I know which theme I want. Don’t know name.

You want the www.ads-software.com theme? It probably wouldn’t work on your site since it’s tied to bbpress and many custom plugins.

But, the clue is to start with BBPress compatible themes and the BBPress plugin itself.

then I’m looking for only 1 page, this one: www.ads-software.com/support/article/creating-a-static-front-page/

it has the prefect layout for my front page. I’ll have other people pick a standard theme for their department.

that page has everything in the perfect place. Although I would like to have a target as well as the hRef in hyperlinks. It prevents tab after tab of the same page.

BTW: why bbPress? Are you suggesting WordPress templates are not what WordPress used for their website?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Lon Hayes.

To answer your 1st question, if I knew PHP and javescript as well as I knew my HTML/CSS, Fortran, COBOL, RPG, Pascal (especially Borland’s), algol, and basic, I’d build my own site, but I don’t, so I need WordPress to allow others to enter the content besides it’s much faster on WordPress because they’ve taken out all (well most) of the hard work of coding in order to change the site. Oh, and there’s that matter of having the site owner switch to BlueHost on a 3 year contract. Besides, now every department can have their own template.

Questions?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Lon Hayes.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Lon Hayes.

The WP repository has thousands of themes, and most of them look like that. Just choose one and go forward. (there is no perfect)

Edit: Let me just add that the reason that the theme used on this site probably isn’t a good idea for you is that it uses the same header across a multisite. It is sort of complicated to get the large network that is www.ads-software.com to look cohesive.
BBpress is used on the support portion, for these forums. Each part of the network has its own peculiarities, but they use the same header for consistency.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 8 months ago by Joy. Reason: more

As a side note @lehayes please don’t contact anyone off-forum here.

Everyone here, from the developers to the people offering support, are volunteers doing this all on their own free time.

We prefer that support stays here so that we can return to helping when we are able to.

Contacting us off-forum, like via email, is considered an invasion of our own time and a level of entitlement that we do not offer here.

James,

My apologies, to you and everyone here. The one I did contact, left his email in his profile, otherwise…

Thank you joy. bot the link at my initial post is, to MR, perfect for a front page.
I’ve looked at many once you install any of them you are led to a similar one. It is what I would call 2 column. Both scroll, the left is navigation to help you customize your page. But, none have the combination of header space and widgets that the two-bar header found on that specific support page. First bar black, second bar blue. Just like the header on this page.

Can someone tell me where I can get/put together that combination? Maybe, I need a scroll bar add-on to go with a simple full page width template, but I want the header layout that is here as my version of customized header.

Anyone from www.ads-software.com be able to say Yea or Nay?

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lon Hayes.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lon Hayes.

The one I did contact, left his email in his profile, otherwise…

He didn’t, his site was visible, and even if he did list an email address, it would still not be an invitation.

Can someone tell me where I can get/put together that combination?

The theme is use here is not publicly available, but what you want is available in thousands of free themes: https://www.ads-software.com/themes/browse/new/

I recommend using the Feature Filter button there to narrow down your choices.

Well, it turns out I don’t understand themes at all.  See, I’m an HTML/CSS programmer.  I’m looking for absolute control over the content on the page.  I went back after replying to Joy only to, I guess, figure out that we’re not given control.  I was just looking to change my text-margins to fill the entire width on the screen, say like 1/4″ margins.  Be cause I was told we could access the HTML and CSS. Sadly it’s only the theme programmer that has it.  What I’m looking for is to create my own layout with HTML/CSS and have anyone be able to change the content.  In CSS you control the margins, the distance a paragraph is indented on the first line.  The shape and size of your list bullets, how far the indentation is on your quoted text from the rest of the text on the page.  The overall with of the page, if I wanted 1 full width page then at any given point change to three columns and back again further down the page, everything.

That is the “theme” of the page; it’s every decision of the layout.  What I’d want is to still have that much control then be able to do what the WordPress themes do so well, have a non-programmer be able to edit the content.  So I guess what I’m looking for is the next step forward. To be able to drop templates in like widgets.

Where each section or BLOCK, I call them divisions <div></div> the basic block, be a theme (1, 2, 3 columns, gallery, with widths and margins controlled like dragging the corners on an image to determine the size, etc.) into a blank frame I’d call the universal template.  And of course allow the user to edit the content as easily as they do now.

Sadly, we have “premium” templates, and since no one would ever need them, no one will ever take things to the next step.  As a society we need to eliminate money.  We need to have the betterment of ourselves be what we strive for rather than the accumulation of wealth.

that’s my Blog post on themes.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lon Hayes.

If you’re wondering how I got my previous post to have 2 spaces between sentences; when I saw what the processor did to display the < and > symbols, I knew that if I made one space & n b s p ; without any spaces in between those 6 characters, it would display 2 spaces — but only when I edited my post because the editable version is HTML.

Well, now all I’m looking for is a theme with quarter inch margins, top right and bottom with a left margin like the customize theme page where is scrolls navigation links. I’m guessing it’s an iFrame widget.

Someone sent me a link of all available themes but that’s scouring hundreds for something that may or may not be there.

Thanks in advance.
Lon Hayes

maybe just a full page with 1/4″ margins.

• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by Lon Hayes.
• This reply was modified 4 years, 7 months ago by James Huff. Reason: email address removed from public foru

Please don’t solicit off-forum contact either: https://www.ads-software.com/support/guidelines/#the-bad-stuff

If you want one-on-one support, we recommend hiring someone from https://jobs.wordpress.net/

So I think the problem here is that you’re trying to put the cart before the horse a bit. WordPress is easy to use, but you’re skipping a few steps.

Start with choosing a theme that you like the look of, that’s the first step. As mentioned above, there are thousands of free themes https://www.ads-software.com/themes/browse/new/ and I recommend using the Feature Filter button there to narrow down your choices.

For using themes, please see https://www.ads-software.com/support/article/using-themes/

Once you have a theme you like, then you can start thinking about customizing it.

Many themes have built-in customization options, and all themes can be easily adjusted via CSS: https://www.ads-software.com/support/article/appearance-customize-screen/

For more advanced fun, you can also directly modify the theme files https://www.ads-software.com/support/article/editing-files/ though we do recommend setting up a child theme so your changes aren’t overwritten if the theme is updated: https://developer.www.ads-software.com/themes/advanced-topics/child-themes/

You can do all of that, but you have to start by choosing a theme that is close to (or exactly) what you want.