Creating a wordpress themes from existing html templates is easier said than done. Most of us would rather pay someone to code a template into a wordpress theme that doing it ourselves! My idea for a php script that converts html templates into wordpress themes. Imagine a tool that splices html code into separate wordpress theme php files! Will require a little html template preparation before running the tool that will splice the code into a wp theme. I have spent 6 hours planning this script and have coded some of the main php functions. This script is only in the concept / planning stages! Preparing you HTML Template CSS Divs - Using 2 special css div ids to mark the locations of the html template's menu and main content area. <div id="wpmaincontent"></div> <div id="wpmenu"></div> Tokens - Using tokens (few examples below) to convert html code into the required wordpress php code. %BLOG_META% %SEARCH_FORM% %WP_TITLE% %WP_DESCRIPTION% %BLOG_URL%%BLOGROLL% %ARCHIVES% %META% %BLOG_ENTRIES_RSS_LINK% %BLOG_COMMENTS_RSS_LINK% Using the Template to Worpress Theme Tool Zip your html template file that you have prepared and click the upload button on the theme tool, find the zip file on your computer and click convert. After 2-3 seconds you will get a download link to your wordpress theme. Please let me know your thoughts / suggestions about this concept php script idea.
In theory, i think it's a good idea, but in practice most people who can make the template in html can very easily do it in PHP. You only have to split it into 4 files and copy and paste code from the classic theme into the content areas. This would work much better as a desktop application, so you could select the areas (header, sidebar, index, footer) of the html template and drag and drop the blocks of PHP code to display the content.
I think it is a good idea too if you get it to work and still come out valid code. Andy Peters's right tho, that if you know HTML already it an't that hard to code a WordPress theme at all. But I still think there is a need for this tool as others who don't know how to. So maybe need to make it very user friendly for those that don't know about html
http://www.swansoninternet.com/content/view/26/33/ It looks more compliacted than it is. Essentially, you copy and paste the code from your html template into 4 files. header.php, footer.php, sidebar.php, and index.php For example copy and paste the code down from <Html> to where the main content area starts and put this in header. Then copy and paste the main content area, put this code in index.php. Then the sidebar code in sidebar.php and what's left in footer.php You then just copy and paste all the functions to display the content out of the wp-classic theme
That would be a good tool. I am trying to figure out how to code a WP them from psd or html. Theres some good info there too. =)
Andy I understand what your saying but I have worked for 2 different isps doing tech support and I learned that "the easier the better". Also you say "It looks more complicated that it is" Very good point but someone new to wordpress with basic html skills will see as "It looks complicated" and would rathe find a simple solution than learning how to make wordpress themes. Also there are people that are very code savy and would rather use a simple tool than "copy paste save, copy paste save, phone call, msn notification, what was I just doing ???"
Yeah i agree, it could work really well, i'd probably use it too. I can't imagine it'd be too hard to code (just using explode(); ) function. I reckon if someone is going to go to the effort to actually put in the tokens and the right div id's, then they could probably code it.
I can design the webpage but not a WPtheme. If anyone got the free tool to convert html pages to WP themes then let me know.
A service that allows you to convert your HTML and CSS based Templates into a WordPress blog Theme. Contact me
Great Post, Thanks for the help. 3w.levoltz.com/2010/01/06/100-best-wordpress-premium-themes-of-2009/
Hmm, did anything ever come of this? I see the thread was raised from the dead recently...talk about necromancy... I would probably use such a tool it if it was available.