Installing a WordPress theme is really simple. WordPress themes out there for download from a variety of locations on the Web are ordinarily packaged in.zip files (i.e. theme-name.zip). Installing a WordPress theme involves nothing at all far more than unzipping the.zip file into the proper directory of your WordPress installation, and activating the theme from your WordPress administration console.

Structure of a WordPress Theme

In order for you to set up your new WordPress theme correctly, you have to have to understand the fundamentals of how the WordPress method interacts with themes. A WordPress theme requires three essential files in order to operate correctly with the WordPress administration:

o An index.php file: This file is the controller of a WordPress weblog. Most WordPress themes also have other PHP files that represent numerous sections of a WordPress page, but index.php is the only truly essential PHP file.

o A style.css file: This file controls the look and layout of the WordPress-primarily based web-site employing style definitions. It also contains the facts that is employed in the Handle Themes section of WordPress to display the theme name, version, author, and description

o A “screenshot” image: This image is applied to build preview of the corresponding theme in the Manage Themes section of the WordPress administration. It can be any of the widespread web graphics files (png, jpg, gif), but it needs to be named screenshot. For photography themes , screenshot.png, screenshot.jpg, or screenshot.gif.

If you have gotten your theme from a designer who knows what he’s undertaking, you don’t definitely need to be concerned about creating certain the theme is set up properly. If you are not confident, you may possibly just want to double-check that you have got the simple files necessary to set up your theme.

WordPress Directory Structure

The WordPress directory structure includes three folders in the root directory:

o wp-admin
o wp-content material
o wp-involves

Beneath the wp-content material folder there is a folder named themes. Inside this folder is where you need to have to deposit the folder that consists of your theme. Here’s an example. Say I am installing a theme for a recipe blog. The theme is referred to as Recipe, and its folder structure appears like this:

recipe-blog/
index.php
style.css
screenshot.png

This theme would commonly be packaged in a.zip file. To use the theme, I would need to unpackage the file, then upload it (most likely working with FTP) into my WordPress themes folder. If I have WordPress installed on my net server below a directory known as weblog, my directory structure would appear like this:

/WordPress/wp-content material/themes/recipe-blog/

index.php

style.css

screenshot.png

Activating a WordPress Theme

Right after I upload the theme to the right directory, I can now go to my WordPress administration to activate it. Immediately after logging in to the WordPress admin section, I go to Appearances->Themes. I can see that my new theme is installed properly and prepared to be activated, mainly because I can see it in below Accessible Themes on the Handle Themes page.