Are WordPress Templates Difficult To Understand

Are WordPress Themes Difficult?

Are WordPress Themes Hard to Understand?

One of the things that seem to put people off using the WordPress software on their own site (as opposed to the hosted WordPress blog site) is the technical side of the process involving WordPress templates and themes. There’s a lot of talk about code, PHP, CSS, and plenty of other confusing abbreviations that don’t mean a lot to many people! This is unfortunate, as a WordPress blog can make such a big impact on web pages, and can even be used as a standalone website once you get your domain name and hosting sorted out.

Understanding the way WordPress works, installing the software, and figuring out how the templates fit into themes does require a bit of techie know-how. It is not as hard as it first appears though, and thankfully, for those of us who are a bit technically challenged, there are some excellent guides and resources that can help make the process a whole lot smoother.

The WordPress templates are the backbone of the themes used to build the WordPress blog pages. Themes come in all manner of styles and designs and can be customized by altering the layouts, installing WordPress plugins and by adding or changing the templates. WordPress templates are basically just a bunch of files that together make up the themes for your WordPress blog site.

Essential WordPress Theme Files

Generally, a default set of templates for WordPress themes would include some of these essential files:

-> index.php this is the main template file for your WordPress blog
-> header.php the header template
-> footer.php the footer template
-> page.php for creating WordPress pages
-> single.php for creating WordPress posts
-> sidebar.php the WordPress blog page navigation
-> style.css the stylesheet that makes up the layout for your WordPress blog.

These are just the basics; there are much more WordPress templates that can be added to customize your blog; for example, links, search forms, archive posts, and WordPress blog comments.

Another confusing aspect for some people is the mention of template tags. Again, these are not as difficult to understand as they first seem. They are basically just bits of code to help the WordPress templates to perform their job properly. The tags within the templates contain the instructions to make your WordPress blog a cleverly designed set of pages!

Customize WordPress Pages

One of the great things about WordPress templates is that you can customize them to design individual blog pages as well as post pages. The pre-defined templates will usually apply to all the pages on your WordPress blog, but you can add, remove or change the other template files to create unique items on each page.

If you consider the WordPress templates as the mechanics of the themes, you can hopefully begin to understand how they work together to create a WordPress blog.

Understanding PHP

PHP

Server-side scripting language

If you have spent the better part of the last few years on the Internet, you may have already chanced upon the term PHP. You may have even encountered the definition: “a server-side scripting language”. But what exactly does it mean? And more importantly, what use can it be to you as an aspiring Web developer or Web designer?

Going back to the definition for a little while, PHP is indeed a server-side scripting language that is typically used in the creation of dynamic Web pages. It is a relatively easy to learn a programming language that enables you to feature more dynamic content on your websites.

PHP is different from other types of programming languages in that it is designed to work in conjunction with HTML. This compatibility is a distinct advantage of PHP and allows you to easily integrate it into web pages that have already been extensively rendered with HTML. This integration is in fact so seamless that you can quite readily switch between the two languages even within the same web document.

PHP and HTML

How thing works is basically like this: websites are typically designed with a combination of PHP and HTML in varying proportions depending on the designer’s intended purpose. When a visitor points his browser to the web page in question, the server will “read” and subsequently process the PHP instructions and later send the results of the process to the browser of the visitor. This is pretty much similar to how other languages such as ASP or ColdFusion work. The main difference, however, is that PHP, unlike the aforementioned ASP or ColdFusion, PHP is both an Open Source and a cross-platform application. What this means is that PHP can be run on the Windows platform as well as many versions of the UNIX platform. In addition, PHP can be designed to function as an Apache module and even as a binary that can be run as a CGI.

PHP by its very nature is exceptionally light and fast to run but when designed to run as an Apache module it is even more so. The absence of any process creation overhead allows PHP to return results quickly compared with other programming languages plus it has the added benefit of not requiring the tuning of mod_perl in order to limit your server’s memory image to a manageably small size.

Beyond its usage as a means to control and alter the contents of your web pages, PHP can also serve to function as an HTTP header sender. It is typically used in this function to set cookies in web browsers, manage the site authentication processes, and to redirect users to other sites. PHP also works well with other programs and applications, enabling unparalleled connectivity with many different databases as well as ODBC, as well as offering seamless integration with many different external libraries; libraries that allow you to accomplish tasks such as publishing PDF documents and even parsing XML.

