Installing and customizing a WordPress template. What is a theme and its types

Hello! I returned to St. Petersburg from sunny Anapa. I brought cherries, strawberries and medlars with me so as not to be sad. Almost a month and a half of rest and relaxation are behind us. It's time to get down to business, there are a lot of them. In particular, there are plans to improve the blog. Today I will write a simple short article for beginners.

We've already sorted it out. But those who are encountering it for the first time may have a question about how to install a WordPress template. It is about this simple operation we'll talk in today's review.

Installing a WordPress Template

For a more complete understanding of working with the WordPress engine, I recommend reading my article about. Depending on what stage of blog creation you are at, your resource files will be located in Denver or on hosting. That is, if you have already picked domain name and , you need to use the file manager ( , ) to upload the files of the engine itself, as well as the previously downloaded new topic WordPress. But, be that as it may, it is initially better to check the functionality and appearance of the template through, i.e. within your own computer.

Therefore, first, let’s look at installing a WordPress template on denwer.

Installing a WordPress theme on denwer

For example, select the TwentyFifteen theme on the official website wordpress.org/themes:

Go to the management console, select “ Appearance" - "Themes". If everything is done correctly, then new template Twenty Fifteen will appear in this section. All you have to do is click the “Activate” button. After installation WordPress themes, your blog will take the form that matches it. Using the same method, you can add not one, but several folders with selected topics to Denver.

By replacing them one by one and testing them, you can quickly decide which one to transfer to your hosting for further use.

How to install a WordPress template on hosting?

After you have placed CMS WordPress on hosting, there are two options for installing a WordPress template.

The first is to install a new WordPress theme directly from the blog admin area. Go to “Appearance” - “Themes”, select “Add new”.

From the list that appears, you can view and select suitable templates.

Click “Install” and wait until the following result appears:

In order for this topic to appear on the blog, all that remains is to activate it. This option for installing a WordPress template is also suitable for Denver.

If you have any difficulties with this installation method, you can install the WordPress template by analogy with the process that was described at the beginning of the article for Denver.

Only now to copy the theme files to remote server, you need to use an ftp client. We connect to the server and transfer the unpacked archive with the template files to the folder /www/your-blog.ru/wp-content/themes/.

Now let’s activate a new theme in the blog admin area. And look at the result:

As you can see, there is nothing complicated about installing a WordPress theme on hosting or denwer. Experiment to your heart's content.

P.S. Before leaving Anapa, we managed to go on a one-day horseback riding trip - my birthday present. It was a very eventful route, the three of us rode horses through Cossack villages, forests, fields, dismounted in impassable thickets, forded rivers and even fell from our horses! For lunch we stopped in a former Cossack camp, cooked in the oven and enjoyed complete unity with nature. I'll attach a photo a little later.

Hello everyone on the blog. This lesson a turning point, I wanted to publish it later, but I decided now so that it would be easier for beginners to understand everything. IN this section Let's look at how to install a WordPress template. In order not to be misleading, let’s immediately understand the definitions.

Definitions.

A template (theme) is a set of files that together form a logical and correct code for the site. Simply put, set a theme and write blog articles. In general, a template is a shell, the design itself, and all the functions you need, which are pulled onto the core, which is WordPress, and one will not work without the other.

Installing a template.

Installing a WordPress template can be done in three in different ways, but we’ll look at only two now, because the third one will be needed only after you can learn ftp, which we’ll do in the next lesson, and these two are more than enough.

First way.

Through the WordPress search itself, it’s easier for everyone. We go to the admin panel using our username and password, and go to the appearance tab, find themes, and click add new (everything is shown in the screenshot step by step).

Now we have a whole list of all kinds of design themes, they are all stored on the official WordPress website, and the search, and accordingly, the download will come from there, which narrows the circle a little. I recommend using the filter to find what you need, also look at the picture.

Filters have learned to be applied, you will be presented with a whole list, or maybe nothing, of those topics that were sorted according to your parameters. Now you can look in visual mode using the “view” button, or “install” immediately.

