adding tagline to theme

Take a look at header.php in the default theme; near the bottom of the file you’ll see this:

<div class="description"><?php bloginfo('description'); ?></div>

That’s what you need.

Thanks. This works fine. I’m puzzled as to how to define a style for this tagline. And does it go in header.php or somewhere else? In fact, I’m totally confused as to how to figure out any of the style parameters for this theme. My eyes just glaze over when I try to read the WordPress documentation.

You’ll generally add that line of code just below the line referencing the header div in header.php; that is, just below a line similar to this one in the default theme:

<h1><a href="<?php echo get_option('home'); ?>/"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a></h1> (that’s the line in the 2.1+ branch); or this:

<h1><a href="<?php echo get_settings('home'); ?>/"><?php bloginfo('name'); ?></a></h1> (that’s the line in the 2.0+ branch).

Note that line can vary depending on theme.

In your style.css file, if there’s no .description set up, add one (usually under the #header element is where I put it).

So here’s what I do sometimes:

.description {
color:#FFF;
font-size:90%;
float:right;
margin-right:5%;
text-align:right;
}

Mind, you’ll want to tweak that for however you want it to look, where you want it to display in the header etc.

if you post the url of the site where you want it inserted we can have a look and helpyou maybe futher

Thanks. The blog in question is located at:

https://autodidactproject.org/blog/emergence

I added the tagline just below the blog title, but didn’t figure out how to format it. If I stuck with this theme I could want the same light blue background and indentation to match the blog title. But I’m not terribly excited about this theme, and I need to know better how to fiddle with these, because I find the instructions for making them up from scratch–hell, all of the instructions–far too confusing.

I was not thrilled with the dozens and dozens of themes I looked at, and I picked this one for simplicity, but then I started toying with it because it’s not satisfactory either. I wish I had a theme similar to a standard Blogger format that I could also fiddle with. I’m concerned both about data elements and styles.

“My eyes just glaze over when I try to read the WordPress documentation.”

Welcome. Don’t give up just yet even though there’s seemingly much to learn. The rewards are substantial.

Check out UrbanGiraffe.com for their simple tutorial. I’ve used it and it’s a good start into how to make WP templates.

Thanks! UrbanGiraffe is quite a fellow. I’ve installed his customizable Giraffe2 theme. It will take me a while to work my way around it, particularly configuring the sidebar, but it looks like an excellent product.