Front Page Customization of Themes

  • Hi,

    I am trying to create a new website, but need to totally customize the front or home page of the site. In other words, I need to fully customize the header portion of the site to match an existing website. Beyond the front page, the rest of the pages can be whatever style comes with any particular theme we decide to use. Most of the themes I have looked at will work great for the rest of the site, I just can’t seem to modify the title or header area to match what we are looking for.

    The trouble I am having is that in order to customize the title area to match what the other site originally had, most themes already have a title area and are only customizable by changing the actual title of the site. What I a trying to do is to change the size and font of the name, add in a business license number and add a small amount of text and the phone number. In most cases, the title or header area is too small to accommodate the changes.

    Can someone tell me how to modify the CSS or change the actual size of the header area in a theme? Is it possible to do that in a pre-made theme? Or, do I have to start from scratch and create a theme that has a larger header area? I am just now learning CSS and some very basic PHP, so I really don’t know exactly what things I can change and which ones I can’t.

    Thanks for any help.

    Denise

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)

  • You can pretty much change anything in any theme (either with CSS and/or modifying the header.php file) – but specifics depend on the theme you are using. AND you should make any changes in a Child Theme – so that your changes are not overwritten when the theme is updated. So I’d suggest finding a theme that is close to what you want, creating a a child theme and then posting in the theme’s dedicated forum about the specific things you want to change.

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

    Thread Starter ldjautobody

    (@ldjautobody)

    Thanks WPyogi. I appreciate the information. I knew about creating a child theme, but thanks for reminding me. I’ve been doing so much research on trying to figure out how to make the changes I need in the .php file that I’m sure I would have forgotten to do it! So thank you for the reminder! ??

    While I have your attention, I do have one more quick question. I am trying to duplicate a header that someone created using a “site builder” software, so I don’t think I can just copy and paste the underlying code from that particular header.

    Here is a link to the page that I want to copy the header from:
    https://dblackman.wix.com/goodneighborroofing

    It’s actually a very simple header, but I’m having trouble trying to get the text to line up properly and to find the right fonts to use. I’m not sure if it’s an IE or browser problem, or what, but the text comes out improperly spaced and not even close to where I am trying to put it. I wonder if it might be better for me to try and save the original header as either a .jpg, .png, or .gif file and just insert it into the theme header as an image file? Is it possible to show the header as a saved image file? That way, I could design the header in some other software that I am more familiar with and not have to rely on my css and php abilities, which I am still learning, and still be able to get the header published. I’m sure that once I get a better understanding of how the style sheet and .php files work exactly, I’ll be able to do it. But, in the mean time, I really need to get this header installed!

    Thank you again in advance for your help. I really appreciate all the great people here. This is one of the best support forums I have ever had the pleasure of dealing with. Once I get a little more comfortable with the WordPress coding and Css and php that I am in the process of learning, I’ll be happy to join in helping others here too.

    Sincerely,

    Denise Blackman

    Thanks for the kind words about the forums – we DO try, but not everyone is always happy :). We’re always happy to have more help too!

    It IS possible to use an image for a header – and you might want to do that for some of it (background maybe?) – but images aren’t so SEO friendly – so that’s a downside in some cases.

    Do you have a WP site and what theme are you using? Can you post a link to it? It’s usually not too different in terms of the CSS – are you using Firebug to work with it?

    Thread Starter ldjautobody

    (@ldjautobody)

    LOL…I can’t see why anyone would NOT be happy with the support you guys provide WPyogi. I have ALWAYS gotten excellent (and timely, for that matter) support even with as many people that use WordPress, so they should “smile” and be happy that you guys are out there at all! Let em complain to me and I’ll straighten em out! LOL Anyway, I usually try to see what people are asking, and if it’s within my realm, I DO try to help you guys out. Once I get done learning the rest of this CSS3 and PHP stuff, I’ll be glad to jump in there with ya!