Now everything is active, and we can go to the blog and see all the splendor.

Second way.

Gives you a wider range of choices, because you will be able to download templates from other sites and install them yourself. How this is done is easy. First, go to any site that offers these services and download. I’ll use wp-templates.ru as an example, you can come in and take a look. I went to the first option offered and downloaded it to my computer.

The template archive has been downloaded, now install it on the blog itself. Here the procedure is even simpler, we follow the same principle, but now click on “download”.
But for more details, please see the photo again, all the actions are numbered there.

Now click “install” to finally confirm our actions. The installation process will begin, you will have to wait a little, usually a few seconds. In the next window, if everything went well, you will be prompted to activate the theme, which you must do.

Well, that’s all for me, I hope I answered the question of how to install a WordPress theme in great detail. We will learn how to install other things like plugins in the following articles, when the time comes. We are currently preparing our super blogs. Bye everyone and see you again.

P.S. The next post will be on the topic the right choice topic, there will be just a mega large article and no less useful.

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Hello, dear readers of my blog! Today you will learn how to install a template on WordPress, where to look high quality design and how much you can save if you learn how to work with them.

Design is significant part any modern offer. No one will spend a long time on the portal if they are not satisfied with the graphics. In future articles we will talk to you about trends, consider the main provisions, you will learn to satisfy the tastes of your target audience, subscribe to the newsletter. Now we will focus on choosing, installing and modifying WordPress templates.

Why you shouldn’t contact designers

This chapter is primarily intended for beginners. For large companies and people seriously involved in website development, I, of course, advise you to find a responsible employee who will approach the matter conscientiously and fulfill unique orders.

If you are just starting your journey in this field, do not contact designers under any circumstances. There are several reasons for this:

• They charge a lot of money.

It’s not good, of course, to try to take bread from colleagues in the field of activity, but I don’t want to deceive you. You can already find a lot of articles on the topic of how professional Oleg will do this job perfectly or what kind of return you will get by trusting the most wonderful Vadim in the world.

However, I am telling you about my experience. I'm not happy working with web designers. Sometimes I have to work with them, but it’s my choice... Maybe I was just unlucky, this happens. If you do decide to turn to a professional, I sincerely wish you good luck.

But, in any case, templates are much cheaper than freelance work, that’s a fact. And this is not their last advantage.

• You pay for what you don't see.

Before you buy and install a theme, you choose it. You immediately understand what you need to change and draw conclusions.

When communicating with the performer, you draw a rough description in the air with your fingers. Perhaps he sees things a little differently. It is not a fact that you will like the final work. I wouldn’t want to harass a person by redoing it. Believe me, after 18 times and long weeks of waiting, you will no longer care. You will agree to any design, just not to continue to languish, dreaming of moving on to the next stage.

• It is possible (and most likely) that you will be deceived.

If you want a simple design (as understood by the artist), then no one guarantees that he will not find something suitable among free themes and won't spend five minutes making adjustments that you could have made yourself. Over time, you will understand exactly what he did and you will be very sad to find out how much money you wasted.

• Deadlines.

Designers are creative people. They are often waiting for the muse or working on more profitable orders. At this time you are just sitting, instead of earning money.

One sad thing is the ubiquity of English, but this can be solved, in subsequent articles I will definitely write detailed instructions translation of templates into Russian.

Step by step installation guide

Now, let's talk about how to connect the template. Once you have chosen the theme you like, you need to download it from local computer, this is a small folder in the format .zip. Then you can proceed to installation.

There's nothing complicated about it. Today we will not discuss how to install a template via FTP, because... This will be understandable only to advanced users, and I assume that you are still a beginner.

Go to the panel WordPress admin. If you have not yet paid for hosting and domain or installed the engine, then my site has everything necessary materials that will help with solving these problems. Let me remind you that, most likely, your site now looks like this.

Let's go to the admin panel. To do this, we assign to your domain /wp-admin/. That is: https://yourdomain.ru/wp-admin. Next, enter the username and password for the administrator panel. I hope you saved them.

