Where's the best way to start learning how to write wordpress themes, is the wordpress documentation any good or is there somewhere better I'd like to start with the best guide possible instead of delving into one and finding its rubbish

 

Any help welcome

I would recommend wordpress codex. I can't find the correct link but am sure someone will provide it.

Hey Sam,

 

The best place to get that information is definitely from the WordPress Codex, more specifically the sections on Blog Design and Layout with WordPress.

 

Feel free to post any questions you have about it after reading through it all

I myself am meddling with my first wp layout. I find the codex can be a little heavy handed at times. A great in-depth and easy going tutorial I'm currently using is by a wordpress forum-community. Here is the link. I found it is brilliantly written and broken down into easy chunks. I skipped the CSSing bit on the tutorial as its self explanatory for anybody with even a basic grip of html/css.

 

 

Hope that helps, good luck with your layout

 

 

Ravi

The way I learnt was to create my theme as an HTML layout, and then I just ripped apart the default theme stripping out all the existing HTML and placing mine in there. Took a while to wrap my head round what was going on but it was a fairly quick way of doing it. That way you can refer to the Codex if you need to and it doesn't overwhelm you. You're not going to become a WordPress expert after your first theme, but after 3 or 4 themes you'll be pretty clued up.

If you're a Dreamweaver user you may want to check out ThemeDreamer. The newest version links right into the WordPress online documentation as well as provides code hints in Dw's Code View window (I prefer the split screen mode with Design View myself). You need this Dreamweaver extension to view WYSIWYG of WordPress themes in Dw's Design View. In fact, I think its the only way to get a WYISWYG editor for WordPress theme design.

 

You can see before after shots here:

 

http://www.themedreamer.com/demos

 

Hope it helps if you have any Dw or WP questions, just let me know!

The way I learnt was to create my theme as an HTML layout, and then I just ripped apart the default theme stripping out all the existing HTML and placing mine in there. Took a while to wrap my head round what was going on but it was a fairly quick way of doing it. That way you can refer to the Codex if you need to and it doesn't overwhelm you. You're not going to become a WordPress expert after your first theme, but after 3 or 4 themes you'll be pretty clued up.

 

Thats exactly how I do it too