Creating my own Theme

Godsgirl I know exactly what you mean. I find it extremely confusing too. Ive stopped trying to read those pages because unless your a coder, it doesn’t seem to be working. I have actually chosen two themes I like, and tried editing the CSS files and changing the images to make it closer to what I actually want. Its still not like I would like it to be because its all coded but I am working on it little by little. You can try it too see what happens…

If you are in grade three and you pick up a grade 10 math book it might look completely unintelligible. However, if you complete all the necessary steps on the way to grade 10 it becomes clearer.

And so it is with PHP and CSS.

I still get cross eyed and am far from being as knowledgeable as the regulars here. BUT if you read this forum, see where things go, practise, make small mods, read the codex in small doses, google for tutorials….

Soon you will see it making sense. And you may even gain a greater appreciation for the regulars, mods and plugin developers who spend so much time helping others for no other return than a thanks and often just a bunch of carping that they didn’t do the work for the person.

4k makes a very good point. There isn’t any such thing as a matrix of priorities or complexities in web dev. It would be very handy if there were. The truth is that many folk who appear half knowledgeable on the forum have been at it for years. It’s is richly satisfying. But no one said it was easy. If they weren’t (understandably) so impatient – I would like to see a lot of people take a step back. Go to w3schools. Learn some html. Learn how to add CSS. Then go from there.
But it is a fact that many tutorial do not say *grade 10 only*. That is bound to be confusing.

4k, I completely disagree. Nothing would change if people didn’t complain or explain their problem! I think WordPress is one of the most confusing programs/projects I’ve ever seen. Everyone is VERY grateful for help from volunteers. But sometimes they don’t even understand that it IS help, since they can’t understand what has been said.

And volunteers, or even moderators or senior helpers can be very annoying when they get snarky, sarcastic, or say “Didn’t you read Codex?” over and over.

I was so afraid of being put down or belittled here that I would spend hours on my own before I gave up and asked a question. But even so, it was shocking when someone said something mean.

I am quite sure that WP would have many many more bloggers and members if they only did something to help beginners more. Not everyone is as persistent and OC as me!

I don’t think you have to know CSS completely. But you do have to know that editing the Stylesheet will help MOST of your changes, and that you can test out which paragraph there affects which part of the page you wish to change by trial and error. Also, you have to have the Firefox Web Developer on, to help you make trial changes quickly, and help you see what is what! (The element tag there is quite useful for outlining any little part of your blog and giving it a name and a size, so you can quickly find it in your stylesheet!)

If this helps one person, I’ll be happy.

The thing is that WP is built by integrating 3 or more protocols / languages. HTML / CSS / and PHP. To get the best out of it the more anyone knows about those 3 the easier it is. Whare a lot of folk are disagreeing consistently is that we do not believe WP is the right place to be teaching these skills. They are independent skills – each with their own support networks of tutorials and forums. Its all out there. Many people who post here are self taught off the net.

4k, root, both well said.

If you have no experience with css making your own wp themes is just going to be hard.But the good thing is css is a relatively easy language to learn.
If you are as OC as you say you are this is definately the hobby for you!

I am very new to WP and I’d really like to be able to creat my own page layouts (Ok Themes) but I have to agree that the WP Doc is not the place to teach the skillsets required to create themes.

I’ve created a number of websites and I know some html but I use Dreamweaver to do the heavy lifting. I dont want to have to code in order to get things done. I agree too that Code is Poetry – but I’m not a poet and I have no desire to take the time to become one. Not everyone has the soul of a poet. It’s the 21st century for crying out loud – isn’t there a wysisyg tool that will create the code for us?

Someone mentioned that there is a lot of wasted space on the sides – I agree, I’d like to use that space (additional sidebars?).

Just reading this string gave me a headache. Before, I was only depressed ?? If I have to take the time to learn coding in at least three languages (CSS, XHTML, PHP) before I can do the tweaks I want – I’m just way over my head and WP isn’t the tool for me.

Codeing to me is not fun or interesting. having a blog is way to get something done. For me in this case, getting there is not half the fun it’s chewing up way more time than I have. I don’t want to take the time to learn how to build an engine I just want to get in the car and drive.

Sorry for the rant – frustrated.