build my own?

gavinoneillphoto · Member · Mar 12, 2011 at 7:49 pm
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is it possible at wordpress, to completely generate my own layout/theme how i want it? like my own font choice, layout choice, colour choice, and choose positions of where the menus and things go, etc? or do i have to use only the themes provided? i find that when i click the ‘refresh’ button on the theme page, many of the same ones keep appearing, so i have no idea if i have seen them all or not, which i find kind of annoying….can anyone tell me if i can just build my own? (im not an html person so thats not an option). thank you

The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
thesacredpath · Member · Mar 12, 2011 at 8:24 pm
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You can use the paid CSS upgrade (if you have some CSS experience) to modify the existing themes here, but you cannot build or use your own custom theme built from scratch.

There are two themes here that are designed to allow maximum flexibility, Sandbox and Toolbox. Toolbox is more modern and includes a lot of support for CSS3 and HTML5, so it is really only limited by your skills and knowledge.

You can read up on both at http://theme.wordpress.com/ .
thesacredpath · Member · Mar 12, 2011 at 8:25 pm
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One more thing. CSS does not allow you to change or add functionality.
gavinoneillphoto · Member · Mar 12, 2011 at 8:29 pm
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thanks alot, that theme page definitly is what i was looking for, atleast now i can see them all…
although im thinking to just run a blog off my website now so it looks similar and drives traffic to my site and vice versa

thanks for your help.
yummi1897 · Member · Mar 12, 2011 at 8:50 pm
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Hi “thesacredpath”

I hope you don’t mind me asking for some assistance with CSS. I am in the process of setting up my blog on wordpress, I purchased the CSS upgrade and have found the blog template I would like on a site called Delicious design studio. The template is wordpress compatible and I have downloaded it and tried to copy the style css onto both the sandbox and the toolbox themes to no avail. Am I wrong in thinking that if that is what I would like my blog to look like if I copy the style css that is what it will look like?? Sorry but I am not too clued up on these things, and being based in South Africa I can’t just pick up the phone to the help desk. If you can help I would greatly appreciate it as I don’t know where to go from here. My blog is called bumps 2 babes on wordpress – as you can see I haven’t got very far :-)

Thank you

Regards
Sam
timethief · Member · Mar 12, 2011 at 9:00 pm
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I purchased the CSS upgrade and have found the blog template I would like on a site called Delicious design studio.

We cannot add themes at wordpress.COM, we are limited to the themes found in the dashboard under appearance > themes. Themes found on the internet are for self-hosted wordpress blogs using the software from wordpress.ORG.

http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/adding-new-themes/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/com-vs-org/

If you have CSS editing experience, you can get the paid custom CSS upgrade and renew it annually. It will allow you to stylize the appearance of themes you find here > Appearance > Themes, but it does not allow you to change the functionality, by editing the underlying template. It does not allow you to remove footer links to the theme designer or to wordpress.com. Also note that CSS is theme specific, so you cannot use the CSS stylesheets from other themes with the themes here at wordpress.COM.

Be sure to read this article before starting your editing > http://csswiz.wordpress.com/2009/10/15/if-you-have-the-wp-com-css-upgrade/
yummi1897 · Member · Mar 13, 2011 at 6:47 am
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Thanks so much for your response. Please bear with me as I am feeling totally out of my depth here and trying to learn as I go. I have got my site on wordpress.com ( with next to nothing on it yet I might add ) and I have purchased the CSS upgrade already. If I was to change to .org site will i lose my site name? The reason i would prefer to change is that I would like my own theme that i found and I have sponsors who will eventually like to advertise on my site which .com does not allow. Firstly how to I go about changing to .org if i can still keep my name, and can i do this today and then get the company i use to host my website to pick it up tomorrow to host? Sorry for all the questions but just feeling very frustrated after working on this for a week with still not much sign of any progress and being more confused than ever!
Have a great day

Regards
Sam
thesacredpath · Member · Mar 13, 2011 at 7:39 am
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Briefly these are the steps you have to take.

1. Hire a web host such as godaddy or bluehost, or whoever.
2. Register a domain name. This can typically be done through your web hosting company.
3. Install the wordpress.ORG software on that new host. You can do that typically through installer scripts in the control panel for your new hosting account.
4. Export your content from here (if you have any) and import it into the new wordpress installation at your web host.
5. Set your old blog here to private so that the search engines do not see duplicate content and discount your search engine rankings.

http://en.support.wordpress.com/moving-a-blog/#moving-to-wordpress-org
http://en.support.wordpress.com/export/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/import/

There are responsibilities that come with self-hosting. You are responsible for all installations, all upgrades, all backups and all troubleshooting. If something goes wrong you have to figure out what that is and fix it. Do complete backups regularly and make sure and do backups of not only the files and folders in your account, but also the database used by wordpress. Seriously, do this. If something goes wrong, a current complete backup allows you to be up and running again in no time. If you don’t have a backup, then with catastrophic failures, you will simply lose everything and have to start over.

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