What programs to use for editing WordPress Templates

I want to create an exact copy of my blogger blog for WP. The thing is that in blogger editing the template was easy but in WP I find it rather confusing. What programs do people use to edit their Templates on WP.

I want exactly this www.amar-ela.blogspot.com on my new www.amar-ela.com WP blog.

 

What I do when creating custom WP templates is I'll make the entire HTML page as a whole and designate where I want WP elements (like "single post goes here", etc.). Then I break it up into the sections WP has in it's theme system.

I think it's a matter of expertise... my way requires a little bit of HTML/PHP know-how to work fluidly.

 

Thanks for the info, so basically it is possible to edit my blogspot template for WP?

 

Not really. You more or less need to re-implement the design. BTW, those Blogger templates often are copyrighted.

What I have done is look through the hundreds of freely available WP templates to find as good a match (or even an improved design) as I can, then tweak it to my needs.

I do my edits in the presentation manager of WP.

 

I would do as Mister Tut says as well. Go here and find a theme that is close to what you want or something better. And then tweak the premade theme to fit your needs.

I don't really know any PHP and have been able to tweak two different themes to my liking.

 

little tip

What I do I copy the specific theme (complete folder) and rename it. Now in the renamed folder you can tweak and edit the source files. Now you can always use presentation>>themes and go to the orginal one.

Or you could build from scratch if you used need the posts in your front-end.

my $0.02

 

The theme isn’t copyrighted. It’s from THUR you most probably know him if you use blogger. He creates very good templates, link at bottom of my blogs.

I f you look here at the blog I want move www.amar-ela.blogspot.co m “got a comment from Brazil’s President Today” the template is very simple.

All I want to do is transfer it to WP exactly like it is.

 

I can see why you want to stay with that theme. It is very distinctive, and no off-the-shelf WP theme is really going to look much like it.

But, desires aside, if you want to move to WP, you'll either need to switch themes or most likely pay someone with the skills to port the theme. There are nice people at the WP forums who can do it easily and for a reasonable price (I've even seen 'em do freebies occasionally for the challenge).

But, unless you're a WP ninja, don't think you'll be able to just "import" the theme into Word Press (the content, yes... the theme, no way).

Good luck, let us know how it turns out!

 

just me.... but I don't think it would be that hard to create a customized theme for wp which mimics what you have there...

I can't post links yet but if you goto

wordpresstheme.com

and do a search for Fluidity3c, Spirit, or journalized, that would give you a basic three column layout... of the 3 and without looking at the code too much, I'd probably see if couldn't play around with the spirit theme... from a structural sence, it looks the closes to what you're coming from... All the colors would have to be changed, the header file would need to be tweaked, the column widths reassigned, but at that point I think you'd be close...

you might also run across some other theme while you're there that you like better... I add about 10-20 new themes a day.

 

I've looked at hundreds of WP themes, and you've got some really nice ones there!

 

Yes the themes are very good. I just need to get my WP going on Godaddy then will start cracking at editing the theme.

 

I've got the majority of the themes on emily robbins huge list saved on my computer... before I upload one and add it to my list at WPT, I go into the footer file and where the author usually puts something along the lines of "theme designed by xxxx" with the xxxx being a link to their site, I add a link to WPT on the word theme... Takes a while, but...

the site was originally for my own use... then word kind of got out about it and I was seeing downloads in the thousands per day... I had a theme switcher on it and it was creating quite a load since there were about 600 themes at the time... SO... I did away with the theme switcher, put up the screen caps, and started adding the backlinks... Hopefully before too terriblly long I'll have the 700+ themes still to be added up and possibly make some money through advertising to pay for it all... Not looking for a king's ransom or anything, but before I tore it all down a couple of weeks ago and started from scratch I was seeing 500+ uniques a day and bandwidth was becoming an issue...

 

Oh man, you could implement an unreal hub-and-spoke system with a deal like that!

 

i don't know what that means...

edit: I googled it... that's a neat idea...

except that I'm providing so many outbound links that I don't know how much benifit it would give me... for every theme that I post i put a backlink to the authors site, and I'm showing the 10 most recently added themes on the front page. Also as I'm gobbling up themes I post the theme site that I'm gobbling from in the sidebar... the idea being that if a visitor heads off to another theme site they'll see that everything at that site is already at WPT thereby negating their need to ever go back to that site... I've also got a section of links where I was going to point to WordPress reference sorts of sites... I might do away with those though since the visitors at the site probably already know of the help sites i'd be pointing to so that could save some of the outbound pr...

honestly I was just thinking about selling some links to custom theme developers, but what would you suggest?

 

Have your embedded links point to a site of yours other than the templates site. Then from that site link out only to sites you own. It would pass massive PR (if you dig PR) to all your sites. Then your template site is free to link to whoever you wish, but you have maximised your PR passage throughout your sites.

I'm not much of a PR hound, but the possibilities are making even me slobber a bit!

 

While that sounds like a great idea isn't that a bit unethical? You didn't design the theme why should you get to put your link on it?

 

It really depends on the license. Is WP GPL? Does that then make the templates GPL by default? (IANAL)

If it is GPL AND the author's credit/link is not removed, there would be no infringement. Now that doesn't address the actual ethics, but I suppose one needs to follow one's own concsience in these matters.

I do think it's a fascinating idea, though.

 

That's how the majority of WP themes work... if and when the author states that they don't want their themes distributed in such a manner (there are several who do) then I don't put them up... but the majority of them are put out there with no strings attached and stated as such in the theme, either in a seperate gpl statement or tucked away inside the style.css file...

In which case I don't think it unethical at all... Especially considering as to this point I haven't made a dime off of any of it... If I decide to monetize it in the future it will be to just cover server costs rather than anything else. In my eyes I'm providing quite a service... Remember originally I was doing this just for my own benefit... Themes tend to "dissappear", when the authors switch CMS's, quit blogging and let their domains expire, etc... at which point their themes are lost... Unless WPT (or one of the other theme sites) has it archived. Also since the theme's look, feel, functionality, etc isn't being modified I don't see as how it's an issue. I've released several themes for WP under this sort of premise... For me I'm happy when someone offers them up from their site.

There are SEVERAL other theme sites out there as well. But for me none of them were doing what I wanted... Which was to let me look at several quickly and make quick judgements... The other sites either force you to switch to the theme to view it, only show 3 screenshots per page and are ad-riddled, have 50 themes per page but don't provide quick ways to download them, etc... I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel when it comes to someone picking their theme, just trying to grease it.

Long explanation for I don't think so....

 

If the theme designer specifically states that they don't want their theme modified either through the GPL, at their site, or in their style sheet then I don't put it up.

Why should I get to put a link on it? Here's the reasons I've come up with which work for me...
1. I'm hosting it for free. Providing the author with a free source to distribute their work.
2. I'm providing backlinks to the author
3. The themes look, feel, and functionality isn't altered
4. I clean up the code on several of them before making them available.
5. I've provided my visitors with a service by having a centralized location to find themes. (And hopefully thereby providing the theme author with more exposure)

All that said, when a author requests that I pull a theme down I do it... Hasn't happened yet though.

Just as a for instance, Here's what's in the readme.txt of the 7 most recently added themes

 

I do recall several times when I wanted a certain theme (Or a plugin for that matter) only to find that the original hosting site no longer had it, or the author had gone incommunicado.

Theme repositories do serve a great function. There is certainly "value added" simply by archiving the themes.