Servlet Web Hosting - MySQL, Java, JSP, Servlet, Tomcat, SSH Blog

CHAPTER 16 CHANGING THE LOOK OF YOUR BLOG 437 A small selection of themes is highlighted at http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/. A large collection of themes is available at Alex King s WordPress Themes Competition site (http://www.alexking.org/index.php?content=software/wordpress/themes.php). That competition is over now, but all of the entries are still available for viewing and downloading. In all, currently more than 300 themes are available for download from these sites. Most of them are free to use with no restrictions. Some might require a link back to the designer of the theme. Also, a number of designers will sell you a WordPress theme or design one to your exact specifications for a fee, of course. Quite a variety of different styles are available: common two-column layouts with a wide main column for posts and a second narrower column for lists, links, and so on; several three- column themes; some four-columns ones; and a small number of themes with more unusual shapes. The appearance of all these themes covers a wide range from business-like to just plain weird! I mentioned earlier that you should style your site to suit the main subject of your blog. Consider the theme shown in Figure 16-4, which is a Franz Ferdinand theme from Francey (http://francey.org/linkware/15/), a talented young college student who produces web designs for fun. This is a dark theme in a style suited to a music fan site. Figure 16-4. Dark of the Matinee theme by Francey
We recommend high quality webhost to host and run your jsp application: christian web host services.

436 CHAPTER 16 CHANGING THE LOOK OF YOUR BLOG To select one of your installed themes, log in to the administration pages and click Presentation. You will be presented with the theme selection page, as shown in Figure 16-3. This page shows you all the installed themes and highlights the currently active theme. Click the Select button of the theme that you wish to use, and then click View site at the top of the page. Try that now to switch to the Classic theme, and you will see your blog content s presentation change (see Figure 16-2). Figure 16-3. Selecting a theme You can see how easy it is to completely change the style of your blog. Both of the built-in themes include a variety of information in their sidebars, such as lists of categories, links to archives, meta-information, and so on. Adding New WordPress Themes Adding themes to your WordPress installation is easy. You just download a theme and install it. After the theme is installed, it will be listed on the Themes tab of the Presentation page, where you can activate it, as described in the previous section. Finding Themes You can find lists of WordPress themes many places, including the following sites: The most comprehensive list at the time of writing is on WordPress Codex at http://codex.wordpress.org/Using_Themes/Theme_List.
We recommend cheap and reliable webhost to host and run your web applications: Coldfusion Web Hosting services.

CHAPTER 16 CHANGING THE LOOK OF YOUR BLOG 435 Figure 16-1. WordPress Default theme Figure 16-2. WordPress Classic theme
If you are looking for affordable and reliable webhost to host and run your business application visit our ftp web hosting services.

434 CHAPTER 16 CHANGING THE LOOK OF YOUR BLOG Note Andrew Chak, in his book Submit Now: Designing Persuasive Websites (New Riders Press, 2002) defined visitors to web sites in three different ways of moving around the site. Wanderers encounter the site with no real purpose in mind, looking for something to catch their attention. Finders are looking for something specific or help to find it, even though they don t know exactly what they want. Learners are looking for some information to learn something new. When visitors come to your site, it needs to communicate in more than text alone. Word- Press doesn t hinder you in your quest to communicate with visitors. It enables you to configure your blog to add images, define an organization, and use a style for each page consistently if the whole site maintains a single theme or idea, or individually if each page has a theme of its own. A simple example is to define each category to have unique colors and images while maintaining a consistent arrangement on each page. In this chapter, I ll show you how to use WordPress themes to have your blog s appearance achieve this communication with your audience. A WordPress theme is like a template. WordPress inserts the posts you write, the comments your readers leave, the links you create, and other information into the page dynamically. Themes consist of a number of PHP files and a style sheet. Before going any further, let me assure you that you do not need to understand the internals of how a theme works or how it s managed by WordPress to use it. Adopting a theme can be as simple as uploading it to your blog and enabling it in the Themes tab of the Presentation page. On the other hand, if you want to start investigating a theme with the intention of learning from it or modifying it, you can do that, too. I will show you how to do that later in this chapter, in the Modifying an Existing Theme section. Selecting an Installed Theme WordPress comes with two built-in themes. The Default theme, based on Michael Heilemann s Kubrick theme, is shown in Figure 16-1. It is a fixed-width layout centered in the browser window. The other built-in theme is the WordPress Classic theme produced by Dave Shea for WordPress 1.2, shown in Figure 16-2. This is a flexible theme that stretches to fill the width of the browser.
In case you need affordable webhost to host your website, our recommendation is ecommerce web host services.

Changing the Look of Your Blog CHAPTER 1 6 This chapter is about the reader s view of your blog. It is about what your visitors see and how they interact with your blog. That interaction, or experience, is important in ensuring your visitors get the most from your site. If the experience is positive they find what they want, and they can interact easily and successfully then they will want to come back. A good design will drive that experience. It is also about the aesthetic experience, too. The look of your blog, especially the first page, must either fit the users expectations or surprise them in a positive, pleasing way. If you and your community are discussing fan fiction for a Gothic TV horror show, they want a dark, slightly sinister, experience. If you are all about craft fun for preschool children, you ll want to present a bright, airy, fun face to your readers (but not childish, since the parents are your audience). The face of your blog its outward appearance is provided by the theme in use on your blog. In this chapter, you ll learn how to activate themes in WordPress, find and install new themes, and modify themes. But first, let s start with the purpose of your theme. Using Themes to Communicate with Your Audience How do we communicate? Let me answer that question with another question. Have you ever had a phone conversation with a person speaking in a monotone voice? If so, you ll understand that it s not very engaging. You might have even found yourself overemphasizing your own parts of the dialogue just to compensate! Compare this situation to a face-to-face discussion with multiple participants. You may have witnessed first hand the complex body language taking place throughout the conversation as people start to use their hands to convey emphasis, or move their body between passive and aggressive stances depending on their activity in the group. Now consider a lecture given by a speaker at a conference. A good presentation is enhanced by visuals, moving parts, and engaging with the audience. It s as if the speaker understands the audience.
Searching for affordable and reliable webhost to host and run your web applications? Go to our java web server services and you will be pleased.

CHAPTER 15 STARTING TO BLOG AND BUILDING YOUR COMMUNITY 431 Use a different