Simple overview question about theme customization

  • Hello everyone,

    I’m a total wordpress newbie, but have experience with php, html and css. I wondered if someone could answer some overview questions for me regarding theme customization.

    I want to put up a wordpress site as a CMS for a friend of mine who is running a business. Basically I want a few static pages that I can design any way I like and then a blog page. Also, use plugins on any of the pages for calendars and photostreams, that sort of thing.

    Does anyone have any good advise about the best strategy to go about this?

    Some examples are:

    https://www.vancouverconventioncentre.com/
    https://rsfsocialfinance.org/

    Where I’m stuck, is the link between these types of websites and the whole header, sidebar, single, index, footer requirements of the wordpress themes.

    Can someone point me in the right direction?

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)

  • Hi, and welcome to the club!
    You can basically do whatever you want with wordpress. You can check out my page – https://nuntaonline.ro – for an example. You know php so you can build anything you like. The header and the footer will be something required. But you can design those as you like. You can create custom php pages, with custom templates where all you need is just the header and the footer – the rest of the page is at your fingertips. You also need several plug-ins which for me are mandatory. There are a lot of things you need and can do, you just need to start.

    I don’t know what I can help you with, just start asking point to point, and as my time will permit, I will help!

    Regards!

    Thread Starter gcam032

    (@gcam032)

    Thanks so much for your response. Your link doesn’t work, perhaps you are working on the development currently?

    I really appreciate your offer to help.

    My first basic question is:

    I want a header that wraps the whole page (100%) like the www.ads-software.com header above. I’ve tried with a div of 100% but this seems to have gaps on the sides and top. I’m assuming the best idea is to just set a background color for the header? I’d really like to know how best to set up my <div>s in the header section.

    Thanks very much

    Gareth

    Hi Gareth,

    The best way to start developing a new theme is one of two things: First, you can create a child theme based on a theme template (like Thematic, Hybrid, Carrington, etc.) or, second, you can create from a scratch theme like Elliot Jay Stocks’ Starkers theme.

    Personally, I’m partial to the latter option, as it gives me full control over my styling.

    The reason I suggest you start from one of those is that I suspect that the reason you have space around your div is because you haven’t done a CSS Reset. The Starkers theme has one already in place in its CSS.

    Try using that as a starting point and see how it goes.

    Cheers.

    I’m partial also to creating themes from scratch myself. An easier route for those new to WordPress will be to download a theme from WordPress closest to the layout they want and customize CSS and at the same time learn about the WP theme templates and tags.

    Thread Starter gcam032

    (@gcam032)

    Thanks very much, I’m going to give Starkers a go as it looks like what I want.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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