Make Your Own Themes

Archive for August, 2011

Hello, I am a graphic designer who is fairly limited in my coding capabilities. I cannot write PHP or anything required to have a well functioning word press blog. I was wondering if there was any software out there that can help me to design wordpress themes without having to code them?

Answer:  Yes, there is.  It’s a program called Artisteer.  It also does Blogger themes, Joomlas, Drupal, DotNetNuke and more.  Click here to download Artisteer for free.  Here are some examples of some themes make with it:  free Artisteer themes 

 

If not I will have to write one. I guess a lot of themes are available for wordpress. Does any one of these themes cater the needs of a regular website … intended for corporate presence ?

Answer:  WordPress isn’t really a CMS, it’s a blogging platform, but with the help of some free plugins, you can control to some degree which widgets display on specific pages and posts.  Joomla, Drupal, and DotNetNuke are CMS.

As far as corporate themes go, why not make your own theme with Artisteer?  You don’t need to code anything.  The program does it all for you.  You can make themes and templates for

• Blogger
• WordPress
• Drupal
• DotNetNuke
• Joomla
• and more…

Click here to download Artisteer for free to try it out.

http://img7.imageshack.us/img7/7928/wordpresstheme.jpg

this is my wordpress theme i want to delete the right sidebar advertisement is that possible? when i try to add widget to the right sidebar but the advertisement still there.

Answer:  The problem here is modifying someone else’s WordPress theme to suit your own needs.  Was the theme free?  If so, you probably have to agree to allow the advertisement to display.  That’s how the developer of the theme gets paid.  It could also be a theme that an affiliate marketer has semi-custom made with their advertising built in.  The theme gets distributed for free and the advertiser makes sales and gets tons of backlinks.  Many times there is code in the theme to prevent it from being modified.  Sometimes the author checks to see if the code has been removed.  If so, the theme will be disabled.

If you’re tired of trying to modify your WordPress themes, then make your own WordPress themes.  download Artisteer for free.  Version 3 is the best yet.  I’ve been using Artisteer for several years now and love it.  Here’s what I do.  When I find a WordPress theme or website layout that I like, I do a screen print of it and put it in a 3 ring binder.  Then when I want to design a new site, I look through the binder to get ideas.  With the help of some royalty free images, I can pretty much come real close to replicating a layout in Artisteer.  Here are some free website layouts that were done using Artisteer.

 

I want to limit the number of post to 1 ONLY at the homepage.
So don’t tell me to do it via Settings –> Reading –> Etc.

I need some code
I am making the theme myself

Answer:  Take it from a retired programmer, you don’t want to hard code something like that.  I call that “kid code”.  Use a plugin.  There’s one that I use called Home Page Excerpts that’ll do post control on the home page.  Just change the “Number of Posts to Display Fully” to 1 and you’re good to go. 

Did you know that you can make your own WordPress themes without any coding?  download Artisteer for free and try it out.

 

I don’t have my own domain and I’m just using WordPress’s free blog hosting. How do I find out my WordPress host to upload a new theme?  How do I get a host number or whatever to put in the FTP, connect, and upload?!

Answer:  The short answer is, you can’t upload themes or plugins to the free WordPress.com site.  You can only pick from the selection they offer which is virus free and completely compatible.

If you want to use your own themes or even make your own themes using Artisteer, you’ll need your own web hosting account.  I suggest using iPage for WordPress hosting.  They’re having a sale right now until noon, August 15, 2011.  You can get a hosting account for only $2.95/month.  You can install WordPress from within the iPage control panel.  Look in the software section for the SimpleScripts 1-click software installer.

 

 

Do you need to have domain to add themes in wordpress? I am lurking around wordpress trying out things and come up with themes. There’s a lot of themes you can use in there but I want to use the one that I find and downloaded. Try to search how to do it and base on what I see now, you need to have your own domain to be able to add new themes or maybe I just didn’t do enough research?

