Hello, and welcome to this LearnWordPress workshop about how to choose
and install WordPress themes. A theme isa great way to customize your site's
design, and different themes will helpfeature the purpose of your website,
whether it is a blog, an e commercesite, or a gallery to show off your
photos. Are you ready? Let's go.
While plugins and themes can achieve thesame goals as each other, it is
important to understand the differencesbetween them. WordPress plugins are PHP
scripts that extend the functionality ofWordPress. They enhance the features of
WordPress or add entirely new featuresto your site. Plugins are often
developed by volunteers and arefrequently free to the public. WordPress
core provides the primary functionalityfor publishing content and managing
users. Each WordPress plugin is anadditional piece of software that can be
easily installed to extend thefunctionality of WordPress core. This
allows you to customize your WordPresssite with your desired functionality.
Since so much functionality is providedthrough plugins, WordPress core is full
featured and customizable without havingto include everything for everyone.
WordPress themes, on the other hand, arefundamentally a way to skin your
WordPress site. Yet it is so much morethan just a skin skinning your site
implies that only the design haschanged. WordPress themes can actually
provide much more control over thevisual presentation of your content and
other data on your WordPress site, aswell as behavior of certain sites
elements while interacting withvisitors. A WordPress theme is a
collection of files that work togetherto produce a graphical interface with an
underlying unifying design for awebsite. These files are called template
files. A theme modifies the way the siteit's displayed without modifying the
underlying software. In short, pluginsare features and functionality to your
site. While themes change the look andlayout of your site.
WordPress comes with a set of defaultthemes named after the year in which
they were released. At the time ofrecording. The latest default theme is
2021. If you would like to find morethemes, the WordPress theme directory is
the official site to search. Every themein this directory is reviewed by a
dedicated team and tested against a widerange of rules, all of which are
designed to ensure a secure and pleasantexperience for the theme user. Among the
1000s of themes in the directory, youcan easily find the right one for your
site using the Advanced Search featurethat uses filters for layout subject and
a specific themes features. There arealso sites outside of wordpress.org,
where you can find themes for your site,but the most reliable source is
wordpress.org itself.
When considering what theme to use foryour site, it is a good idea to have a
general idea of what you want your siteto look like. The wordpress.org theme
directory allows you to filter themes byfeatures, layout and subject. Will you
have a photo blog or an e commerce site?Do you want one, two or three columns on
your site? How about support for FullSite Editing or a custom header? You
don't need to be able to answer all ofthese questions, but the more you know,
the easier it is to narrow down yourchoices. As you search through the
different themes available, you canclick on More info to find out more
information about each theme, includingthings like what version it's on. And if
there are any ratings, version updatesand ratings can give a good sense of the
overall experience others have had withthis theme, as well as its support for
updates to the core WordPress softwareitself.
Just like WordPress, themes need to beupdated in order to take advantage of
new features and for security fixes.There are three ways in which you can
install a theme. The easiest is tochoose and install one from within the
dashboard. Let's take a look at it. Toinstall a theme within your dashboard.
Head over to Appearance themes, add newThe theme directory will be displayed
here. You can also install the themedirectly from this page or click on
details and preview and install. Onceinstalled, you'll see the Activate
button. Click on that to this will bringyou back to your themes dashboard where
you can see the current theme installedand activated.
If you have a theme in the form of a ZIPfile, you can install it manually. One
way is to upload the ZIP file from thedashboard. To do that, go to Appearance
themes add new at the top, you shouldsee a button to upload. Click on that
and choose your ZIP file. Then installnow. Make sure you activate your theme
there as well. If you have a ZIP fileand don't want to use the web dashboard
to upload it. Another possibility isthrough FTP, preferably SFTP, which is
the secure version of FTP. For this youwould need SFTP credentials from your
web host like the username, password andserver information. Once logged in,
navigate to WP dash contents slashthemes directory and upload your theme
there. The unzipped form should sit inthis directory. Once this is done, open
your WordPress dashboard in a webbrowser and navigate to Appearance
themes. The theme you just uploadedshould be listed there and can be
activated. After installing a theme, thenext step is to set it up. Most themes
setup will happen primarily in thecustomizer under appearance customize in
your dashboard. In the customizer, youwill be able to set things such as your
site's colors. A custom header image ifyour theme supports it, a background
image widgets if your theme has widgetareas, and menus, which might include
social icons menu depending on yourtheme. Because different themes come
with different designs and subsequentlyrelated features, you may see more or
fewer options than this in yourcustomizer. Likewise, some themes may
require more steps to set it up, likethe design and the preview than others.
