Creating An Interesting WordPress Theme

A collection of files working together for creating a designed graphical interface is called a template file. The main motive of a WordPress theme is to modify the display of the site without making any change to the software. The WordPress theme provides all the designs and styles that are required for making the site look attractive. It helps in changing the layout structure and the design structure of a website.

Developing a WordPress theme from scratch

Requirements for creating a WordPress theme

Working with WordPress is very easy and requires no prior excellence in any software or language. The main requirement for creating a WordPress theme is a website. Any type of website can serve the purpose. Either custom website or any other website built in any other framework or platform will be sufficient. The next important requirement is the knowledge of setting up of an environment for the local server.

Aim of creating a WordPress theme

At first, the WordPress should be installed locally then any website that has been designed by HTML should be converted to a normal WordPress theme.

Designing the site

Few important terms – index.php is the file that is used for loading the theme and it is also the main page or the home page of the file. Header.php includes everything that is required to appear at the top of the website as a heading. Footer.php includes everything that is required to appear at the bottom of the website. Archive.php is used to view any comments, posts or date that has been posted by the author of the site. These tags along with different other tags are used throughout the website.

Step 1 – The first step is to define the style of the theme of the WordPress and this is known as the stylesheet. In this step, the main requirement is to rename the main file and name it as style.css. Style.css is the place where all the styles of the themes reside. The next aim is to make a new folder and name it; this folder is actually the WordPress theme folder. The style sheet should be put in this newly created folder so as to make it visible by the WordPress.

Step 2 – The next aim is to create the header and the footer of the file. This is done by creating two files namely header.php and footer.php. Whatever is written in the header.php folder will appear on every page of the website. A footer.php normally displays the title of the site, the feed link, and date correct year and also in certain cases, the current time. Whatever is entered in the footer.php folder appears as a footnote on every page of the website. The simplest file to be created is the footer.php.

Step 3 – This is the main step. It involves creating the main file named as the index.php. The main aim of the index.php is to find the location where the header.php and the footer.php can be included. Another important term that should be remembered is the WordPress loop. This loop is used for checking the content and also it helps in adding any specific criteria.

Step 4 – The next step is to design the sidebar that will appear on the website. This is done with the help of sidebar.php. The sidebar mainly consists of the list of pages, list of categories and also the logo of the website.

Step 5 – The archive.php file is then created to view any comments or blogs posted by the author. This is also used to view any category or tag.

Step 6 – After completing the designing of the web page, the next option is to view the theme. This can be done by installing a test file.

The main advantages of creating a WordPress theme is that it provides a very easy and flexible environment for making any modification in the design of a website. It can be modified according to one’s own need and desire. There is no bound regarding any modification of the content which makes it user-friendly.

Author Bio :

Lesa Cote is a WordPress developer at WebCX, WordPress web development company. She loves to share her web development experience and knowledge with novice developer and bloggers.