Fig 6.1 Enter a keyword and then click on the SEARCH THEMES button to continue
| CHANGE A WORDPRESS BLOG THEME |
In the previous section I taught you how to edit a wordpress blog. In this section I will
teach you how to change the appearance (theme) of a wordpress blog. Why? Because the appearance of a blog can make all the difference to your traffic.
Picking the right appearance (theme) tells a visitor about your commitment, enthusiasm and dedication towards your blog project, and more importantly it
tells them something about your personality. When you go for a job interview you dress nicely, put time/energy/dedication into your C.V and speak nice
and clear to the interviewer in order to stand a good chance of getting that job. And the same applies to your blog theme. Picking the right theme, with
the right colours and fonts, gives you a better chance of attracting visitors and being noticed for your authoritative articles, dedication, commitment and
enthusiasm.
Begin by taking your web browser over to the Wordpress Themes web page, http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/,
type a Theme keyword into the SEARCH edit box (i.e. Flower, Grunge, Business, Wood, Black, Design, Color, Blog, Etc) and then click on the SEARCH THEMES
button to continue.
After clicking on the SEARCH THEMES button you will be shown a thumbnail for each available theme, if any, that contains your typed keyword. In this example I typed flower and was shown a list of themes that contain the keyword (tag) flower. It is important here to note that you are looking for a keyword. If you type langauge for example it may not produce the same theme listing as typing spanish for example. It depends on the keywords (tags) submitted by the author. An author might of tagged (keyworded) their theme with spanish in reference to "This theme can be translated into Spanish", but it does not mean the theme is written in spanish. Anyway. Scroll down the theme list, if need be and if possible, and then click on the theme LINK (theme name) above the thumbnail to continue.
Clicking on the theme link (above) takes you to the theme page for that theme (below). The theme page has quite a lot of information on it that is worth investigating. For example. You could visit the author's homepage (website or blog), the author's theme page (to download the latest theme/update) or preview the theme's statistics (by clicking on the STATS tab) as well as previewing the theme and downloading it. One thing to point out here, that might be a little obvious, is that you do not want a theme to be too popular otherwise everyone will be using the same theme. I know there are currently 871 themes but divide that by millions of bloggers.....! In this example I previewed the theme (not shown here) before clicking on the DOWNLOAD button.
Most, if not all, themes are in the ZIP file format. Clicking on the DOWNLOAD button takes you through the standard download procedure - A SAVE AS file requester appears asking you to navigate to a folder where you would like the .zip (theme) file saved into. In this example I just saved the .zip file to the DOWNLOADS folder.
Once the theme file has been downloaded, right click over it and then left click on the EXTRACT ALL menu-item to unzip it (not shown here). The Windows
Vista extraction (unzip) wizard will guide you through the process. Alternatively. Use a program such as WinZip, WinRar or 7-Zip to unzip the theme file.
When the theme file has been extracted (unzipped) you should be left with the original theme (.zip) file and a new folder named after the theme
(i.e. pink-tulip). Many zip programs encase/surround the actual theme folder (i.e. pink-tulip) with their own folder (i.e. pink-tulip.1.1 or pink-tulip)
which is normally named after the theme or after the zip file name itself, therefore making the actual theme folder a sub-folder of that zip program
folder. If this is the case for you double click on that zip program folder in order to get to the actual theme folder.
In this example Windows Vista left me with an unzipped folder called pink-tulip.1.1 that contained the actual theme folder (now sub-folder) called
pink-tulip. So I double clicked on the pink-tulip.1.1 (windows vista created) folder so that I could make a copy of the pink-tulip sub-folder. You will
know when you have the correct theme folder because double clicking on it will reveal its folder(s)/files content. The main unzipped (windows vista or
zip program) created folder(s) only contain sub-folders before you reach the actual theme folder (i.e. pink-tulip).
With the actual theme folder in view, right click on that folder and then left click on the COPY menu-item to copy it into memory. What you are going
to do here is copy and paste that actual theme folder into the Wordpress Themes folder that lives on your website.
With a copy of the actual theme folder in memory the next thing to do is open up your Wordpress Themes folder. You can use a FTP Client to do this or you can use an ordinary computer folder to connect to your Wordpress Themes folder via your FTP Account. That is what I have done here. I have connected to my public_html (website) folder, using my Pictures folder, via my ftp account and then navigated to the WORDPRESS >> WP-CONTENT >> THEMES folder. From there. I right clicked over an empty part of that THEMES folder and then left clicked on the PASTE menu-item to paste the copy of the actual theme folder into the wordpress THEMES folder. You can also PASTE using the CTRL and V keyboard keys or simply left click on the EDIT menu of the wordpress themes folder (window) and then select the PASTE menu-item. Either way, a copy of the actual theme folder should be in your wordpress themes folder.
At this point you need to be logged into your wordpress blog, if you have logged out of it since viewing the previous section, by taking your web browser to the Administrator URL: http://www.yourwebsite.com/wordpress/wp-admin/. Once logged in you need to click on the APPEARANCE menu, under the POST menu, which will automatically open the Themes administration page where you should then see your newly pasted theme. You may have to scroll down the page a little. Click on the theme's thumbnail (Fig 6.9 below) in order to preview it (Fig 6.10). If you like what you see simply click on the ACTIVATE 'THEME NAME' link (i.e. ACTIVATE PINK-TULIP) to activate the theme - Activate means make the selected theme the default theme.
Setting up other themes is done exactly as above. Simply go to the wordpress themes page, or a wordpress themes website you found on the internet, and download the theme's zip file. From there. Copy and paste the actual theme folder into your website's wordpress blog THEMES folder and then apply it as the default through your wordpress administration dashboard (control panel).
Another way to install a theme (not shown here) is to click on the ADD NEW THEME menu-item, under the APPEARANCE menu, which displays the Install Themes page and then click on the UPLOAD link. From there. Click on the BROWSE button to bring up the CHOOSE FILE TO UPLOAD file requester and then navigate it to your theme .zip file (so no unzipping involved on your part). Once the zip file has been opened with the file requester click on the INSTALL NOW button on the Install Themes page. It will then install the theme for you. Now all you need to do is click on the ACTIVATE link to activate it. That's it!
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