    Getting back to the problem at hand, I haven’t decided on a theme yet. I want to use something that is as close to what we need as possible, so anything that can be dark,( we’d like the background to be either “black” or “very dark brown”) like the link I sent you, AND I need one that will easily allow 3 columns as I want the “services” page to be like a gallery with 6 linkable elements. Three in each row… Other than that, it really doesn’t matter which theme we use. So, if you have something in mind, feel free to make a suggestion and I’m sure we’ll be happy. This is going to be a very “short”, “sweet” and “to the point” site, so it won’t have a whole lot of pages to it.

    Thanks for bringing up the SEO problem. I hadn’t thought of that and I can see where that might be an issue.

    Is there a theme that comes to mind that would satisfy the 3 column page layout AND the “dark” background? The only other thing they would like to have is (1) one large image under the header (just like the link I sent you) and if I could make that a slider, that would be nice, but definitely not an absolute “necessity”. The link again is:https://dblackman.wix.com/goodneighborroofing

    Please let me know if you can think of a theme that would make the customizations as simple as possible and I’ll be happy with that. I thought about using Customizr because it’s responsive…and that would also be nice. But, it has a ‘white’ background which won’t work and it looked like most of the typography is set up for a white background and I didn’t really want to “reinvent the wheel”…if you know what I mean!

    Please let me know your thoughts on this. I look forward to hearing from you! ?? And, as always, thanks for your help! ??

    Denise

    .I can’t see why anyone would NOT be happy with the support you guys provide WPyogi. I have ALWAYS gotten excellent (and timely, for that matter) support even with as many people that use WordPress, so they should “smile” and be happy that you guys are out there at all!

    Wow! Any time you want to pitch in and help out, we’d be more than happy to welcome any help you could give.

    In the meantime (and in case WPyogi is busy) have you had a look at Suffusion? Very powerful & customisable with excellent support via https://www.aquoid.com/forum

    LOL indeed!! I was gonna suggest the same theme too!

    (on a quickie lunch break at 3:30 pm : ) )

    Thread Starter ldjautobody

    (@ldjautobody)

    Thanks so much guys. I took a look at Suffusion and it looks great, but I also looked at a theme called “Intuition“… have you seen that one? I liked the layout on that one and liked where the slider was positioned. But, since you guys are the experts, I will ask you both…what is your opinion of which would be the easiest to modify and would work the best for a theme that needs to be “3-column” and “dark”, with a fairly good size front page slider and is responsive?

    What’s your opinion, gentlemen…I will wait for the word from the experts!

    Thanks! ??

    Denise

    Intuition looks brand new – I’ve not even seen it before – that’s not to say it wouldn’t be fine – just no history. You could certainly try it for a bit and see how it goes – it’s easy to switch themes.

    A lot of these details can be modified in almost any theme – with a little CSS knowledge and help :).

    BTW, we’re both female – LOL!

    Thread Starter ldjautobody

    (@ldjautobody)

    LOL…Thanks for “clueing” me in…gals! ?? I am going to see how much my CSS education has paid off and try and modify the header in Intuition. It’s really close to what I’m looking for. Just not sure i’ll be able to find everything I need.

    I’ll download it tomorrow morning and start messing around and see what I can do. I know you “guys” will be there to help me if I get totally lost…right??? LOL

    I’ll let you know how it goes tomorrow. My fear is that I won’t be able to find all the files I need. I’ve looked at a couple of themes and I’m not really sure about the php files. The CSS I should be ok with.

    Thanks both of you for all your help. I appreciate it. Just good to know that someone’s out there when I start feeling like I haven’t learned a dang thing! Hopefully that won’t be the case.

    Have a good night,

    Denise

    LOL! Do make a child theme before you start messing around – one great advantage is that if you make a mess of it, it’s easy to start over with a clean slate on the child theme – MUCH easier than if you’ve mucked around in theme files.

    And yeah, there’s almost always someone around to help. You have a good night too – I’m headed that way myself (and esmi’s long gone I hope – as she’s in the UK)

    Thread Starter ldjautobody

    (@ldjautobody)

    Good day “ladies”! Well, I tried using the Intuition theme I spoke about yesterday and Wpyogi, you are most correct in that this theme is “new” and therefore, NOT a good choice for this project…LOL There seems to be a few problems or bugs that will most certainly need to be worked out before I start messing around with that one! That would be a whole other thread in itself…soooo, I tried using the Suffusion theme.