The way PHP fits within your web pages is extremely elegant in its simplicity; so simple in fact you will not need a special development environment or IDE at all. You merely have to place an at the end. PHP can also be configured to utilize ASP type tags as well as .). The PHP engine is charged with the task of processing everything that is contained within those tags.

If you have had an extensive or even only a little background in programming languages, you may have already noticed that PHP has a lot in common with the languages C and Perl, especially in its language syntax. Just like in C and Perl, you do not have to declare variables prior to you using them, and it is also quite easy to create arrays and hashes (associative arrays).

So much for its characteristics; now how can you use PHP?

One of the most often mentioned and widely used applications of PHP is for server-side scripting. This has traditionally been the area in which PHP has been focused. The three components of PHP in this particular application are a PHP parser (which can take the form of a CGI or server module), a web browser and a web server. The web server is run with a PHP installation connected and the program output of the PHP program is accessed with a web browser. The PHP page can then be viewed through the web server.

Command line scripting is another area where PHP is utilized and for this application, you only need a PHP parser. Typical uses include rudimentary text processing and running scripts such as Cron or Task Scheduler.

Finally, although not the ideal solution for this particular scenario, PHP is also used in writing desktop applications that feature a graphical user interface.

Clearly, the uses for PHP are both varied and endless and you should explore it in depth to find out how it can be of service to you.

Choosing the Perfect Agency for PHP And MySQL

PHP

PHP & MySQL development

Have you decided on a website that will cater to the interests of the targeted visitors? Well, you can use the PHP & MySQL development programming language. By using the PHP & MySQL development programs you can create dynamic database management system that uses the open source type of language. There are so many utilities of the programming language that you can rely on experts, to make the right decision.

Make the Right Choice

There are in-numerous organizations that render PHP and MySQL web development services. But the final choice has to be made by you. Don’t get perplexed by the number of companies, claiming to be the best in the business. Consult for expert assistance before making the final choice.

There are various types of organizations, from big web designing firms to small freelancing companies. Both these types of organizations have their own advantages and disadvantages. It is for you to decide, which organization shall fulfill your criteria and requirement.

Does Company Infrastructure Matter?

The big web hosting companies have the large infrastructure and huge expertise manpower. Hence these companies usually charge a heavy amount for their services rendered. The main focus of the big web hosting organizations is to highlight the process and not delivering the final product. At times you might find your project not panning out as you desired because of the communication problems.

While small companies offering freelancing services, charge a lot less for PHP & MySQL web development than the big size organizations, they lack manpower and expertise. If you want to achieve something out of the ordinary then you might get frustrated, as people involved in the project might not have the vast expertise and knowledge that experts from big organizations usually have. An important benefit of working with the small firms is that you have the scope of personal interaction with the designer.

While making a selection of the organization, you need to access the magnitude of your work and time within which you want to finish the project. The small firms have limited resources, and also they might be overloaded with work. It may also happen that you might be required to wait. That is why if you are looking for quick completion of a large sized project than you can definitely opt for large organizations.

Making the best choice for PHP & MySQL development programs will make your website popular and make your work easy too.

How did PHP become Popular?

PHP

History of PHP

PHP (it originally was an abbreviation of for Personal Home Page) was first written by Rasmus Lerdorf. These were Perl scripts to track users of his Web pages. On communication and suggestions from other people he rewrote it as a scripting language and added support for forms. As its popularity grew, a core group of developers created an API for it and turned it into PHP3. Presently we have version 5. (PHP5) and its growth is likely to continue.

Plus Points of PHP

PHP will run on all platform, including most UNIX, Windows(95/98/NT/2000) and Macs. As this uses the same code base, all scripts will run identically on all the platforms.
PHP is similar to C. So anyone who has experience with a C-style language will easily learn PHP. In C-style languages, we can also include Javascript and Java.

PHP is extendible. This allows programmers two ways of extending PHP to do some special processing, either by writing an extension module and compiling it into the executable or by creating an executable that can be loaded using PHP’s dynamic loading mechanism.