Now let's go to "Appearance - Themes".

Select “Add new” at the top of the panel or click on the corresponding icon in the panel under existing topics.

If you, like me, selected the button at the top, then this window appears in front of you. We need to “Load Theme”.

Select a file.

Find it on your computer and click “Open”.

We install.

Let's activate it.

You can go to the website and see what happened.

Now my site looks like this. It’s not that difficult to insert the pictures I need and add texts. But, let's talk about this later.

On the left side of the screen, in the toolbar appeared new button“Customize Theme.”

As you can see, working with such a menu is much easier and more convenient, because here you can find everything you need and correct it using buttons, not code.

You don't have to insert the template into the text. By the way, on at this stage your site already looks something like this. Imagine how much you would spend on self-study and writing code?! And so, a couple of buttons and you're done.

We are far from studying these elements. And in general, it’s not a fact that you will ever start poking around in this terrifying code. It all depends on what decisions you make. Subscribe to the newsletter to simplify and speed up the work on creating your own website.

Video instructions: download and install the theme on WordPress

I took the free cooking theme from here .

We will talk in more detail about how to customize the template for yourself, install your own images and change something in future articles. I wouldn’t want to overload this publication; it’s already quite lengthy.

Now, you can tinker with the settings yourself. If something breaks, then deleting the theme and installing it again is not a problem. Now you know how to do this, go through all the steps discussed in this lesson again.

Greetings to everyone visiting the site. Ekaterina Kalmykova is with you. A few years ago, I didn’t even think about the possibility of creating and maintaining my own blog. She assumed that this required certain skills and that only specially trained people, such as programmers or web designers, could handle it.

Now I realized that this is not so.

Anyone can do this if they have the desire, motivation and certain knowledge. I think you have a desire, for motivation I advise you to read this one, and for knowledge, check out our blog more often.

In the last article I talked about... The next step after installing it is to choose a template so that your blog has a beautiful and finished look.

WordPress, in my opinion, is the most common platform for creating websites, because you can create any project on it: be it an online store, a blog, a portal. Therefore in open access, there are a huge variety of themes available online that are suitable for WordPress.

I am sure that each of you wants your project to be different from others found on the Internet, so that it is beautiful and attracts as many visitors as possible. Each blog is a prototype of its author, since it is by appearance that we can draw initial conclusions about the author’s character, his taste, etc.

Therefore, choosing “your” template must be approached with all seriousness.

Before installing a template on WordPress, you need to decide on its choice. So let's get started.

What is a theme and its types

A template (theme) is a tool that helps customize the functionality of a website in accordance with the needs and desires of the user. A topic is a collection of files, each of which is responsible for a specific block of information.

Themes can be paid or free. Let's look at the advantages and disadvantages free templates, since most beginners will probably want to use them.

Free themes:

Saving cash. To create a web resource, you will only spend money on paying for a domain and hosting.

Easy to use. Free themes have simplified functionality and you can easily figure it out on your own.

Huge selection. You can download and try many themes on your resource and ultimately settle on the one you like best.

- not a unique design. Search engines (Yandex, Google) love everything original and unique. And they try to promote precisely such resources faster and higher. With a non-unique design, you will need more effort and time to promote.

— presence of malicious codes, viruses, links. Very often free themes contain various garbage, which negatively affects the operation of the site. It takes effort to find and remove harmful links.

- difficulty in making changes. To independently finalize a theme, to add your own touch of uniqueness, you must have special knowledge. Accordingly, it takes time to find relevant information and study it. If you have a problem with having free time, you will have to contact specialists. Thus, correcting something in a free theme will require you to either have the time or money to pay for the services of professionals, such as layout designers.

When we were choosing a free template for our other project, we experienced difficulties in choosing a theme. Of all the many templates presented, it was difficult for us to decide on one that was worthy and suitable specifically for us. We spent a lot of time trying on different topics to your blog. If we liked general view and design, then I didn’t like the functionality and vice versa. Thus, we found “our” template only in paid versions.

Which template should you choose?

