Modding Themes
DirectoryPress Themes
The sections in the DirectoryPress setup section has covered the choice of a generic layout for your directory. In addition, you have selected the functionality you want to add and display on your website. Now comes the more complicated aspects and that is to change the look of the website to suit your needs. Don’t expect some miracle one click fix all solution here. That is unfortunately not possible. We all have different abilities which we like to work with. I am no good on CSS. And I know it. So when we started with this project I had to constantly ask for help when something needed changing. And then I found a solution that made my life easier, and modding any theme in wordpress a doddle. So you have to know a little bit about code, but not that much.
Firstly, I used the firefox internet browser. This is an excellent browser when you are doing something web related. The reason is of course all the plugin tools that are readily available. In this instance I installed a plugin called Firebug. Our contribution to the wonderful world of theme modding is exactly this approach. We will do a tutorial, quick and easy with screenshots of making some changes to the theme. This approach will allow anybody to make all the changes necessary to your website.
Do this first
- Install Firefox. Where can you get it?
- Install Firebug plugin. How do you install a plugin? Where do you find Firebug?
- Open your website url online. Using Firefox.
Now watch the video tutorial
Try this
So it is still a lot of code, and a lot of files to view, but even if you know nothing about code you can use this. Here is a quick way of finding your relative code.
- Open WordPress theme editor.
- Select the file where you want to change the code on.
- Copy the contents of the file into Notepad.
- Use FIND function in Notepad to search for the exact string of code you want.
- Replace with new code.
- Copy/Paste back into wordpress theme editor file.
- Update page.
- View.
- Repeat till fixed.
WordPress Theme Editor
This is about as complicated as it gets. Sure there are some aspects which you will have to get to grip with, but it isn’t that complicated and it is still free. Lots of support, forums and help guides can help you resolve an issue easily. And should you get stuck you can always appproach one of the five zillion freelancers dealing with wordpress.
