Formatting static pages – new user

Hi lkingman,

Welcome to the community! I’m happy to help.

While there is no built-in GUI for tables, there are plugins you can add like:

https://www.ads-software.com/extend/plugins/wp-table-reloaded/

What type of plugin are you looking for to facilitate static page design. What is WordPress doing or not doing that you want to change?

I’m not sure what your asking about in the last question. WordPress uses themes which makes it easy to change the overall layout and color scheme without changing your content. You can also customize themes by either choosing a theme that offers built in options/customization or editing a theme’s CSS styles. Just a quick note on editing a theme. Make sure you understand and use Child Themes if you’re going to be modifying a theme:

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Child_Themes

Hope this helps!

Thanks for the post!

As to the last question: I see default and Showcase and I forget what else in the Template menu, but not a “Save as template” or anything like that. And when I key “Template” people talk about Themes, as if they’re the same thing. It’s a bit unclear.

As to what I want to do, I want to position design elements where I wish. As I would in Dreamweaver or by hand. Through tables or other means. Themes seem a good start, but then how do I tweak image position, place text, etc? By manual HTML? I’ll do it if necessary. I just wanted to know if there isn’t a more powerful tool as in other web creation software.

Thanks again for your reply. I’ll check out more plug ins.

Hello again lkingman,

I’m sorry but I’m not clear on where you’re seeing default and Showcase in the Template menu, but I’ll do my best to help.

It sounds like you want to customize or even create your own WordPress themes. There’s a great number of resources for that, starting here from the WordPress Codex:

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Theme_Development

I think the Site Design and Layout section of the Codex would be helpful as well:

https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Site_Design_and_Layout

Of course, there are other resources as well, a quick search of Google for “customize wordpress theme” will return helpful tutorials and tips as well.

If all of the above seems a bit overwhelming at first, you may want to start out with a theme that is already well suited for customization. If you’re searching for themes from within the dashboard, you can actually choose to search for themes that offer certain customization options or even search for the term “custom.” My personal favorite that I found very easy to work with is Constructor

I hope all of this helps and isn’t too overwhelming. It gets easier as you learn how WordPress is structured and learn the ins and outs of various themes available.

Please advise!!!!!! i am novice
i have downloaded wp3.3.2 and there was no gui to create mysql. so i uploaded to my server hoping i can do it from server side still there is no gui.
do i start again or…….?
Please advise
Thank you and have a nice day
protect

Make sure you’ve set up a unique mysql database with your host or on a home server, then place the downloaded files in the directory the site will function out of, and lastly visit the site itself, such as https://www.mydomain.com/, and a series of screens will lead you to connect the files with the database you’ve already set up with your host.

Wellest!