Common Problems when Modifying WordPress Themes FAQ – part 1

If you are a novice WordPress website administrator, chances are you dabble with the WordPress theme, else you might find yourself doing so soon.

This is a frequently asked questions page to bookmark, as it covers some basic theme modification questions.

You might pick up a tip to use today, else need to refer to at a later date. This page is part 1 of the FAQ and you can find the link to part two at the bottom of this page.

If you require a WordPress Theme Designer, please get in touch.

Q. How do I add a copyright notice to my WordPress theme?

A common problem is copyright notices are often missing from themes, and you might want to copyright your content. This is easily done by editing the theme’s files directly. The below example shows you how to edit your footer.php file to include a notice:

Step 1 – Log into WordPress as an administrator.

Step 2 – From the WordPress dashboard select ‘Editor’, from the ‘Appearance’ section.

Step 3 – Select ‘footer.php’ from the list of files on the right hand side.

Step 4 – Find a suitable location and paste something similar to: © 2011 copyright owner

Step 5 – Select ‘update file’ from the bottom.

Note: © is the HTML code for the copyright symbol.

Q. How can I add a link manually in the footer of my WordPress theme?

A. It isn’t a problem to manually code a link directly into your WordPress theme. You main concern should be looking at whether you want the page in question to appear elsewhere in your website. You might want to use the ‘exclude pages’ WordPress plugin, so that the page isn’t displayed in a menu.

If for example you wish to manually add a link to the footer of your theme, follow steps 1 – 3 as shown above, then paste code similar to <a href=”http://www.yourwebsite.com/pagename”>Page Name</a> in a suitable location. Then once finished select ‘Update File’ at the bottom.

Q. How can I change my WordPress theme’s background colour?

A. This can usually be achieved via two methods depending on how the WordPress theme was put together. A background colour is usually presented either by a colour specified in the style.css file, else a graphics file that is being called from the style.css file. Often both a colour code and a graphics file will be used to achieve an effect. To change a background colour:

Step 1 – From the WordPress dashboard select ‘Editor’, from the ‘Appearance’ section.

Step 2 – From the file options on the right select ‘style.css’.

Step 3 – Usually towards the top of a style.css file you will find reference to a ‘background’, listed, usually listed in a ‘body’ div.

Example: body background : #ADBED3 url(images/bkimage.jpg) repeat-x top ;

Step 4 – Once you’ve made the changes select, update the file.

In the above example both a background image colour and an image file have been specified, which working together display a background.

The image file is usually contained within a sub-folder of the theme. i.e. /wp-contents/themes/themename/images/

Part two of our WordPress Theme FAQ

is available on our website.

If you require a website designer,

you should get in touch with Neogain.