2021 suitability for current project?

Hey there,

I can answer, or help answer, some of your questions.

2021 is a great theme that’s highly customizable. I imagine you can do what you are wanting to do with it, but let others answer that part.

For retina, usually the theme will handle all of that, so you typically don’t need special plugins for that. Just make sure the images you upload to your site are of high resolution for their purpose.

Learning resources, definitely youtube!

Where do you see a “pro header upsell” for the Twenty Twenty-one theme? This is a WP default theme that is free to all, no up selling is involved.

If your changes to the theme are limited to a few dozen or so CSS tweaks, adding them to Additional CSS is the way to go. If your CSS adjustments are more extensive, and/or you need to alter template or other PHP code, you should create a child theme.

If you find the need to make extensive changes to the theme, maybe it’s not a good match for this situation. If you have trouble finding a good match, and you have modest coding skills, consider developing your own theme based on a starter theme like the one from https://underscores.me.

I recommend skimming over the WP developer documentation so you’re acquainted with what resources are available. You can dig deeper into specific parts as the need arises. In particular the Theme Handbook.
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• This reply was modified 3 years, 11 months ago by bcworkz.

Hey thanks so much @chemicloud & @bcworkz

@chemicloud sorry I didn’t see a notification last night.
The Retina / theme tip is appreciated. I was overthinking it there for a while and paralyzed lol

@bcworkz I may have written too soon. It’s hosted through Bluehost so there’s some integration there – I could sworn I saw the ‘pro header’ option, but there’s a change that was with a different theme before I switched to 2021.

Your advice regarding a few dozen css tweaks is very much appreciated. Thank you for these helpful suggestions and the links as well. Regarding the UNDERSCORES.ME; I found myself dialing everything on 2021 way back (ie. hiding all widgets, installing a plugin to hide title). Do you think that’s still the way to go, or do you think time invested in underscores makes sense? My coding skills are basically no extent, but I’m fine with lots of googling and tutorials ??

The underscores.me (“_s”) theme is fully functional out of the box, but its initial appearance is crap. You’re the one responsible to add enough CSS to make it look good. If you don’t have at least modest CSS skills, it may not be the theme for you. OTOH, it’d be a decent way to teach yourself CSS if that’s an interest. But not without much time and frustration along the way. Not something to take on with a deadline looming.

Aha – thanks @bcworkz
In that case I may hold off as my CSS skills are non existent (yet ?? And I feel some pressure to help him get it done. He’s almost like a client but it’s more of a mentor / friend thing.

I’ll send an image tomorrow of what I’m trying to do. I’d LOVE your tips when I do on where my approach may or may not be working..

@bcworkz that was a long ‘tomorrow’ of me lol. my bad.
Check out my photoshop sketch (no tablet) https://ibb.co/NW3J5Jr

I’m trying to create two columns under HERO image, but the post link are hand drawn images (both the thumbnail and the text) so I’m exporting photoshop images to put in columns. I’ve been creating a ‘column’ block (x2) and adding hand drawn jpeg image blocks in each column. I think this is probably bad practice?

Questions:

1. Any tips on the best block for a scrollable content (image) sub-column?

2. aside from setting up a ruler guide for consistency in photoshop prior to expor, do you have any tips for bringing hand drawn images into the site as primary navigation buttons?

Your knowledge will help me a great deal.

If things are broken down into rectangular container elements, you can manually achieve nearly any layout you want within a page editor. I recommend using the default block editor over other page builders for maximum future portability. I personally don’t even care that much for it, but I really do believe it’s a good option for many people. It still is in need of refinement, but it has already served many people well. Work on improving it continues.

Coming soon to a future WP version is “Full Site Editing”. I’ve not paid too much attention so far to what that really entails. It promises to make it easier for non-technical people to have more control over their site’s appearance beyond just page content itself.

Where things get trickier is when you want layouts to occur automatically without manual intervention. Say you want a 2×3 image grid to automatically link to the 6 latest posts. You’d need to find a very specific theme that already does exactly that, or be able to customize a theme so that it does do that.

Hero images are pretty common among themes. Columnar layouts of latest post images, not so much. But there are a number of “newspaper” or “magazine” style themes that may accommodate that. Can I assume the orange 3-across boxes are a common footer element? That also is not unheard of among themes. But when it comes to finding a theme that does everything exactly as you wish, the choices become vanishingly small unless you’re willing and able to make some customization.

It’s useful to know some PHP coding, but may muddle through with cut & paste coding without really knowing what they are doing. The most important coding skill to have to customize a site’s appearance is CSS. There are numerous tutorials and courses you can take to learn the basics, but you will not gain decent skills until you start customizing real world sites. It simply takes time and experience to get good at it. We’re all learning as we go along. It never stops.

Hey @bcworkz thanks for all the helpful info!

That ‘full site editing’ sounds interesting – I will take a look after this post.
I’m certainly not needing any automatic layout, and my friends page will be super simple so for this time I’ll just do it manually offset etc as you say.

You mention learning: Can I ask you for tips on the best practice for getting help and reading?

As an example, I can’t get the black bar at the top of 2021 to go away. I googled, and found a link from 3 years ago and one for a premium theme, but can’t find anything clear. I feel so stupid not being able to get rid of that line lol.

Should I be posting here for help? How can I best post these noob questions without being annoying. Is this a good channel or is there a specific 2021 theme channel?

We really need a live link to give specific CSS suggestions. The solution to remove a black bar depends on how it became to be there to start with. If it’s a top margin, setting the right rule to 0 should remove it. YMMV. If it’s an independent element, like for an unused widget area, adding a display: none; declaration to the element might solve the problem.

Your browser’s element inspector tool will be your very best friend towards customizing CSS. It’ll show you the relevant HTML and CSS for any chosen element. It’ll let you try out different rules to see the effect. If you mess things up in the tool, reloading the page resets everything. It also has mobile device emulation to help you develop responsive CSS.

Pro devs put their noses up towards W3schools.com, but I’ve actually learned a lot through that site over the years. The Try it yourself feature has useful examples you can fiddle with to further your understanding. A better technical reference is developer.mozilla.org, but it doesn’t have tutorials or examples you can fiddle with.