Where does a noob start – Website not looking anything like the demos

  • Good Afternoon,

    As the title says where does a noob start

    I have been teaching myself HTML & CSS for the past 6 months to a basic understanding, I did try to build a wordpress website before but gave up as the website theme looked nothing like the demo pictures provided and I seemed to spend weeks looking at all sorts of themes. But I have a few questions if someone can spare a few moments a provide a little guidance.

    1. When I set a post ‘featured image’ does that have any relationship to the image that is shown in the recent posts section for a home page ? the image I uploaded in the post was 800px height, I set this as the featured image as there was only the one and the recent post showed the full size photo where I was expecting a thumbnail of some description.

    2. Is there a free backup plugin that backsup both the front end, content, and also the backend DB? I have used a few plugins without success or are premium for a full backup. As it’s only going to be a very small website just for family and friends I wanted to keep the cost to a minimum.

    3. What is the easiest way to resize different things, for example there is a couple of themes where the header is at least 200px too high so I’d like to trim it down. is there a php file or is the height of different things all set in the CSS file.

    Thank you in advance for helping a noob

    Andy

    • This topic was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by Amiddleton.
Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)

  • hi @amiddleton

    if you buy a theme and you try to customize that to make your site like their demo, you should get a support from the theme developer.

    2. Checkout updraft plus, it is very good and it is free.

    3. Generally speaking, you can do those things with CSS. If your theme doesn’t offer to write your CSS when you press ‘Customize’ in front end, you can download a CSS plugin in WordPress repository.

    osbulbul

    (@coderontheroad)

    Hello @amiddleton,

    @auludag give answers to your questions but I want to say something about first question. All WordPress themes has their unique working system. Some theme can be use featured image at home page, but the other theme can use featured image at single post page. So you have to read theme documantation or watch how to use videos provided by theme author. If you can’t understand something about a theme you can ask to Theme Developer or Theme Forum. Don’t forget this forum can’t give support for paid themes. Paid themes always has their support system.

    Have a nice day!

    • This reply was modified 7 years, 4 months ago by osbulbul.
    Thread Starter Amiddleton

    (@amiddleton)

    @auludag cheers I have found some more themes that seem to fit the bill. And cheers for the backup plugin I’ll give that a go before I put some more effort into the site.

    @coderontheroad cheers mate, I’ve managed to find some more themes that are more to my liking. I was only after a theme where the home page was full of the latest posts but then showed them in a slider (not sure if that is the right termonology for it) I thought I’d be I bit better doing it this time after learning the basics of HTML and CSS but I know nothing about Java which seems to be all over it. Thanks for your help anyway.

    I need to make a new thread as I can’t get access to it from outside my LAN properly

    IMHO, if you are not experienced, you could also start with demo content provided by theme developer and start to change it bit by bit, until you learn inner workings of the theme.

    To ease learning process, while changing it, try to do things different than demo content with small steps and read the doc how to make this small change.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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