Answer:  Yes, you need to host your own WordPress blog with a domain name and web hosting account in order to add themes you’ve downloaded.

• Go to NameCheap and get a cheap domain name. 
• Get a good WordPress web host like HostGator (coupon code: HGFOR25LESS) or iPage.  Don’t accept the free domain name offer because you NEED to own your own domain name, not them.  There is a choice on the order form to use an existing domain.  (iPage calls it “transfer an existing domain”, but you’re not actually transferring anything.)
• The welcome email from the hosting company will contain 2 IP addresses for the DNS setting.  Log into your NameCheap account and change the DNS IP addresses to those.  Now your domain name is pointed to the web server, but it will take about 20 minutes for it to resolve.
• Log into your web hosting control panel.  HostGator uses cPanel.  The iPage control panel is vDeck.  Both have a Software section from which you can install WordPress.  HG uses the Fantastico software installer and iP uses SimpleScripts.
• Once WordPress is installed and your domain name resolves to your account, log into WordPress like this:  http://yourdomain.com/wp-admin  From there just go to the Dashboard, Appearance, Themes to upload your themes. 

 

Save 25% With HostGator Coupon: HGFOR25LESS

http://techcrunch.com/

and

http://mashable.com

Why does it look so different to standard themes?  How do they get themes like this?

Answer:  That’s like comparing two different paintings and asking why they look so different from each other.  It’s all in the programming.  Custom theme designs by some very creative people.  A WordPress theme is HTML, PHP, and CSS.  The PHP uses function calls to fetch the data from a MySQL database.  That part is pretty much standard stuff.  However, once the data’s fetched, you stick it where ever you like on the page.  It’s the creative minds of the theme designers that come up with the layout of the theme – the graphics, colors, font’s, layout of the posting area, sidebars, etc. 

You can create your own WordPress themes without any programming skills.  Give it a shot and download Artisteer for free.

 

What do I need to know to Create a wordpress theme?  I don’t know how to program and I wanna make my own themes.

Answer:  Making a WordPress theme is a complex combination of different skills.  PHP, HTML, CSS, MySQL, and graphic design.  No beginner can do it – until now.  Click here to check out a program called Artisteer.  You’ll be able to create themes and templates for WordPress, Blogger, Joomla, DotNetNuke and more.  I’ve been using it for over 2 years now and it just keeps getting better.  I have completely stopped building HTML sites.  However, the new ver 3 of Artisteer does that, too.   Click here to download Artisteer for free and try it out.

You can also browse these free website templates created with it.  Just click on an image, then click the corresponding icon to download it.  Example:  If you want it as a ready-to-install WordPress theme, then click the WordPress icon.  If you want to be able to modify the theme, then click the Artisteer icon so you can open it with Artisteer.  From there you can edit it any way you like and then export it into any of the supported formats.

I’m looking for a free wordpress theme that’s most ideal to use in selling advertisement space. It has to have a sidebar at the right that is easy to edit so that it can contain a small blog roll and advertisements. Any suggestions guys? And please include links where I can view and download these themes, thank you for all your help.

Answer:  You sound like me a few years ago, always looking through themes that someone else made and never liking any of them.  If I’d find a good layout, the colors and images sucked.  If I liked the basic feel, the sidebars were on the wrong side or the post area too narrow.  Then I found a program to make my own WordPress themes.  It also does Blogger, Joomla, DotNetNuke, CSS webpages and more.  It’s called Artisteer.  Click here to download Artisteer for free and try it out.  It’s a fully working copy.  You’ll love it.  Now I make all of my own WordPress themes.  

Try this, as I go about my business online all day, I’m always finding cool looking websites.  Could be the colors or the layout, so what I do is take a screen print and note the URL.  I print them out and put them in a binder.  Then when I need a new WordPress theme for my next project, I flip through the binder to find one I like and I replicate it with Artisteer.  You can get plenty of royalty free graphics for your themes at places like 123ref.com, BigStockPhoto, iPhoto, Dreamstime and more.