A Step-by-Step Guide to Create Your WordPress Theme

Creating and developing a theme in WordPress can be very simple if you have some knowledge of HTML, CSS, and JavaScript. Despite this, some beginners can also complete this mission with the right instructions. You just need to have a properly configured development environment and the CMS (Content Management System) installed.

It cyprus phone number data has site-building tools and allows you to add various features through plugins and other resources that customize the layout, increase performance, and guarantee a qualified experience for your audience.

In this article, we show you the first steps to create a WordPress theme so that you can have a website with a unique look. Check it out:

What Are The Requirements to Create a WordPress Theme?

To create a WordPress theme, you must have a development environment configured with Apache, PHP, MySQL, and WordPress installed. You can download WordPress from the official website — you must update the database credentials.

You also need to know the structure of the theme. Basically, a WordPress theme is a normal page, created in HTML and, like any other, is formed by the following files:

• header.php: stores the header code;
• footer.php: stores the footer code;
• sidebar.php: location where the buttons added on the side of the page are configured;
• style.css: controls the visual presentation of the theme;
• index.php: incorporates the settings displayed on the home page;
• single.php: contains codes that show the article on its page;
• page.php: contains codes that show the content of a single page;
• archive.php: displays the list of articles that brand protection: how to protect your business online from identity theft are in the archive, the categories created by the user;
• functions.php: location where some functions add more functionality to themes, such as the logo, menus, color, thumbnails, scripts, and stylesheets;
• 404.php: error code that shows that the requested file was not found.

In addition, you will need to integrate some Bootstrap settings to customize your template. In this article, we will teach you the firs by-Step t steps to this customization.

What Are The Main Steps to Create a WordPress Theme?

Below are the steps for you to create a WordPress theme until it can be customized.

1. Create a folder to store the files you will add

If we are going to build a new theme, we need to facebook users know where its files will be in your local installation. This is pretty easy.

We know that a WordPress installation by-Step  usually has a root directory, also called wordpress. In this directory are the files and folders that we will show below.

Files

• composer.json
• index.php
• license.txt
• readme.html
• wp-activate.php
• wp-blog-header.php
• wp-comments-post.php
• wp-config.php
• wp-config-sample.php
• wp-cron.php
• wp-links-opml.php
• wp-load.php
• wp-login.php
• wp-mail.php
• wp-settings.php
• wp-signup.php
• wp-trackback.php
• xmlrpc.php

Folders

• wp-admin
• wp-content
• wp-includes

The folder we are looking for is wp-content, where themes and plugins are stored. Inside, there is a folder called themes, which must contain all your WordPress site’s themes, including the one you will create so that the CMS recognizes the new settings.

Let’s say the folder is named customtheme. From that point, the new WordPress theme will be created.

It is essential that your new theme is inside the “themes” folder. That way, it’s possible to activate it and use it online.

2. Create the style.css and index.php files

Every WordPress theme has a series of mandatory files to work properly. In your new folder within Themes, create two files:

• style.css — WP demo file used to inform the author’s name, repository, and theme version;
• index.php — main file, through which WP loads the posts that will be displayed on the screen. In addition, it’s used by WP whenever a WP base file is missing.

style.css

Style.css is a declarative and necessary CSS file for all WordPress themes. It controls the presentation — visual design and layout — of the website pages. That is, in this file, you will specify information about the theme: the theme’s name, author, author page, and version number (in this case, since we are not updating a theme and, instead, creating one from scratch, you can assign it version 1), for example.

This information needs to be written in a standardized way so that WP can identify it, as specified below: