Changing WordPress Themes
The WordPress default theme looks nice but it might not project the right image for your blog. If this is the case, you’ll be happy to know that the folks at WordPress have made changing your blog’s appearance as easy as changing your socks.
It’s a fairly well documented process but here’s a quick rundown:
- Find a theme you like:
- Download it.
- Decompress it if necessary.
- Copy it to a safe place on your PC.
- Upload the entire folder into your “wp-content/themes” folder.
- Login to your WordPress Administration panel.
- Open the “Presentation/Themes” section.
- Select the new theme from your Available Themes list.
- Check out your new look.
If your newly installed theme shows up in the list without a preview image you can create your own preview using your blog as content. All you need to do is:
- Activate the theme.
- View your site.
- Press the PrintScreen key.
- Paste the image into an image editor (Photoshop etc.).
- Crop and resize to taste. Any size will do but smaller loads faster while larger may look better.
- Save the resultant image in the PNG image format as “screenshot.png”.
- Upload the image to your theme’s corresponding directory “wp-content/themes/ThemeName/screenshot.png”.
Once you’ve installed a theme which meets all your major design requirements the next thing to do is add any extra functionality you may desire.
Coming soon, Plugins.
Comments(2)
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The ability to use scripting within the theme is nice – it allows for complete customization. The process of skinning a theme is relatively easy for those who just want to adjust the CSS and graphics. WordPress does have theme “templates” offered as a starting point for those who want to customize.
WordPress recommends that you do not download templates from 3rd party sites. You should get your templates from the official WordPress template repository. The downside to that is their theme viewer is one of the weaker ones out there.
I have actually created a custom theme that is available from my site. There is no malicious code in the theme, so please give it a try! Click my name above this comment to go to the website and find the Blix1000 theme!
The WP PHP code is an absolute disgrace, but I have to admit on the front end their themes support is very good. One big problem is though they don’t use templates, but PHP files and these can be distributed with malicious code.