Firstly , i'm not a coder / programmer / or even a HTML beginner !!!

 

Wordpress plugins and fuctionality is ACE !!!!!

 

BUT the theme designing for a beginner is a tough cookie !!

 

I have the vision ! but not the experince , i know where i'd like everything to be on the site , i know what looks good (in my own opinion lol ) But Wordpress is a wonderful CMS , i think its ace , but i've got the same problem as a lot of other people seem to have (unless your a bit of a wiz with PHP and CSS AND HTML) is that there is no perfect theme out there for them or for me , all themes have elements i like !

 

I have used some very good HTML WYSIWYG type programs in the past which i think have been totally ace and have given me the ability to play around with the styling , graphics , look , to my hearts content...

 

But Wordpress theme'ing is a whole different ball game.

 

I actually downloaded A lynda.com tutorial on "WordPress 3: Creating and Editing Custom Themes" , i found it very informative , although i dont think its beyond me to do , it looks a bit long winded.

 

I've looked at various themes that allow you to make a lot of changes , but once again i'm not happy with them

 

I dont like Artisteer , its kind of a step in the right direction , but the themes tend to look so basic , i'm totally put off by the look of them...

 

I dont want to hire a designer , i'd rather build the site myself.

 

I'm going to watch a Lynda.com tutorial today on how to use Dreamweaver with wordpress (in the hope it will make Wordpress a WYSIWYG enviroment) if Dreamweaver CS5 works well with wordpress , then i might opt for that route (anyone had any experince with that)

 

So what next !!!!!!!!!!!!!! Anyone help me out ?

I'd recommend downloading a clean, basic theme and looking at how it's constructed, e.g: header, footer, sidebar, single, index etc. That'll show you what tags you need to use and where to put them when creating your own layout. Alternatively you could play around with the stylesheet to make simple typography and background colour changes.

 

I'd also recommend Wordpress' own documentation: http://codex.wordpress.org/Getting_Started_with_WordPress as it covers pretty much everything you need to know.

http://www.themedreamer.com/Basic.zip

 

these templates are made to be turned into your own design.

 

These are proberly the best clean templates to work on, it comes with about 6 white templates with different styles, one of them will be perfect for you to build your website around and gain understanding of wordpress.

Edited January 12, 201115 yr by kingy da killa

http://www.themedreamer.com/Basic.zip

 

these templates are made to be turned into your own design.

 

These are proberly the best clean templates to work on, it comes with about 6 white templates with different styles, one of them will be perfect for you to build your website around and gain understanding of wordpress.

 

 

Thank you both for your reply , Kingy , based on the site your link took me to , i guess i these themes are for use with Dreamweaver ? it looks like a good start , i've not yet purchased dreamweaver , with these themes and dreamweaver does it become more of a WYSIWYG enviroment , can i plonk in logos where ever i like , add graphics , move things etc without breaking the theme ?

 

I've since downloaded Firebug , hmmm this seems pretty cool and has helped me to have a little play with a the basic wp3 theme , to help give me some ideas of how and where things can be changed.....But i've read if i alter a theme , then i should be using a Child theme with a theme , then all my changes are kept if and when i upgrade my wordpress install.

 

Is this the case ?

 

If i used firebug to pick out things i wanted to change , would i just cut and paste the code , put it into a child theme , change the colours font etc , postion and the child theme will override the main theme ?

 

Thank you for your help

' can i plonk in logos where ever i like , add graphics , move things etc without breaking the theme ? '

 

its really not as easy as that, you need to continue with the basics first learning from firebug and w3schools.

 

but you may aswel learn wordpress whiles learning aswell, so test out your code with your wordpress theme files. There is a pdf in that zip that exsplains all the css codes so make sure you read that aswell.

 

you can use dreamweaver,notepad etc... my favourite is dreamweaver though suits me for what i need it to do anyways!

I'd do exactly what Kingy Da Killa (i love typing that lol) said as this will give you a greater understanding of how Wordpress works.

 

The alternative is to create your design, knock it up in to a page and then plug in the bits of code needed to turn it in to a working Wordpress site, however i think you probably lack the HTML/CSS knowledge for that.

 

Try having a look at this tutorial http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/02/19/so-you-want-to-create-wordpress-themes-huh/ it's for an older version of Wordpress but really breaks down the construction of Wordpress in to manageable chunks. There are also more tutorials by the same guy on that website that will be of help.

I agree with Mikeshipshop. Once you've learned how themes fit together, create a standard page template/layout for your own design then split this up into the relevant Wordpress components - e.g. header, footer etc.