Installing a WordPress theme is pretty simple. WordPress themes obtainable for download from a variety of areas on the World-wide-web are ordinarily packaged in.zip files (i.e. theme-name.zip). Installing a WordPress theme includes absolutely nothing much more than unzipping the.zip file into the appropriate directory of your WordPress installation, and activating the theme from your WordPress administration console.
Structure of a WordPress Theme
In order for you to set up your new WordPress theme properly, you have to have to understand the fundamentals of how the WordPress system interacts with themes. WordPress photo themes in order to operate appropriately with the WordPress administration:
o An index.php file: This file is the controller of a WordPress weblog. Most WordPress themes also have other PHP files that represent numerous sections of a WordPress page, but index.php is the only truly required PHP file.
o A style.css file: This file controls the appear and layout of the WordPress-based internet site making use of style definitions. It also consists of the info that is applied in the Manage Themes section of WordPress to show the theme name, version, author, and description
o A “screenshot” image: This image is used to make preview of the corresponding theme in the Handle Themes section of the WordPress administration. It can be any of the typical web graphics files (png, jpg, gif), but it requirements to be named screenshot. For instance, screenshot.png, screenshot.jpg, or screenshot.gif.
If you’ve gotten your theme from a designer who knows what he’s carrying out, you don’t genuinely will need to worry about making certain the theme is set up correctly. If you’re not confident, you might just want to double-check that you have got the standard files required to set up your theme.
WordPress Directory Structure
The WordPress directory structure contains three folders in the root directory:
o wp-admin
o wp-content
o wp-consists of
Beneath the wp-content material folder there is a folder named themes. Inside this folder is exactly where you have to have to deposit the folder that consists of your theme. Here’s an instance. Say I am installing a theme for a recipe blog. The theme is known as Recipe, and its folder structure looks like this:
recipe-blog/
index.php
style.css
screenshot.png
This theme would typically be packaged in a.zip file. To use the theme, I would have to have to unpackage the file, then upload it (in all probability applying FTP) into my WordPress themes folder. If I have WordPress installed on my net server under a directory referred to as blog, my directory structure would look like this:
/WordPress/wp-content material/themes/recipe-blog/
index.php
style.css
screenshot.png
Activating a WordPress Theme
After I upload the theme to the appropriate directory, I can now go to my WordPress administration to activate it. Soon after logging in to the WordPress admin section, I go to Appearances->Themes. I can see that my new theme is installed appropriately and ready to be activated, for the reason that I can see it in under Accessible Themes on the Manage Themes page.