A developer with some accomplishment in CSS and HTML can
calmly actualize their own WordPress capacity to accord their website the
adeptness to accommodate a different acquaintance for their visitors. This
tutorial will air you through the accomplish of creating your own theme.
Understanding How
Capacity Work
Before we can cycle up our sleeves and alpha designing an
affair we accept to accept how they plan if it comes to WordPress. Aboriginal
you charge to accept that there is an aberration amid capacity and templates if
it comes to WordPress. The arrangement book is one or added sets of codes that
your affair will alarm upon. Templates, like sidebar.php, header.php,
index.php, etc., are alleged aloft by the theme. The affair is the accumulating
of arrangement files, images, etc. that tells the visitor's browser how your
page(s) will look.
- style.css
- rtl.css
- index.php
- comments.php
- front-page.php
- home.php
- single.php
- single-<post-type>.php
- page.php
- category.php
- tag.php
- taxonomy.php
- author.php
- date.php
- archive.php
- search.php
- attachment.php
- image.php
- 404.php
Setting the Blueprint
of Your Theme
For our affair we are traveling to use an appealing basal
blueprint consisting of a header, a footer, the capital agreeable breadth and a
sidebar.
Basic blueprint for creating your own WordPress theme
To actualize this you will charge to accessible an argument
editor.
If you are application an apparatus like Dreamweaver to
actualize your affair again set it on the Cipher appearance for now. You can swell
use a basal argument editor like Notepad, eMacs or TextMate.
Now that your argument editor of best is open, blazon the
afterward curve of cipher and save it as index.html
<html>
<head>
<title>Our Very Own WordPress Theme</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="header">
header
</div> <!-- close header -->
<div id="content">
<div id="main">
main
</div> <!-- close main content area-->
<div id="sidebar">
sidebar
</div> <!-- close sidebar -->
</div> <!-- close complete content -->
<div id="footer">
footer
</div> <!-- close footer -->
</div> <!-- close wrapper -->
</body>
</html>
Notice that in the physique of the HTML book we are
application div ids to blueprint our theme. Next, we will actualize the alone
arrangement files for each.
Create the
Arrangement Files
The aboriginal book we are traveling to actualize is the
index.php file.
Open up your argument editor and actualize a new book
alleged index.php breadth you will access the afterward code:
<?php get_header(); ?>
<div id="main">
<div id="content">
<h1>Main Content 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, we couldn’t find the post you are looking for.'); ?></p>
<?php endif; ?>
</div>
<?php get_sidebar(); ?>
</div>
<div id="delimiter"></div>
<?php get_footer(); ?>
Now you can accomplish some changes actuality if you want.
Specifically, the argument that reads Capital Agreeable Breadth amid the Tags
and the argument that reads Posted on afterwards the Tag can be customized to
something that you would rather see on your blog. You can swell change this
after if you want, and back these are arrangement files, the changes will be
reflected beyond your absolute blog.
WordPress centralized functions will apprehend this book and
accept that the affair is cogent those to go out and grab the files appropriate
for your page to attending right. This hotlink will yield you to the WordPress
Codex page that describes the functions in abundant greater detail.
Now we can actualize the added php files required.
The Footer File
<html>
<head>
<title>My Theme</title>
<link rel="stylesheet" href="<?php bloginfo('stylesheet_url'); ?>">
</head>
<body>
<div id="wrapper">
<div id="header">
<h1>This is the header</h1>
</div>
The Footer File
<div id="footer">
<h1>This is the footer</h1>
</div>
</div>
< ?php wp_footer(); ? >
</body>
</html>
The Sidebar File
<div id="sidebar">
<h2 class="sidebartitle"><?php _e('Categories'); ?></h2>
<ul>
<?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>
Now the aftereffect will go advanced and grab the Categories
and affectation them as able-bodied as the Archives that will be displayed
monthly.
Where is the Main.php
file?
No, I didn't overlook a part. The capital agreeable breadth
will be busy with the blog posts themselves so we won't be creating a main.php.
We do charge to actualize a style.css book though. So let's do that.
body {
text-align: center;
}
#wrapper {
display: block;
border: 1px #000 solid;
width:90%;
margin:0px auto;
}
#header {
border: 2px #000 solid;
}
#content {
width: 75%;
border: 2px #000 solid;
float: left;
}
#sidebar {
width: 23%;
border: 2px #000 solid;
float: right;
}
#delimiter {
clear: both;
}
#footer {
border: 2px #000 solid;
}
.title {
font-size: 11pt;
font-family: arial;
font-weight: bold;
}
We wouldn't apprehend this to be the accomplished artifact
on your blog. In the next allotment of this alternation we will attend at
abacus a logo and some added elements to dress up your new theme.
