe" child theme looks after extensive [style.css] (and mild functions.php) changes: [www.filterjoe.com] Thesis Woo Framework Genesis Framework Thematic ThemeHybrid Carrington [website-experts.ca]

How To Build Your Own Wordpress Theme You don’t need to be a PHP whizz to be able to put together your very own custom WordPress theme. If you’re clued up with your general web design and development skills and can easily put together a HTML/CSS based website, you’re ready to move onto WordPress theme development to give your blog its very own design. For this walkthrough, we’ll be using a theme I recently built as an example. If you were around last week, you’ll have seen how the design was built from a concept PSD right through to a coded mockup in HTML/CSS. Before getting stuck in, it’s useful to spend a few moments familiarising yourself with how WordPress themes work. Create a new folder and give it the name of your theme. In your style.css file, add the following code to the very top of your file. /* Theme Name: Particle Theme URI: Description: A premium theme by Chris Spooner of Blog.SpoonGraphics. The index file acts as the base for all the other template files.

Stepping Into Templates Stepping into Templates Languages: English • 日本語 • 中文(简体) • (Add your language) Template files are the building blocks of your WordPress site. A traditional web page consists of two files: The XHTML page to hold the structure and content of the page and the CSS Style Sheet which holds the presentation styles of the page. In WordPress, the (X)HTML structure and the CSS style sheet are present but the content is generated "behind the scenes" by various template files. The WordPress Page Structure A simple WordPress web page structure is made up of three basic building "blocks": a header, the content, and a footer. The header contains all the information that needs to be at the top — i.e. inside the <head> tag — of your XHTML web page, such as the <doctype>, <meta> tags and links to style sheets. Basic Template Files To generate such a structure within a WordPress Theme, start with an index.php template file in your Theme's directory. More Complex Page Structures Where's the Beef?

How To Create Your Own Wordpress Theme - Jonathan Wold WordPress Consulting: Looking for professional help with your WordPress project? For small to medium sized projects, check out my freelance page For large projects, contact me through Sabramedia. New Book from Packt Publishers: WordPress Theme Design - Note: Packt has put together some excellent titles in the paste and I've been given the privilege of reviewing them in the past. They've published a new book on WordPress Theme Design and I highly recommend you give it a look. Tutorial Introduction: Back in 2005, I wrote a little tutorial for Wordpress 1.5 on how to integrate wordpress with an existing website. This tutorial is especially for: 1. 2. Extra Note on Wordpress Integration: As questions on integration are the ones I receive most often, I'll take a few more moments to make sure your options are clear. One, you can install Wordpress, write your posts, and then use PHP or Javascript to integrate the feed directly into your existing design. Alrighty, let's get started! Alrighty!