At the beginning of their journey, most beginners think:

I’ll first try to do everything on a free template, and then when I get promoted and start making money, I’ll buy it. Why invest money now, what if nothing happens?

Did you guess right? Most new bloggers have these thoughts. Our opinion – YOU CAN’T THINK SO! If you start your project with the thought that you might not succeed, then DON'T START, because then you really won't succeed.

Running a website or blog is a kind of business. If you were opening your business in real life, then they would probably invest the first time in the development of the business. So here, the first investment is a template. First you invest, then the return comes.

1. Try different ones on your project free themes to decide what kind of template you would like to see on your website, what you would like to “dress” your project with (how many columns are in the sidebar, do you need a sidebar on the left or right side, what kind of hat, etc.). Trying out free templates will allow you to imagine what your blog will look like and evaluate what blocks you need for the resource to fully function.

Note: Many themes have a preview feature or demo version. By using it, you will be able to evaluate whether it is suitable for you, without even downloading or using it.

2. Find a similar template and buy it. We often encountered this situation: short version template is free, and the complete one with all options is paid.

3. Install the purchased theme and customize it for yourself, for your project.

How did you choose the template? Which one did you choose: paid or free?

Where to find and buy templates

Finding themes for WordPress will not be difficult, you just need to use search engines(Yandex, Google). When you find something that suits you, download it to a folder on your computer (when we were looking for a theme, we created the “Templates” folder and downloaded everything there).

I’ll write some resources where you can look for templates:

1. templatemonster.com

I’ll tell you about the first resource in more detail. This is a platform on which there are many different topics. I think that the variety of templates presented will satisfy the taste of any user. By paying once for the template, you will save a lot of your time and effort.

Let's take a look this resource closer.

By entering the site, you find yourself on home page. You can select the tab " Best Products” and then “WordPress Theme”.

Will open to your attention different templates. On the right are different categories that you can use when searching for a specific topic.

By clicking on the name of the template, you can take a closer look at it: watch a demo, read a review containing technical specifications and hosting requirements, read the details.

If you are satisfied with everything, buy the template. I will tell you in more detail about the operation of this site and purchasing themes on it in the next article. I advise you to update so as not to miss it.

How to install your chosen Wordpress theme

Installing a template on WordPress is done in a few simple steps.

Step 1. If you find a suitable topic on any resource on the Internet, for example on templatemonster.com, then you first need to download it to your computer.

Step 3. You can either upload a theme downloaded from any resource or install a theme located in the WordPress panel. For the first option, you need to click “Upload theme”. A window will open for you to select a file on your computer, select the file and click “Install”.

For the second option, you need to hover over the template you like, a window will appear with the “Install” and “View” buttons. By clicking on “Preview” you can evaluate how the selected theme will look on your blog. Accordingly, clicking on “Install” will install it.

As for the templates in the panel, for ease of searching there are sections “Favorites”, “Popular”, “Recent”, as well as a characteristics filter. He will help you select topics according to your requirements and wishes.

That's it! It’s so easy and simple to install a template on WordPress.

And in conclusion, I want to give a couple of tips:

1. Take your time when choosing a template. Choose what you really like and what will reflect the essence of your site.
2. Think carefully before choosing between a free and a paid template.

Where do you usually buy themes?

Ekaterina Kalmykova

Installing a template on WordPress is one of the very first steps when creating your own resource. Beginners may find this step difficult. Sometimes people who have already purchased a template and ordered hosting do not know where to add a theme and abandon the idea of ​​​​creating a personal website. But once you understand everything, it becomes clear that customizing the theme is not so difficult.

It is much more difficult to pre-select it. After all, a lot depends on the template that will decorate your pages.

The first impression of a resource can either turn a visitor into a “regular” or scare him away forever. And in order not to play the lottery with the fate of your site, do not rush to choose the first design theme.

Prepare in advance: think about what the site will be about, what plan for writing articles, and what style is suitable for this topic. Only then go to the directory with ready-made themes, and choose the one that suits your needs.