PHP currently will load into Apache, IIS, AOLServer, Roxen, and THTTPD. Alternatively, it can be run as a CGI module. Lots of database interfaces. PHP currently will work with MySQL, MS SQL, Oracle, Informix, PostgreSQL and many others. These are binary level interfaces, and ODBC is also provided for those situations where the database is not supported.

If a PHP user wants to interface to the particular library, then it is easy to write an interface for it, and many have done so and contributed to the main PHP source repository. So you can find modules for graphics routines, PDF files, Flash movies, Cybercash, calendars, XML, IMAP, POP and a host of others. If the library you need is not supported, you can either write one yourself or employ your favorite programmer to do it.

The PHP Extension and Add-on Repository. Similar to the CPAN network for Perl, although still in its infancy, the idea of PEAR is to provide a set of PHP scripts that would be installed by default with the PHP installation Fast.

PHP has normally used an Apache module and this makes it very fast. It is entirely written in C and is quite small, so loads and executes quickly with small memory footprint. PHP is Open Source. Therefore programmers are not dependent on a particular manufacturer to fix things that don’t work.

What are the main disadvantages of PHP

A scripting language has advantages and disadvantages. PHP also has some disadvantages. Some are direct disadvantages and some are indirect regarding functionality. PHP’s main drawback is Error Handling. PHP has a very poor ability in this regard, but even this disadvantage can be overcome using a feasible advantage solution.

6 Basic Website Design Tips

UX Design

6 Simple website design tips

1. Use CSS (cascading attraction sheets).

If you follow through not apperceive CSS, ferret out it. CSS allows you to maintain the formatting of your town (e.g. the color or size of a blonde of text) on a disparate at variance page – a CSS document. Thus, with CSS you can impinge the formatting of a common-element by simply updating one piece of code on one page, rather than updating all the pages of your site. For example, if you want to change the background color of your website, you could just change your one CSS sheet and your entire website’s background color would change. Another great aspect of CSS is that you can use it to set the default properties of HTML tags. This can be used to counter browser compatibility problem – that different browser (e.g. Internet Explorer, Google Chrome, etc.) use different default settings.

2. Test your website in all browsers.

Just now your website displays a singular rubric in one browser, doesn’t cruel it commit an act that disposal in an also browser. You should permit that your website displays properly in all of the primary following browsers: Mozilla Firefox, Internet Explorer, and Google Chrome, and Opera.

3. Use opens source scripts if you need to plunge into an energizing website.

Even if you undergo influential languages (such as JavaScript, PHP, and MySQL) absolutely enough to lead your receive software and features, you do not want to do that if you are a beginner. There’s no reason to create your own dynamic scripts (e.g. shopping carts, chat-rooms, etc.) if you can find full-functioning customizable open source scripts. A great benefit of this method is that the customization options will separate the code that changes your website’s look and feel from the functioning code. If you design the code yourself, you’ll be tempted to mix the look and feel with the functioning aspects. So, if later you want to update the look and feel, you’ll have to dig through the long software scripts. If you’re going to be using freeware or any other code that you didn’t design yourself, you should still be familiar with that language.

4. Don’t benediction for free or tasteless web-hosting.

Okay, this isn’t necessarily a star tip. However, hosting is the twin to design. Free hosts may emit your website with awkward ads. So, you won’t be adequate to task your region as is. Also, free and cheap hosts often don’t support dynamic websites. Unless your website is supposed to be a joke, don’t use a free host.

5. Don’t compose your email superscription on your website.

If you have a mailing directions that your customers can betterment to discharge you or your business, make public that on your website. Website’s with a phone embrace or mailing directions loom much more reliable and honest than websites without contact information. However, don’t publish your email address, because spammers will use web-crawlers will to pick it up. Instead, design a form on your website that customers can use to send messages or questions without giving your email address.

6. Take it slow.

Unfortunately, the own disposal to alter to a brilliant designer is considering experience, but your vim can’t render sloppy pages. Don’t go to generate confused and dynamic websites without the ability. If you try to design a code, but find it hard and the code begins to come out sloppy, don’t hesitate to just throw it out. It’s better to have a simple, sleek, and functional website than to have a complex, sloppy, dysfunctional website.

4 Steps To Success In Web Coding