So today I started designing my own theme.
I would like to have my own theme for Wordpress. I mean one that I can actually sell and share with friends. But the most frustrating thing is getting everything right. I am used to Drupal theme Designing. Drupal is easy. Wordpress is like trying to build a bridge over the great wall of China. There are certain things that make sense in life and there are just certain things you should never try to accomplish. This might be one of them but I just will not give up. I can design Drupal, fine, so it should be easy putting a Wordpress theme together. But after about the 3rd cup of coffee I am starting to think of that old Duck hunt game. This one just includes a real shotgun and a computer that’s not going anywhere.
I have worked with themes so long now. I have done Joomla, Drupal, Xoops but Wordpress is just something else.
If you can design in Wordpress you might think what the heck am I rambling about. But I just cant seem to put the files where they are supposed to go. Wordpress has all these little things that I have never seen. Like there is this /hr stuck somewhere in my code. I did not put it there. I did not copy anything so how the heck did it get in there? So I remove it and its just in there. Stuck!!!! I have never used this stupid /hr before and in fact I dont want to use it.
Seriously I am slightly over caffeinated and annoyed right now.
It’s not like I want to make a $500 theme. I just want to make something nice. As in working. But I seem to get these small glitches that I have never gotten with any design… Ever!!
Hang in there. It is not WordPress you are struggling with, it is the idiocracies of PHP that can be ooh-so-frustrating. I have been threatening to write an e-book on designing a WordPress theme for so long now, maybe it is time I put my money where my mouth is. Having designed your own theme just somehow feels so nice doesn’t it. Laziness is always a problem, I know exactly what I want in a theme, I know I have the necessary skills but still I use a free theme designed by someone else. Maybe we bloggers just do not have the time to do the things we want to do.
I agree! I’ve been working on my own theme, too. I used the stripped down one as my base, then am building up around “the loop” - as WordPress likes to call it.
One area that makes the whole thing work is your CSS file and also using a few key PHP snippets of code. And, the only way I found to be able to keep cracking away at it was to set up a local instance so I can keep doing a CTRL-r to see the changes …
I know _EXACTLY_ what you are saying!
Take care,
Steve
Great blog post, keep it up