How to customize your WordPress Theme : Overview!

Theme are so simple!

You’ve probably read on one way or another from other blogs on how to do it. I have thought it would be nice to discuss this at a really long length to help other bloggers customize their themes and you don’t have to pay for anything. You can download free themes from WordPress or other sites and get any free theme and make it your own. Editing a theme is not rocket science just a little know how and learning. I’ve learned all this over my past few years and thought it would be high time to help others with the task. If you ever wanted to edit your theme to make it more personable then this little tutorial is for you.

Explaining themes : Task at hand!

I won’t say the task at hand is going to be an easy one, and that I will be talking about how to do everything to your theme, but I will be talking about several areas of theme editing and customization and you are going to want to stay tuned. In this series, I will be talking about:

Customizing your header

Customizing your sidebar

Customizing your content

Customizing your Footer

Adding ads to post using the Themes Function

Why you would want to customize your theme

As you can see this will be a little more in depth then what others might of done or not done. I don’t know but I wanted to add my own spin to the discussion. Anyone can edit a them but do you want to break it? That is the most important question. I am not going to tell you every nuance and what will happen if you do all this but this is going to be a great general guide for anyone who might want to get there feet wet and learn something new.

Why you would want to customize you theme!

If we all had the same theme, then blogging wouldn’t be so enjoyable. I actually like going to other blogs and seeing what type of changes they have done with their theme. I personally like to change my theme every so often to get a fresh look and feel to my theme but others like to keep the same theme for years and years and that is all fine. It is just more about preference than anything else. I am sure someone wants some advice on how to make a theme work with yours.

Programs needed

I’m not saying you need these programs but it will make it far less troublesome if you do use them. You can easily use an easy text editor to edit your php files but I prefer to use some kind of PHP editor to help me code and see the path of where everything is going as I customize my themes. Here are some programs to consider installing and using these to make your theme more your own:

XAMPP — Great way to see what the theme will look like before you go live with your website. You can test out various things before anyone even sees your website or knows that you will be changing it. Works on Linux, Windows and Macintosh

Notepad++ — This is a good editor for those who might want to use Windows Machine. I do not know if it is for linux but You can always try “Sudo Apt-get Install notepad++” to find out.

gPHPedit — This is a good little PHP editor but it is mainly for linux. It is one of those that might be good for occasionally editing. I like it but can be a pain if your not used to it all.

Screem — I like it better than gPHPedit but it does take some getting used to. It is also just Linux based right now, so you will have to look for a free php editor for you system elsewhere.

These are just a few of my picks. If you like them or hate them, I’d like to know by leaving a comment. If you have other suggestions, please feel free to leave a comment also, so Others can try them out and see if they are right for them.