• Site Planning Review
• Choosing and Installing Themes
• Theme Options
• Sidebars and Widgets
• Custom Menus

Themes

What is a Theme?

A theme is simply collection of files that allow you to “skin” your WordPress site. A theme is comprised of template files, that determine the components that will go on each type of page, and a styles sheet or sheets that control fonts, colors and layout. Themes are stored in wp-content > themes.

Choosing Themes

When choosing a theme, make sure that it is compatible up to your version of WordPress ( the current version is 3.2.1). Many new features were introduced in WordPress 3.0, and you want to make sure to take advantage of them.

Installing Themes

There are two ways to install a new theme, through the WP admin tools, or by downloading and uploading it into the themes directory. Which you use will depend on how you FTP into your hosting account.

Installing Via Admin

From the admin, go to Appearance > Themes then click the “Install Themes” tab at the top of the page.

If you connect to your site via SFTP you will not be able to install your theme directly, you will have to download it from wordpress.org and either upload it through FTP or the admin tool.

Theme Options

Some themes have an options panel that allow you to further customize appearance and layout. What the options are will vary from theme to theme, and may be broken into multiple panels.

 Custom Menus

Most up to date themes allow you to add at least one custom menu to your site. You can build a menu of links to categories, pages and custom links.

Sidebars and Widgets

Most WordPress themes include at least one “sidebar”, an area to the right or left of the page content that can contain a variety of things, including search, lists of recent posts, your blogroll, and admin links. These components are called widgets, and are managed through the widgets panel. Some themes also support the addition of widgets in other areas of the site, such as the headers and footers.

Homework

We’ve got a week break before our next class, so now’s the time to get some serious work done! By next class, get at least the following done:

1. Install the theme you want to use for the site. Don’t be afraid to experiment with multiple themes until you find one you are happy with. Customize the theme to the extent you can with the theme options, next class we’ll discuss ways to further customize.
2. Create the primary pages and post categories to match your site map. Even if you don’t have content for all these pages or posts, create placeholders for them so you can use them to create the structure of the site.
3. Create at least one custom menu for your site as indicated by your wireframes
4. Configure the sidebar(s) with the widgets you wish to display. Next class we are going to talk about additional plug-ins you might wish to use here.