Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
IV
When Using an Existing Theme Is Good Enough
At some point in this journey toward your unique theme,
someone is going to ask something along these lines: “Do
you mean to tell me that there are more than a thousand
themes out there, and you don't like any of them?” You
should never use the lack of the perfect theme to keep you
from blogging, or even from using WordPress. While you con-
tinue your search, find something that will suffice for the
moment. In WordPress, changing themes is not a big deal.
There's even a Change Themes button on the Dashboard that
you could click every day for a decade if you're so inclined.
Most WordPress themes can be bent to your will, even at
WordPress.com. Just because a theme designer says Theme
X is “perfect for a consumer catalog site,” with the right
vision, you could make it over into a fantasy sports blog,
heavy on the trash talk.
If you're particularly averse to delving into CSS, or coding in
general, search in the Theme Directory for the Theme Options
tag. Many theme developers provide settings pages, where
you can customize your theme with a few mouse clicks.
Figure 14.5 shows the settings page for the Arclite theme.
note
Scientists have found that it's not
enough that someone has done an
experiment before you, if you can't
find it quickly enough. After a cou-
ple of days of seeking and not find-
ing, it becomes cheaper to do the
experiment again than to keep
looking for it.
It's the same with theme develop-
ment: It might be quicker and more
certain to create a theme yourself
than to search, and search, and
search for exactly what you want
among existing themes. Addition-
ally, if you create a theme yourself,
and find it needs one more tweak,
you're ready and able to do that
tweak yourself. (“Tweak, and ye
shall find,” anyone?)
Figure 14.5
The Arclite theme
lets you tweak
without coding
with its own
settings page.
