Is there a way to only use the background of a theme?
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I am looking for vintage-inspired background textures but am having little luck finding something that catches my eye. I do however see backgrounds that I love on themes but i am not sure if I can remove everything from the theme and use the background only. I am trying to put up a one page website that will only list the name, address, phone number and history of the museum against this vintage inspired background. So my question is can I remove everything from the theme and just use the background/
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Yes, so could I not take off the text and everything that comes with the template and replace it with my own text on top of the background? I just started working with wordpress this week so I’m still trying to get the hang of it.
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Not to throw water on your idea – but most people do web sites or blogs for places like a museum so search engines will find the site and visit the museum – and a singe page will not do much for search engines – more content will help search engines find your site
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Umm, don’t you think if I was trying to hack anything I wouldn’t be trying to, like, broadcast it. I’m a newbie and know nothing about site design but i’m trying to learn. Why are you coming off as so aggressive?
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The word “hack” does not always have a bad connotation. I didn’t use it in a bad way at all.
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You have limited ability to make changes here – you can change the looks with CSS editing but you can’t change code or the functions of a theme – if you are very skilled with CSS you can change the looks quite a bit –
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Auxclass, you are correct. This will be a temporary website that will be up for about 2 months until we get all the images and content together that we need. This is our first time venturing online so we just want a plain ole site up for now until the “real” site will be put up.
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As auxclass has said a single static page will not get search engine attention. You need to post unique content that cannot be found elsewhere on the internet frequently to gain search engine attention and get content indexed and then promote it tin order to place respectably in the SERPs (search engine page results).
You cannot build or use your own custom theme built from scratch at WordPress.com.
http://en.support.wordpress.com/ftp-access/
http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/adding-new-themes/The only themes we can use are those found here > Appearance > Themes
This is a multiuser blogging platform. All blogs wearing the same theme are using the same underlying template and we cannot access the underlying files and edit ie. hack templates or themes. http://en.support.wordpress.com/themes/editing-themes/If you have CSS editing experience the upgrade will allow you to stylize the appearance of themes you find here > Appearance > Themes, but will 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 at WordPress.COM. http://en.support.wordpress.com/custom-design/custom-css/
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In that case – I would not mess much with the theme – find one that is close – sounds like you have a very specific look – find one that is close – buy a custom domain name if you have not done it already and map it to the blog here – then you will have search engines used to the correct domain name – buy the No Ads Upgrade – then add some real content to the site – a couple of about us pages – how to find the museum and then make some Posts that highlight parts of the museum
If you want you can see an article I did on a local museum recently on my site: http://captnmike.com/2013/03/13/the-u-s-coast-guard-museum-seattle-washington/
And the single post on the museum does not too bad with search engines –
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Back to your original question: What exactly do you mean by “remove everything”? If you mean no posts, it’s possible. If you mean no sidebar, it’s possible. Better link to an example you like, and tell us what you’d like to keep and what you’d like to get rid of.
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Pocahontas, if you liked the background enough, you could probably remove most of the standard widgets and just have a home page with text. It’s not that hard to tweak with WordPress. And, you never know, you might start adding some pages or taking advantage of using some of the feature. Plus, I find using some of the pages helps me develop content. Remember, you don’t have to publish a page until/if you’re ready. And you’re not stuck with the theme, you can switch pretty easily between free themes!
What are the themes you like?
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Thanks auxclass and timethief, this has given me a clearer understanding of the limitations of the WordPress themes.
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Justpi, I like the theme titled “The Vintage”. It has the pretty design with the soft earth tone color that we want. I would want to get rid of the entire middle column. Then, I would want to create rectangular and/or square shapes to put the basic information about the museum in and a brief history. I found a site that has a TON of backgrounds that I love, http://patterns.ava7.com/tag-brown-3.php . You see how that site has a background, and the “Ava7patterns” wording is placed on its own graphic on top of the background? That is the look we are going for, an earthtone background with shapes sitting on top of it, with the museum information inside of those shapes, not sure what the industry lingo for that would be. Another example would be here, http://www.designjuices.co.uk/2011/04/single-page-website-design/, at the site template titled “My name is Jacob Morse”. Very simple with just an image and text, with no columns whatsoever. But with the information that auxclass and timethief have given me, I now know this is not really doable.
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FYI, one more thing to note, I am in the process of learning HTML, CSS and photoshop so until I have a firm grasp of these we will just be putting up a simple website with the museum’s contact information, its history and a few Flickr photos until I acquire the needed skillset to take the site up to the next level.
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You can’t use html here or modify the code (php). CSS is I think overblown in the requirement to need it for “the next level” – Photo Shop (or another image editing program is good – I use Gimp (free) ) – make sure you optimize the images for the web (no big files and 3,000 px wide) –
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@pocahontasisland
You have identified a theme called “The Vintage”. I cannot find it here http://wordpress.com/themes/ and these are the only themes we can use on free hosted WordPress.com blogs. Did you actually mean Vintage Camera? http://theme.wordpress.com/themes/vintage-camera/
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