I don't know much about web design, xhtml, or css but is there a way I can edit my wordpress theme in dreamweaver? I'm setting up a new site and I want to take out some of the default things on the sidebar and customize it.
Are you using the new WP 2.2? First, the easy way: Start by checking Admin > Presentation > Widgets If your theme is 'Widget-ready' then you can easily customize your sidebar (even without having installed the Widgets Plugin) I hope this helps
The Widgets Plugin is now in the core of WP, so you only need a compatible theme and changes are very easy.
Thanks for the info The theme I have now isnt widget ready..I'll have to find one that is and change. I guess I'll ask one more question here. I'd like to start learning how to design and create sites as well as wordpress themes. I know it involves xhtml,css,and php. I knew html pretty well 6 or 7 years ago...but forgot most of it and I'm sure everything is completely different now. I'm headed to my local Borders books to check out books they have on the subject and was just looking for some recommendations. The best book I've found so far for beginners (at amazon) is by Jennifer Niederst Robbins called "Learning Web Design: A Beginner's Guide to (X)HTML, StyleSheets, and Web Graphics " I just want to learn enough to customize wordpress themes and to create decent but basic sites. Think this book will do?
Books are great, if you actually use their full potential. I like to learn by 'trial and error': Sometimes it's fun, but tends to waste time. CSS and XHTML takes time to get used to, you won't learn it it just one hour. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Real good intro here Try this post for a great effort from another DP member If you read the whole thread, you'll see me 'get attacked' for questioning the need to conform to today's standards I learned a lot from the thread, and it's at least a bit amusing to read. Good luck with learning.
Gemini, I remember WRITING that post. i still wish I could go back and edit that post, but at least I have an addendum a few posts down! (Here it is for reference purposes - http://forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?p=2630993#post2630993 )
Thanks I'll check that out in a bit. I ended up getting a beginners html,xhtml,css book. Haven t started it yet...but hopefully I'll finish it with at least a small amount of knowledge. Would someone who is fimilar with editing wordpress themes tell me what file I would need to edit to change the text color in my sidebar? I looked the the side bar code and didn't see anything I'd associate with text color. I'm also trying to figure out how to either remove or replace an arrow image thats in the WP theme I'm using. The image displays a tiny arrow next to each heading in my sidebar. It looks fine with the theme...but when I put my RSS feed into the sidebar the widget automatically adds a feed image...next to the arrow the theme adds. And it just doesn't look right. Once I figure these two things out tonight I'm going to jump into the book I got and I'm going to re-read some of that post I was referred to.
It was a fairly memorable thread for me too. ~~~~~~~~~~~ Your efforts help. Thanks Dan ~~~~~~~~~~~ 1) Style.css >> Then "exactly what your looking for now" depends on the theme >>> Start with 'trial and error' (takes time ) 2) Right click on the arrow > View properties > That's your file path to the original image >> Several options exist // without changing code you could replace the arrow with a colored 'image' matching the background. Hope this helps.
As gemini181 said, trial and experiment. I'll show you how you must be working : Imagine you want to remove this arrow on your sidebar : 1. View the source (I opened your link in IE, right-click -> view source) 2. Locate the arrow and notice, for example, that it's close to "Recent Posts". 3. Search for "Recent Posts" in the source. 4. You see, it's h2 class=widgettitle. 5. Open style.css [it's in your theme folder, you can edit it from your WP-admin Presentation menu]. 6. Look for h2 in the stylesheet. As you can see, it uses h2_bg.png as the background image. 7. Remove it from CSS or modify the image. Hope it helps
You were much more detailed and clear. I'm a 'nasty' teacher sometimes... ..."Here, just look at 'style.css' and figure it out" Even though it uses up too much time, I really enjoy learning by 'just poking around', but it's good to remember it is not the best way for most people. Thanks You can create new themes in Dreamweaver, then convert them to WordPress themes. Editing existing WP themes in Dreamweaver is not really practical (unless an 'expert' knows how)
Thanks to both of you!! I read 100 pages of the book I bought (only 350 more to go) and I learned a little bit. Enough to let me change some things. Right now I'm trying to figure out how to change the link color in my footer to two seperate colors. I figured out how to change all of them together...but not individually. In a nutshell I'm trying to set the site map and privacy policy to one color...and the theme designers link to another color. They require me to keep 3 links in the footer..and it looks ugly. I don't fully understand using div id's and classes yet. I didn't get to that section yet. But I'm assuming that has something to do with why I cant have two different colors for links in my footer. It has to be somewhere else (not in the footer section) because I don't see anything... Here is what it is now. I figured out how to add my two links and change the color. <div id="footer"> <div><!-- This theme is free to use under Creative Commons (Attribution-ShareAlike 2.5), therefore all the attribution links in the footer must remain intact. --> Copyright © <?php bloginfo('name'); ?>. All rights reserved. <br /> <a href="http://theinternetexperiment.com/site-map/">Site Map</a>     <a href="http://theinternetexperiment.com/privacy-policy/"> Privacy Policy</a> <br /> Theme Courtesy of Romow <a href="http://www.romow.com/">Online Advertising</a> and <a href="http://www.webgem.us/">Web Directory</a> <br /> <a href="http://www.askgraphics.com">Blog design</a> by: AskGraphics </div>
Hi When I first started a few weeks back someone told me to take a look at this tutorial here http://www.wpdesigner.com/2007/02/19...ss-themes-huh/ I was looking for the same as you (how to edit in Dreamweaver) however this tutorial takes you through all the steps to design your own wordpress theme. Basically I ended up setting up wordpress on my computer (the article takes you to another tutorial to show you how to do that) and then using that tutorial I went through every bit of code and kept trying changes out on it until I could see them happening. That way I learned which bit of code was for changing the sidebar colour or the header or the footer etc. It was a bit frustrating sometimes but I did learn a lot and I did manage to change all the colours on my page etc. Also - as someone else said, using widgets is great because they are soooo simple to use! I know I did read something about setting up different page templates - so when you want a different something different on just one page you can choose that template instead of applying the change site wide. Have a read through on Wordpress.org on pages and templates and it'll give you a somewhat clearer description than I can! Or perhaps someone here can elaborate? As far as the book goes it's always best to check when they were last updated as design standards change really quickly. I reckon it might be good for basics though. Happy designing