Creating complex WordPress themes

  • I’m taking a looking a look at WordPress as a possible site builder, but I haven’t used it. I’ve been scanning through WP available themes and I’ve noticed that they have a distinctive WordPress blog-like feel to them. The site I’m designing will have a blog embedded in another page (though not on the index page). It’s a three-column fixed-width site with a banner on top. Is it possible (provided you know your xHTML and CSS) to create a WP theme that looks more like a professional, typical website?

    And yes, I’m aware of other CMS systems like Joomla and Drupal, but I’m asking about creating a non-blog look for a WordPress theme.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • I prefer WordPress as a CMS because the admin is less complicated from a client’s perspective than Joomla. Yes, with knowledge of html, css and php it’s possible to get WordPress to perform well as a CMS without hacking core code. Here’s a non-blog-feel site I’m currently working on that’s built with WordPress: https://dev.fotllp.com.

    WordPress can be made to look like anything you want. The only limit is your knowledge of xhtml/css/php.

    Thread Starter riderofthestorm2

    (@riderofthestorm2)

    alanpace, that’s the type of example I’m looking for.

    If anyone else has other examples of non-blog looking WordPress sites, I’d love to take a look.

    I’m heavily well versed in HTML and CSS, but PHP I barely know other than adding required pieces of code where necessary. Could I still have that kind of site with WordPress helping me out with the PHP?

    I’m heavily well versed in HTML and CSS, but PHP I barely know other than adding required pieces of code where necessary.

    That’s enough. I always say for a WP theme all the PHP your need is advanced copy/paste skills to get the Template_Tags into your files.

    For the beginning you should probably start with a 3 column theme and try to dissect it a bit to understand how a WP theme works.
    Theme_Development

    Thread Starter riderofthestorm2

    (@riderofthestorm2)

    That’s awesome. Because I already have these sophisticated 3-column design layouts that’s very image heavy. There may be three or four different templates that will be slight variations on the index page. I made sure to design them thinking of a good CSS layout in mind.

    I was feeling intimidated thinking while WP is nice, I didn’t know if you could go beyond that distinctive blog look.

    There may be three or four different templates that will be slight variations on the index page

    Be aware that the WP theme’s index is a diffent animal. If you are visual, take a quick look at this visual anatomy: it will show you how the template files work together in a theme.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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