Hi All, I would like to learn how to edit/modify Wordpress templates the way I like. What would you all recommend I teach myself? Would PHP be the way to go?
In my opinion there are three parts to a Wordpress theme: CSS - so you can style your pages PHP - so you can control and manage the pages Artwork - to edit and create new art / graphics for your Wordpress site, you'll need to use a tool like Photoshop or Gimp. All have tons of tutorials and great documentation available - just a Google search away. Take a look at a few of the themes that are free to download or even the default theme and see how things are organized. You'll quickly realize that there is an scheme to the way Wordpress themes are laid out - which can be changed and styled with CSS. There are also a ton of PHP tutorials online and some great books. One book that is great for learning PHP and as a resource is Larry Ullman's "PHP and MySQL for Dynamic Web Sites." Also, the Wordpress community is pretty vibrant, and I think you can Google most any question and find an answer. Setup a practice site for yourself and go to town. There's no better way to learn than by doing. Best of luck to you!
There's three parts to this you need to be aware of: Server-side Stuff: in the case of WP it is MySQL for the database side of things and PHP for the programming language Client-side Stuff: As with all websites you will be using XHTML or HTML and CSS General Design: This is making the actual images and look of your template. Realistically you could use MSPaint, but you're better off using something like Adobe Photoshop or GIMP