Blog Design 101: WordPress Theme/Template Design (Part 2)
19In part 1 of this series, we talked a little bit about database driven publishing platforms, such as WordPress. The key point of that discussion was that your blog data is separate from your blog design (the look and layout of your site). The data – such as blog posts, blog comments, blog categories, etc. – reside in a database on your web server/web host (you establish your database during the WordPress install process).
The template files (theme) tell WordPress and the various web browsers how to organize and present your blog data to your website/blog visitor. You may hear people refer to the blog theme as a “blog skin” because it determines the look and feel – or design – of your blog. At a basic level, that’s true, but a WordPress theme can – and usually does – do more than just determine the design style of your blog.
As an example, lets look at a blog archive page. As you probably know, a blog archive is just a collection of past blog posts. And there are several different types of blog archives. Here are just a few:
- Monthly Archive – all entries for a given month.
- Category archive – all entries for a particular category.
- Author archive – all entries for a particular author on a multi-author blog.
Your WordPress theme dictates which type of archive to display to your blog visitor. It also dictates when to display that particular archive page and how to display it. It can also determine what the page heading should be for that particular page. If, for example, it’s an archive for October 2006, it may show a page title that says “All Entries for October 2006 (example).” If it’s an archive for a particular author on a multi-author blog, it may display a page title that says “Author Archive for Michael D. Pollock (example).” And yes, your theme also determines the outer appearance – or design – of your blog’s pages.
Getting Started With WordPress Themes
As I said previously, a WordPress theme is a collection of template files. Those files tell WordPress and web browsers how, when and where to present your blog’s data to your blog visitor. Here are the two template files you’ll find in all WordPress themes:
- Main Index Template (index.php) – this is the “master template” for your WordPress site/blog. It contains all the code necessary to pull your blog’s data from the database and present it to your blog visitor in the form of a web page.
- Stylesheet (styles.css) – CSS stands for Cascading Style Sheet. The stylesheet works alongside your Main Index Template (and other template files) to help determine the look and feel of your blog, as well as the general page layout of your blog’s pages.
You could get away with having only those two templates files. But for practicality sake and ease of design, most WordPress themes will include other template files. I wont get into that right now, but another great resource on WordPress themes is the WordPress Codex. In particular, you’ll certainly want to read the Theme Development section.
In part 3 of the series, we’ll begin to create your first WordPress blog theme. In the meantime, you have a little homework. You’ll need to create a WordPress development site on which you can practice your theme development skills. If you already have a WordPress blog/site set up, you can use that site, although it may not be a good idea. You probably don’t want to go tweaking, changing and experimenting with the look and layout of your blog as it may irritate your current blog readers.
Instead, I’d suggest you download and install the latest version of WordPress in another folder on your web server/web host. To do so, follow the directions found here.
And be sure not to overwrite your current site.
About the Author
Michael Pollock is the marketing and product development guy for Solostream. He's also a blogger, a web marketing trainer and an entrepreneur. When he's not evangelizing Solostream, he trains other solopreneurs on how to use the web to reach more people, earn more money and live a bigger life. Michael's Website.
Guys – joomla is a pathetic CMS. Horribly coded, and slow as molasses.
WP, with the plugin Flutter, is a fabulous CMS for those who want to use it as such.
Couple that with 1BlogCacher or WP-SuperCache (I prefer the former) and you even have static versions of your WP site.
I can even integrate PunBB with Wordpress, or just use BBPress. Much cleaner and faster than all the forum modules for Joomla and Drupal kind of shite.
Seriously, there is no comparison. In version 2.7, Wp kicks butt.
Great posts about Blog Design 101! Always nice to read this kind of quality information, without the BS and hype ;)
Thanks for sharing,
Robert
Just on the topic of what the first guy, Thomas, said – for me WP loses out to Joomla for any site that isn’t ‘just a blog’. Joomla offers far more options for advanced features with it’s vast range of plugins.
thanks for themes, they are nice,
keep the good work.
Great, you post really helps newbies like me to understand wordpress basics. You explained things well, thanks!
Will Par 3 of this tutorial be coming? I seem to understand the information in WordPress Codex better after first reading your post. I hope you are able to post Part 3 to this tutorial.
[...] marvelous site now check out this headline http://www.solostream.com/2006/10/30/blog-design-101-wordpress-themetemplate-design-part-2/ and give comments [...] freelance.1freelance freelance photographer Subscribe to [...]
great navigation tool bars and colour skin. i see your theme is very RSS oriented/friendly. Cheers!
Thanks for Parts 1 and 2. Did Part 3 ever get published?
Good Job! I like to the you themes! TKS!
I have Jumpline as my hosting service and the tech’s installed Word Press; however, the few pithy themes are hideous and I would like to add something more elegant and becoming not necessarily to match my website template but at least to look as pretty since I want to link them together when complete.
Each time I add a theme and then go into the admin section, I have no graphics in the way the others show graphics. I can’t seem to add anything without causing more of a mess. CSS was just coming out but was not the end-all/be-all of html programming when I built my website.
Should I scrap it all and restart from scratch? My only reason to not do this is that I spent hours upon hours designing that website. In addition, I do not want my blog as my homepage. I want it off as a link to itself but accessible from the homepage through a link.
Any assistance is appreciated. I am tired of using My Space as it is not as professional freelance writer and novelist as using my domain site if you know what I mean.
Many thanks for any suggestions,
Paisley Place
http://www.paisleyplace.com
http://blog.myspace.com/paisleyplace
The WP template you are using is one of the most beautiful I have seen in years!
Gee! I would die to have one similar!!!
Roger Pilon
well, Joombla and Mambo are more properly compared to Drupal than to WordPress. with enough time and skill, one can bend any system to one’s will, but while they are all CMS’, they aren’t all meant to do the same thing.
I would have to give WP the thumbs up over Joomla. I find it so much easier to setup and tweak. I think it has less of a learning curve then Joomla which will likely make it the CMS choice of the masses.
Having had to use Joomla! quite extensively in the past, I’m not a fan of it!!!
It’s resource heavy, buggy as hell, and many of the modules (including ALL of the shopping carts available for it) are poorly coded. Quite frankly, Joomla and mambo (the original incarnation of Joomla!) are too much for most users needs. I mean, who in their right mind wants to see another site with a cheesy Joomla! user poll???
Give me a break – and give me wordpress, with its light, flexible, well-written code any time!!!
Thanks for this. I’m one of those who wrote to you asking for just such a tutorial. I’m looking forward to part 3…
Hey there,
There is no doubt that Joomla and Mambo are awesome as far as Content Managment systems go, and the shopping carts, Forums, and all the other plug ins that are available. However, WP is a great starting tool for people that want a web presence and an easy management system to control their content and can be very powerful once the users understand the promotional advantages of blogs!
I think that BOTH Jooomla and WP are both awesome systems, but aimed at different types of consumners with different needs.
my 2 cents,
Ben Waldeck
[...] Blog <b>Design</b> 101: WordPress Theme/Template <b>Design</b> (Part 2) [...]
I just wonder if WP will survive a long term race. I myself prefer WP to most other builds, but having been forced to focus a fair bit on Joompla, Mambo and Xoops, I notice that there are packages with VASTLY more plugins/extensions than WordPress, which make other packages more difficult to use, but easier to extend… Any thoughts?