So it's a long time since i made a WordPress site, and all i really did then was pick a theme and do customisations in the WP.
I need to remake this music review site (redesign and move content) https://levyarvostelut.fi/
    (sorry it's in Finnish )

Using https://localwp.com/ i have WP installed and the twenty-twenty-one theme. I'm going to make a child theme (i know how to do that) but questions are
what's a good theme to start with to customise? (e.g. 2021 has only one place for widgets)
this is the functionality i need to use/add

1. latest e.g. 5 reviews (i.e. posts - this is built in isn't it?)
2. sub-navigation: so just general pages but want something to build the list by querying the e.g. artists labelled as Categories
   - Artists (list)
   - Bands (list)
   - Genre (list)
3. ALBUMS in alphabetical order
4. GENRES in alphabetical order
5. Search (possibly ) free search to return an artist and list of work or a particular album
   so i'm guessing i need to identify the hooks i need (e.g. Category artist) then customise the frontpage template to traverse the artist array, fetch results and display it as a list - but this is the part of WP i'm haven't dealt with before: from my basic WP understanding this all seems par for the course for WP (except perhaps the alphabetical list with links from A,B, C, D - some php function to truncate the Artist string to find the first letter and display it under A.
   
   links to resources should be fine in the first instance-  not expecting you to the work just need some guidance
   
   Thanks in advance

Edited September 17, 20214 yr by davep

Widgets are fairly simple to add to a child theme. There are plenty of tutorials on how to do this in your child theme.

Essentially all you need to do in your child theme functions.php is register each new widget.

https://codex.wordpress.org/Widgetizing_Themes

The sub-navigation may need a bit more work. You can create new menus and add them to widget areas but you could edit your theme templates to hard code the navigation.

Lots of ways to do the search, for example:

https://awhitepixel.com/blog/making-autocomplete-search-in-wordpress-with-code/

If you want I've got a theme that could work for you.

Thanks. Is it a paid theme or free? This is just a hobby site so budget is very low, but it's also a good practice site for me.

Free. And easily editable if you like playing with code.

sounds good - how do i get it?

Sent you a PM