Theme form scratch (from existing site)

  • Hi all,

    I built a website from scratch using plain CSS, HTML and PHP. All pages are stored in a database and the menu is generated dynamically using that database, as are the pages.

    I built a CMS, but this is a complete disaster, as is my PHP code.

    I never really used WordPress, but now it may be the best solution to solve my problems.

    First I will describe my demands, to make things clear. Then my actual question.

    It is a website to showcase a company and some of it realised products. This site has a homepage, contactpage, 4 product-categories (these are somewhat static, and don’t necessarily need to be in the database, but they can be. As they are now.)

    The website is currently built up from small PHP-files that load in the data (text / image-names / title / category / etc.) from the database, which are parsed and shown in HTML.

    The menu is a dropdown menu (Except the home / contact page). This dropdown-menu shows all pages within this category.

    The website has a CMS where the admin needs to add pages. Here it chooses the category it should be in, a title, description of the project, and some images (with an optional title // description per image).

    Now my question is the following:

    I made the design from scratch using CSS (LESS actually, but that doesn’t matter). How does WordPress work? Can I just use this CSS for my new WordPress site, or does it use something like XML?

    Also, are the current functionalities of my site possible in WordPress (in whatever way, as long as it looks 99% the same).

    Thanks in advance. If you need any more information, please let me know.

    Jeroen

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

  • Yes, you’ll be able to use your current CMS’s theme, including the CSS, and HTML. WordPress uses a MySQL database, PHP, HTML, and CSS. It is very easy to customize if you’re familiar with each of these things. I don’t see anything in your description that WordPress can’t do out of the box. Obviously there will be some training as things will undoubtedly work a little differently than you and your client are used to, but the functionality does exist.

    You will have to create a WordPress theme from your current markup, though, and that will take some time.

    Thread Starter JeroenJK

    (@jeroenjk)

    Thanks.

    By the way, it’s not only about the CSS, but mainly about the website itself.
    I want to convert the website to WordPress, because WordPress has a built-in CMS-system. (Am I right? Something where I can specify the possible input fields and connect it to the database or a database-php-script?

    All of that is correct. In fact, I literally did exactly what you’re doing now for a client about 3 months ago. They had a home-made CMS system, and I helped convert them over to WordPress. It was a fairly clean transfer once they got used to the new CMS.

    Thread Starter JeroenJK

    (@jeroenjk)

    Nice to hear that!

    I had to make a new website for the company of my father. I finally got the design right (which I am normally not very good in) but the CMS just sucks. So it would be nice if I could keep this same design.

    I’m now looking at this: https://www.siteground.com/tutorials/wordpress/wordpress_create_theme.htm

    This site works with header.php etc, but what if I don’t want that. Can I just make project.php, index.php and contact.php?

    Good luck! The biggest piece of advice I can give is before trying to write a custom function for anything, make sure WordPress doesn’t have already have a way to do what you’re trying to do.

    When I was first learning, I wasted a lot of time writing custom functions because I didn’t bother looking up if WordPress had a built-in method of doing what I wanted to do.

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