Monday, March 18, 2013

How to create a simple WordPress theme

To start construction your theme, first conceive a sub-folder in the wp-content/themes book or directions in your WordPress folder. For the purpose of this tutorial, we will call the folder "tutorial_theme". The title of the folder should correspond to the title of the theme you desire to conceive. To do this you can use either your very popular FTP client or the File supervisor device in your cPanel.

Before you start conceiving the theme, you should conclude how the layout of your website will gaze like. In this tutorial we will construct a WordPress topic that comprise of a header, sidebar, content locality and a footer ,as shown below:

To do this we will have to create the following files into the tutorial_theme directory:
  • header.php - This file will contain the code for the header section of the theme;
  • index.php - This is the main file for the theme. It will contain the code for the Main Area and will specify where the other files will be included;
  • sidebar.php - This file will contain the information about the sidebar;
  • footer.php - This file will handle your footer;
  • style.css - This file will handle the styling of your new theme; 
You can either create those documents locally with a simple text editor(like notepad for demonstration) and upload them via FTP or you can use the document Manager device in your cPanel to conceive the documents directly on your hosting account.

Now let's take a nearer gaze at each file and what it should comprise:
The header.php document

In this document you should add the following code: 

The header.php file

<html>
<head>
<title>Tutorial theme</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>">
</head>
<body>
  <div id="wrapper">
    <div id="header">
      <h1>HEADER</h1>
    </div>

Fundamentally, this is easy HTML cipher with a lone line encompassing a php cipher and a benchmark WordPress function. In this document you can specify your meta tags such as the title of your website, meta recount and the keywords for your sheet.

Right after the title the line we add <link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>"> tells WordPress to load the style.css file. It will handle the styling of your website. The <?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?> part of the line is a WordPress function that actually loads the stylesheet file.

Next, we have supplemented the beginning of a "div" with class wrapper which will be the main container of the website. We have set class for it so we can change it via the style.css document.

After that we have supplemented a easy label HEADER covered in a "div" with class "header" which will be subsequent specified in the stylesheet file.

The index.php file

<?php get_header(); ?>
   
<div id="main">
  <div id="content">
    <h1>Main Area</h1>
    <?php if (have_posts()) : while (have_posts()) : the_post(); ?>
    <h1><?php the_title(); ?></h1>
    <h4>Posted on <?php the_time('F jS, Y') ?></h4>
    <p><?php the_content(__('(more...)')); ?></p>
    <hr>
    <?php endwhile; else: ?>
    <p><?php _e('Sorry, no posts matched your criteria.'); ?></p>
    <?php endif; ?>
  </div>

  <?php get_sidebar(); ?>

  </div>

<div id="delimiter"></div>

<?php get_footer(); ?>


The code in this file begins with <?php get_header(); ?> which will include the header.php file and the code in it in the main page. It uses an internal WordPress function to do this. We will explain this in details later in this tutorial. Then we have placed a Main Area text to indicate which section of your theme is displayed in this area.
The next few lines consist of a PHP code and standard WordPress functions. This code checks whether you have posts in your blog created through the WordPress administrative area and displays them.
Next, we include the sidebar.php file with this line - <?php get_sidebar(); ?>. In this file you can display your post categories, archives etc.
After this line, we insert an empty "div" that will separate the Main Area and the Sidebar from the footer.
Finally, we add one last line - <?php get_footer(); ?> which will include the footer.php file in your page.

 The sidebar.php file

<div id="sidebar">
  <h2 class="sidebartitle"><?php _e('Categories'); ?></h2>
  <ul class="list-cat">
    <?php wp_list_cats('sort_column=name&optioncount=1&hierarchical=0'); ?>
  </ul>
 
  <h2 class="sidebartitle"><?php _e('Archives'); ?></h2>
    <ul class="list-archives">
      <?php wp_get_archives('type=monthly'); ?>
    </ul>
</div>


In this file we use internal WordPress functions to display the Categories and Archives of posts. The WordPress function returns them as list items, therefore we have wrapped the actual functions in unsorted lists (the <ul> tags).

The footer.php file

<div id="footer">
  <h1>FOOTER</h1>
</div>

</div>

</body>
</html>


Add the following lines to the style.css file:
body {
    text-align: center;
}

#wrapper {
    display: block;
    border: 1px #a2a2a2 solid;
    width:90%;
    margin:0px auto;
}

#header {
    border: 2px #a2a2a2 solid;
}

#content {
    width: 75%;
    border: 2px #a2a2a2 solid;
    float: left;
}

#sidebar {
    width: 23%;
    border: 2px #a2a2a2 solid;
    float: right;
}

#delimiter {
    clear: both;
}

#footer {
    border: 2px #a2a2a2 solid;
}

.title {
    font-size: 11pt;
    font-family: verdana;
    font-weight: bold;
}



Tutorial theme

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