Steps involved in Wordpress Theme Customization

Posted by dwspriyanka on May 30th, 2011

Wordpress themes are the most preferred themes in the field of webmaster. One of the factors that make it the most preferred is because it can be customized easily. You can always customize the theme to enhance better appearance. If you would to do wordpress theme customization, you will need to follow a few simple steps. Design The first thing you need to have at hand is the design of the theme you would like to have. You can sketch everything you will need to include in your theme design. This includes factors like colour, graphics, fonts and the templates to use. You can create a mock up design using the Photoshop application. The mock up design will determine whether it is the actual design you want or not. Gathering the necessary files Wordpress theme customization requires the use of certain files. You will need to gather all the necessary files to make this process a success. Some of the files that you need at hand include header.php, footer.php, style.css and index.php. What you need to do is copying the file template from the folder wp-content/themes/default to a new folder wp-content/themes/. With the files and design at hand, you can adjust the files to their respective locations. The header should be at the top, the footer at the bottom and the side bar to the side. The most common used design is that in which the side bar is to the left hand side of the design. Use Cascading Style Sheets In wordpress theme customization, you may realize that some of the files and elements cannot be adjusted well. To overcome this challenge, you will need to use CSS. This is a technique that uses pixels to move and adjust these files. CSS can be used to adjust the header, footer, images, style and other elements of the wordpress site. It makes things much easier and also makes the website look much better. CSS also plays a role in enhancing the loading speeds of the site allowing clients to access the site faster and effectively. If you have a wordpress site, you cannot do without this important technique. Polishing up the wordpress theme customization If you have carried out the above steps, you can then ensure that the site is as you would like. It is at this point where you can adjust and modify all things you realize are not good. Once you have made the modifications, you can take your site for a test drive. This is done to ensure that the wordpress theme installation was a success. In order to find out more on WordPress Theme Design and similar web design or webmaster related resources, check out Design Contest which is an online service where you can run a contest to get multiple designs for different services.