I make no claim to having any design sense, but if you like my site’s WordPress theme, you’re welcome to it. Grab it right here.
Portfolio AD is a one-column theme with a two-column sidebar. Both columns in the sidebar can display widgets. The header is a modification of the well-worn Hemingway theme, and the rest is my take-off of a site built via this tutorial from WPDesigner.com. It works fine with WordPress 3.0.
What you see here is the result of constant tinkering. I coded up a theme of my own to learn more about what WordPress can do, and in the process I have learned tons about CSS, HTML, web hosting and content management systems in general. If you have the time, it’s well worth the investment.
Use the theme as a starting point for your own tinkering and have fun!
Filed under: WordPress by Anthony on Jun 19, 2010
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Building a WordPress theme from scratch has been a blast. Not only did I pick up new skills in CSS and PHP, I developed a deeper appreciation for the open source community. Without dozens of people who liberally share their code, I wouldn’t have gotten as far as fast.
So, I’d like to return the favor. Anyone who’d like my WordPress theme can have it. I have no illusions about being a designer, but if you’re looking to craft your own theme it’s a good start.
Download Portfolio_AD here.
Filed under: WordPress by Anthony on Nov 23, 2009
1 Comment »
After working through a tutorial on building WordPress themes by wpdesigner.com, I had a basic, functional — and clunky looking — theme for my site. It had all the elements that I now understand to be the WordPress basics — a header, a content well for posts, a sidebar for links, pages and archives, plus a footer.
Everything worked, but it had no style.
Of course, the reason I set out to build a theme from scratch was to make something unique. I’ve been impressed, for example, at what the author of FlowingData has achieved using WordPress. And I like a good challenge.
So, I’ve spent the last few days digging into my CSS. I’ve used style sheets at work for internal projects I code in Visual Studio, so I have a head start. A reference CSS tutorial is handy for defining various elements, but I probably am learning the most by studying (and borrowing from) a couple of themes I’ve admired: Hemingway and Monochrome Lite.
If you know the Hemingway theme well, you’ll recognize shades of it in my current header, which closely resembles the Hemingway header. I added a horizontal navigation bar that separates the top from the content to come. I’ve yet to style the content well, but I did decide to create left, middle and right divs for blocks of content. More to come — and I definitely will have to ask for help with colors. It’s what I know the least about.
Filed under: Programming, WordPress by Anthony on Aug 30, 2009
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