In this case, it's a good idea to searchin the related theme support forums, and
or the theme developers documentation tobetter understand the setup flow the
developer had in mind. When in doubt,reach out for help in the forums.
Like most software WordPress themes willbe updated with fixes and new features.
These updates will be available eitherautomatically or when you choose to
manually update them when your sitenotifies that updates are available.
When you are logged into your WordPressadmin dashboard, if there are updates
available, you will be notified in thetop menu bar, as well as in the
dashboard menu, you can navigate to theupdates page where you will be presented
with a list of themes that have updatesavailable. From this page, you can
choose to update individual themes orall at once. In order to make this
process easier for you. WordPress allowsyou to enable automatic updates for each
of your themes. That means whenever anew version of the theme comes out, your
WordPress site will automatically updateto the latest version of the theme for
you. So how do you enable automaticupdates, just navigate to the themes
page where you can enable auto updatesfor each theme individually. You can
also manually update your themes fromthis page.
An alternative way to update your themesis a recently added feature where if you
have a ZIP file of the newest version ofthe theme, you can follow the same
process of installing a new theme byuploading a ZIP file. WordPress will
notice that you already have a versionof that theme installed and will check
to see if the version you are uploadingis new. If it is it will simply update
to the latest version. Finally, you canuse FTP to upload the new version of the
theme to your web host in the same waythat you upload other files by replacing
the existing version of the theme files.Much like plugins It is generally a good
idea to delete or uninstall themes thatyou are not using. To do so go to
Appearance themes. To see a list of allthe themes that you've installed on your
site. For the theme that you would liketo uninstall make sure that it is the
activated first. You can do this byactivating another theme using the
Activate button when you hover over thattheme. If the theme you would like to
delete is already activated, you willsee an activate buttons at the bottom.
Click on theme details. In the themedetails pop up, you will see a delete
link that allows you to delete oruninstall that theme.
Just like plugins, there are placeswhere you can buy premium themes outside
of the wordpress.org theme directory.One of the major benefits of using the
theme directory however, is that themesincluded go through a review process,
which ensures that they meet standardsfor code and security. However, there
are times when the theme that moreclosely meets your needs, includes
premium upgrades or sold by a thirdparty. When considering buying a theme
from a third party, it's helpful to doyour homework. With any themes or
plugins uploaded to your site, you areadding additional code to your core
WordPress software. Any code canintroduce bugs or security issues due to
poor quality compatibility issues, orjust plain old human error. With that in
mind, it is helpful to check the websitethat you're purchasing your theme from
for reviews, how frequently they updatetheir themes, and if they provide
support. getting this information shouldhelp you better understand how actively
the themes are under development, whichmeans that they're regularly updated to
add add either new features or fixsecurity issues. Likewise, if you
purchase a premium theme, it isimportant to know how you can get in
touch with the related support team.
Since themes outside the theme directorydo not have support forums on
wordpress.org that you can use.Remember, the more information you have
the better. With any theme or pluginssometimes you might run into a bug or
other issue that needs troubleshooting.The best way to get help with a theme is
by going to the themes related supportforum. All themes and plugins in the
wordpress.org directory have a relatedsupport forum that the developer or
their team typically helps to maintainby answering questions or feature
requests that come from using theirthemes. You can find the related forum
by visiting the wordpress.org themedirectory@wordpress.org slash themes
here, search for your theme by name.Click on more info, then click on View
support form. When reporting a bug, itis helpful to describe specifically what
actions he took when the bug occurred.Other plugins you may have installed and
the version of both WordPress and thetheme you are using. This brings us to
the end of our introduction on how tochoose and install themes. We hope that
this overview was helpful and that younow feel prepared to choose and install
a theme for your WordPress website. Formore great content on how to use
WordPress Don't forget to check out ourother workshops on Learn WordPress or
join a discussion group.