2 ways to add a template to WordPress

First way. First, you need to download the page template of your choice. Please note that it must be in zip format. Sometimes websites post themes in rar format. Don’t worry if you downloaded such a file - unzip it and repack it, only in a zip archive. The next step is to log in to the WordPress admin panel. To customize the theme, find the “Design” (or “Appearance”) tab on the left side of the “admin” panel. In this section you will find several items, among which there will be a phrase with the word “Install”. Select it and go to the template installation page.

Click on download theme. WordPress will require you to provide the file zip format. And since you have already prepared it, click “Install zip theme”. Next, use “Browse” to find the location of the file on your computer and click “Download” (or “Open”). Next, click “Install”. After it happened, you can see how your site has changed.

Second way. Installing a WordPress theme using this method is much more difficult and inconvenient than previous method, since you will still need to log into the hosting. If you don’t like digging through folders and generally opening your hosting once again, then try to get by with the first option of installing a page template. The only advantage of this method is that the theme does not need to be converted into a zip archive format.

The essence of the second option for setting up a page template is that you need to first upload the theme to your hosting. To do this, go to your server and log in. Next, unzip the template (it’s unlikely that you downloaded an already unzipped theme). Then you need to get into the hosting section with the site directories. Find the "wp-content" folder. There should be a directory with themes, usually called “themes”. Upload the page template files folder to this directory. And then return to the WordPress admin panel and activate the downloaded template through the appropriate section.

Everyone has their own method for activating a page theme. For some, it’s easier to log into hosting, others don’t like working with directories on the server, and prefer to immediately add the theme to the WordPress engine. Over time, you will understand how to install a WordPress template the fastest. Now let’s look at the next one no less important point – html setup themes for WordPress.

How to put an html theme on WordPress

This also happens. Sometimes a webmaster has a ready-made website layout that he already wants to upload to the hosting. But the fact is that “naked” html will not work with the Worpdress engine. Some adjustments need to be made to html layout before trying to integrate it. And first of all, this is the creation of PHP sections, which are necessary to combine the html template with the administrative panel of the engine. To do this, you will have to gradually edit each important file layout by adding WordPress operation codes.

You can start by changing the “style.css” file. It is from this file that the engine will begin identifying your html theme. You need to add template information at the beginning of the code, as follows:

1. Theme Name.
2. Theme URL.
3. Description.
4. Author.
5. Author URL.

Next, you need to create a “header.php” file. It will consist of code snippets of the "index" page, which is HTML basis page template. “Header” is responsible for displaying the header on the main page. You have to copy the entire piece of code that in html was intended to determine the style of the top part of the site - these are the Title parameters, information about the applied style (the “link” section of the code), and everything between the tags

By analogy with the “header”, the “index.php” file is also created. He will be responsible for the content that appears on the main page of the site. To create it, you need to copy part html file"index" and adjust it slightly. You will need to add php markup so that WordPress treats this code as commands. The same applies to other functions of the engine - you have to configure the sidebar (sidebar.php), display of archived posts on the main page (archive.php), search the site through the main page (Search.php), parameters for displaying a single post (Single.php). php) and single page(Page.php), output comments (Comments.php) and other functions.

The above steps are enough to get HTML onto the engine, but various nuances may arise. Because in order to do everything with the utmost quality, you have to find information on each item and do everything according to the instructions. Although it is much easier to download an already prepared layout that can be applied to WordPress, and install it on the site within 10 minutes. Edit the HTML template only if it is ideal for your purposes and is very different from competitors' sites. If it's not something big, don't waste your energy on it.

How to manage an installed template

Now that the theme has already been installed on the site, it’s worth looking at ways to manage it. If you don't understand codes, then most of the above methods will not work for you:

1. Through administrative panel You can manually customize the theme by changing the code. The engine will provide you with an editor for this with code already divided into functional parts.
2. Setting using file manager via hosting.
3. Editing via ftp client.
4. Amateur customization through the “admin panel” in the “Appearance” - “Customize” section. This method is ideal for a beginner.