Is it hard to make a wordpress theme?

Devin Holdcraft · Dec 26, 2015

Have you ever made a Wordpress theme before? was it difficult creating your own wordpress theme?

rmmfree · Dec 26, 2015

It's not difficult at all. You only need to create a few files in a folder that will contain the new Wordpress theme: header.php, sidebar.php, footer.php, sidebar.php, index.php and the main css file (you can use Bootstrap or any other framework). These files needs to have a few predefined lines of code to make Wordpress understand the layout. In a couple of hours or so you can create a nice WP theme. You can find in Google many great tutorials for it.

Ron Killian · Dec 27, 2015

I wold NOT say it's easy. No one can say that, just bad advice. Depends on the person. Some pick it up fast, others don't. Also depends on how advanced or fancy you want the theme to be. A plain jane, simple theme might not be to difficult for most people.

There are also programs you can use to make it easier to create a theme. I've used Artisteer, it works pretty good. Not perfect, but it works. I am sure there are others, juts don't know them off hand.

Hawker · Dec 27, 2015

I have, but it was very basic. Contained only the needed files header.php, index.php, footer.php, sidebar.php etc

WordPress provide a Codex which makes nice sense of everything in explaining how it all works together etc

https://codex.wordpress.org/

And the Theme Anatomy is very helpful if you're first setting out or even a pro already https://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development

However when it came to the CSS side of it that's when things started getting really quite tricky for me.

I do know some CSS basics but if you want to create a really functional theme with lots of bells n' whistles you'll probably need to be quite well versed in CSS and PHP and HTML for that matter.

While most intermediates can knock a fairly basic WP theme together quite quickly from scratch, if you want something that has Theme Options you'll probably start to struggle.

Fortunately the good things about WP themes is that you can look at how they are coded together by literally pulling them apart and putting them back together again.

Kind of like when you're a kid and want to see how that robot toy you've got works, you start unscrewing things and pulling out springs and sprockets and a light goes off in your head like ding!

Like Ron has said, there are countless good tutorials online that will help you along the way, just Google search "build wordpress theme from scratch" for a wealth of them.

It's something that I keep returning to every now and then when I can't seem to find that "perfect theme" for my new site/blog or need something more personalized.

Hope this helps and good luck!

keenweb · Feb 3, 2017

It's not hard but then it's not easy either. You need to have a great level of developing skill to be able to create a great theme.

But with soo many resources online, if you are really interested in learning surely you will be able to do so.. remember google is your best friend

Is it hard to make a wordpress theme?

Devin Holdcraft

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rmmfree

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Ron Killian

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Hawker

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keenweb

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