    Suffusion seems to be a very functional theme, and very customizable. Almost too customizable. When I activated the Suffusion theme, I thought I would try and see if the customization options would handle the problem. That didn’t work, so I tried to create a child theme. When I activated the child theme, I found that none of the options that were activated in the parent carried over to the child theme. So I attempted to apply the options in the child version. However, I can’t get ANY of the options to activate in the child theme at all. My parent theme shows a black background with some nicely placed widget areas that would definitely put me ahead of the game as far as the rest of the site is concerned. The body looked almost perfect. I would only have to make a few changes to accommodate the changes I need. Unfortunately, as I said, I can’t get any of those options to show up in the child.

    I am waiting for a response from the Suffusion support team right now. I figured I’d let you know how it all worked out. Hopefully, they will have some kind of an answer regarding getting the options to work in the child theme. I’m sure I probably just left out some files that need to be in the child theme that I didn’t know about. If either of you has had any experience in creating a child theme for Suffusion, I’d appreciate any info that you might be able to add.

    At this point, I had to disable the theme altogether and load up twenty-thirteen because I must have broken some part of the Suffusion theme when I created the child as I was getting server errors after trying to copy some of the admin files. I will most likely have to redo the install completely, but I thought I would wait and see if anyone could help with the child theme dilemma first. That way I won’t have to redo the install again.

    Thanks again for your help guys. I am hoping I can get this resolved today as I’m running out of time on this project. I may have to ditch the WP efforts for the time being and put up an html equivalent until I can figure out how to duplicate the header portion. The site is for a friend of mine and her husband is getting impatient about getting the site up…:(

    I do thank you for all your help though. This problem is definitely not due to a lack of support or caring by the WordPress support team! ?? So thanks again and I’ll look forward to any additional info you might have.

    A “frustrated” LDJAutobody gal!

    Denise ??

    Hi there – I’m just about to get off for a few hours – but did you post on the Suffusion forums? https://aquoid.com/forum/ That’s really the best place for help and they’re quite good about helping from what I’ve seen. I think there’s a child theme you can download and use too.

    Parent theme settings and options don’t carry over, so that’s expected that your would have to redo those.

    If you duplicate some files in the child theme, yeah, that’ll crash the site :(. I think you should only need to copy the header.php file – though I’ve not used Suffusion so not an expert by any means. But check the Suffusion site – there’s lots of good info there.

    Thread Starter ldjautobody

    (@ldjautobody)

    Thanks for the link to the aquoid forum. It’s a great forum site and dedicated to the Suffusion theme. Since Suffusion has so many configurable areas, I would highly recommend that anyone using the theme check out the installation forum at https://aquoid.com/forum to ensure that the install goes smoothly.

    In reference to setting up a child-theme for this theme, make sure to read the “Child Theme Setup” forum thread at aquoid as there are some major changes that need to be made for this child theme to work properly. There is also a downloadable “child-theme starter” available in the forum sidebar which I would highly recommend. It’s a great way to ensure that you have covered all of the files necessary for a Suffusion child theme to work properly.

    I am in the process of checking to see if this theme is going to work for this new site I am creating. As soon as I get it set up, I will post a link here to it so that you can see it. After all your help, I’m sure that you’d like to see what you helped create! LOL

    I really appreciate all the help ladies! And, I AM a woman of my word…as soon as I get this site set up, I will join the forum and see if I can help you guys out a bit. My WordPress knowledge continues to grow daily. I have a good working knowledge of HTML5 and am catching up on CSS3. Working with WP is certainly helping me get a handle on PHP…LOL, so I will do what I can to help where I can.

    Thanks again and I’ll post that link soon…

    The LDJAutobody Gal ??

Viewing 13 replies - 1 through 13 (of 13 total)
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