Creating pages on my site

Check out the WordPress Themes directory to see if a theme matches your needs. There are also Plugins that you can install that add extra functionality to your theme/site.

Thanks Adeline!

I have been looking at different themes and plugins but I’m still not clear on some things like choosing templates etc.. I am going to delete my WordPress site that I have been working on and start over again. I’ll see if there are some videos that can help me even more.

What I am understanding if that a theme is not quite to your liking you can always tweak it to your liking and even go into the code of that theme to alter it. I’m still kind of fuzzy on what a theme and a template are. Hope the videos on youtube will help me out.

If you’re using a theme from the repository that Adeline linked, you can ask us how best to modify the theme. YouTube might not cover _the best_ ways to go about doing things

Right now I am using the boots theme. I’d like to look for something else that is free, clean looking and simple with no sidebar. and page template options. The template I am using on Yola.com is clean, and minimalist. This is what I am after. I’ll continue looking around on the link Adeline provided.

I don’t have many pages on my site and for me the main focus is displaying the content I do have, in a presentable manner that is easy for the end user to access and navigate. My current site has this and I like getting feedback from listeners to my show and musicians who have visited my site and comment on the look and feel as well as the ease of moving around my pages.

@rmcellig – If you’re not familiar with HTML, CSS or even a little PHP I wouldn’t recommend beginners touching the direct CSS file to make changes. If your chosen theme has customisable options, then it’s fine to make your changes under Dashboard > Appearance > Customize

The reason being, if your theme author upgrades the theme you’re using, you can lose all the changes you’ve made to the CSS file. It’s recommended to make changes to a child’s theme and not the parent theme.

However it sounds like you’re just wanting to make simple customisations to a theme that suits your needs. Alot of themes have page layout options from single to two columns, etc. If you’re having trouble finding a theme, you can also do a Google search for ‘free minimalist WordPress theme’ and you should get many results.

As well, if you are more of a visual learner then by all means check out tutorials on YouTube. I can recommend CSS Tricks by Chris Coyier. He also has a book and site dedicated to teaching WordPress called Digging into WordPress. I’ve learnt a great deal about WordPress and Web development in general from him.

I created a website but looks like Im having a problem putting it online. i did not change anything, apart from creating pages and clicking ‘Publish’
Can someone explain the step by step process to make my site online? When I type the URL, it says still under construction.

@baldwin1483 – Hey I’m pretty sure the forum rules mentions you should start a new thread? ??

I had a quick look and your site is up and running.

Hi Adeline!

Thanks for the YouTube recommendations. I do know some html and CSS but would love to use WordPress without having to modify WordPress files that reside on my hosting server. At least not in the beginning.??.

Is there a specific free security plugin you would recommend?

I think what I am going to do like I mentioned above is start over, crate my pages, choose my theme and see how far I get. I will then post back with what I have done so far including plugins used etc… and then take it from there. With help from this thread along with what I have learned I should be able to come up with something that is easy to maintain etc. . with minimal coding.

The only coding would be the code I already have regarding my shows that were created using HTML tables.

Thanks again!!!

Hello Adeline,
Sorry for not following the right way… Im new here and I dont even know where do you go to open a new thread.
When I search https://www.bgistrategygroup.com on google, nothing is coming up!

And you say its up and running! Dont know what is happening, please assist

@baldwin1483 – Your site doesn’t appear to be in ‘under construction’ mode as I can see the design of your site as well as text on the home page.

When you click ‘Publish’, it basically means you want that post or page to go live. There are different modes if you prefer to set your content either in private or password protected mode.

Once you finish adding content to your site, to speeden up the process for Google, you should submit your site using Google’s Webmaster tools so they can index your site. Please keep in mind that it can take awhile for your site to show up in results.

@baldwin1483, Please create your own thread: https://www.ads-software.com/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting#postform

Thank you Adeline… Thank you Andrew for the advice

Happy New Year!! I haven’t had a chance to work on my site so I’m hoping that 2016 will be a better year for me when it comes to WordPress.

Since I already have a lot of the code for my pages already done, my main stumbling block is when I go to preview a page it doesn’t look the way I want it to. Stuff like it’s not centered the way I want it or there is not enough padding on the left hand side.

Is all of this template related? Do I have to make a duplicate of a template and change the code? I have 5 themes that I am trying out.

If someone can just give me basic steps on how to build my site something like step one you do this, step two you do this etc…, that would help me out a lot. I’m a quick learner.

Hello and happy new year too!

I didn’t read the full discussion above (quickly) but yes if it’s a matter of putting 10 px right blank space here and there, or changing font size, it’s in your current theme CSS file.

Duplicating it will only replicate the CSS positions, so it will not help much.

Step 1) install a good free code editor, like PSPad on win, Sublime on mac. It’s important, because, it will highlight code with colors, much easier to grasp thingies.

Step 2) find which css file your theme is using, in general in root of folder if a main theme, open it in this editor

Step 3) css code is very easy to learn, like font-size:26 px; font-color: #CCCCCC and font-weight:bold; there are just basics to follow. The big pro of this kind of text / code editor is you have around 50 levels of undo (more if you want) so if something go fully south, just undo, and reupload this file on your server.

Step 4) So now you have around rules in css, but don’t know where it is used in widgets or in a page? No problemo, take Chrome, Firefox or a recent browser and right click on what you want, for example a title. It will open code inspector and show you something like, this title is <h1> some text </h1> or <p> long post text…</p>

Step 5) Customize h1 or p by CSS, if you need specific sizes, to follow example, you can rewrite html in header.php like <h1 class=”my_custom_css_style”>. Go back to style.css file and add a line at full bottom like : .my_custom_css_style {font-size: 50 px;}

Obviously your title will look hmm, big :p

I know it’s a lot to grasp at first hand, but it’s easier than it looks. The good text editor folk will help you a lot in the process with many undo levels to try/succeed/sometimes fail/etc

Thanks Digico!!

I’m pretty comfortable with CSS and HTML. I used both when developing my pages for my current website that I made with yola.com. the link is in my initial post.if there is an update to a WP theme will the CSS file be overwritten?

I’ll check on YouTube for any videos regarding theme modification.