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After I released my first Wordpress theme to public, I make another theme for my site, CypherFS Royale . Then an idea sparkling into my head. Why not I make a tutorial on how to make Wordpress theme to public? I’m sure there are many peoples are looking to make their own theme for their website. So lets get started.

But before we proceed, I want to tell you first that this tutorial only covers on how to set the layout and the tags or functions needed to make your Wordpress theme works perfectly. It is really basic. I will not teach you html, css and php here. You need to learn them by yourself. There are many tutorials available on the net. I’m sure you can found them in ease.

Ok, I split this tutorial to 7 parts. Here are some details for each part.

Let’s begin the Part 1 - The Layout.

The best thing in using Wordpress is we can divide our theme into section. Eg: header.php, index.php, etc. But before that, we need to create our theme layout first. To do it, we start with blank html file. Btw theme that we will make here is two columns theme.

MyOWT---Part-1

Now open your favourite text editor such as Notepad. For me, I use EditPlus. It is easy to use and each tag has each colour code. After you open your text editor, we start building the layout.

Type this into your text editor and save it as index.html.

Code (html4strict)
 
 <title>My Wordpress Theme</title>
</head>
 
</body>
</html>
 

That is really basic. Now we are going to create sections in our index.html file. We will use <div> tag here. So prepare your CSS to beautify your theme. Ok now we put in the <div> tags.

Code (html4strict)
 
 <title>My Wordpress Theme</title>
</head>
 <div id="wrapper">
 
  <div id="header">
   header
  </div> <!– close header –>
 
  <div id="content">
   <div id="main">
    main
   </div> <!– close main –>
   <div id="sidebar">
    sidebar
   </div> <!– close sidebar –>
  </div> <!– close content –>
 
  <div id="footer">
   footer
  </div> <!– close footer –>
 
 </div> <!– close wrapper –>
</body>
</html>
 

As you can see from the code above, I end the close div tag with a comment to make me easier to trace the close div tag belong to which div’s id.

Ok now we have the sections that we want. The next thing that we will do is to divide each section to their own PHP file. This will save our time if we want to edit our theme in the future. PHP files that we will create are:

header.php - contains the header index.php - our main file sidebar.php - sidebar section will be here footer.php - our footer file

Now divide the sections to their own file. Copy and paste them into each file. Make sure to save them in .php extension. Each file will looks like this.

header.php

Code (html4strict)
 
 <title>My Wordpress Theme</title>
</head>
 <div id="wrapper">
 
  <div id="header">
   header
  </div> <!– close header –>
 
  <div id="content">
 

index.php

Code (html4strict)
 
   <div id="main">
    main
   </div> <!– close main –>
 

sidebar.php

Code (html4strict)
 
   <div id="sidebar">
    sidebar
   </div> <!– close sidebar –>
 

footer.php

Code (html4strict)
 
  </div> <!– close content –>
 
  <div id="footer">
   footer
  </div> <!– close footer –>
 
 </div> <!– close wrapper –>
</body>
</html>                                                                                                                                                           
 

Next, Part 2 - Header.

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89 Responses to “Make your Own Wordpress Theme - Part 1”

aman
December 13th, 2006 | 7:10 pm

nice tutorial dude…very useful :d

ikram_zidane
December 13th, 2006 | 9:03 pm

better kalau buat untuk xhtml… nice try…

novatech
December 13th, 2006 | 11:55 pm

hahahaha ko dah balik dari bercuti ke?
rajin ko wat tutorial mende ni :-?
ok la tu.. nice work

eches
December 14th, 2006 | 10:28 am

bleh blaja buat from the scratch :d gud2!

CypherHackz
December 14th, 2006 | 6:38 pm

ikram_zidane on December 13, 2006 at 9:03 pm said:

better kalau buat untuk xhtml… nice try…

leh je tukar jadi xhtml kalau nak. hu3. tu semua bergantung kepada designer tu la sama ada nak atau tak. aku just tunjuk yang basic je. :d

novatech on December 13, 2006 at 11:55 pm said:

hahahaha ko dah balik dari bercuti ke?
rajin ko wat tutorial mende ni :-?
ok la tu.. nice work

dah balik cuti dah. jap lagi baru aku nak update personal blog aku tu. hu3.

x3ro
December 15th, 2006 | 9:22 pm

bro cypher..maybe next time leh post kan meta tag tuk ape id: header tuk ape..id: wrapper tuk ape..id: sidebar tuk ape..etc..kalau tgk structure je n trus buat..tp tak tau fungsi tak gunegaks kan..anyway great post..besh giler bace..

Wizurai
December 16th, 2006 | 12:09 am

kalo nak letak sidetbar ngan rightbar sama jugak ke cara dia?

CypherHackz
December 16th, 2006 | 2:31 am

x3ro on December 15, 2006 at 9:22 pm said:

bro cypher..maybe next time leh post kan meta tag tuk ape id: header tuk ape..id: wrapper tuk ape..id: sidebar tuk ape..etc..kalau tgk structure je n trus buat..tp tak tau fungsi tak gunegaks kan..anyway great post..besh giler bace..

yang tu html sebenarnye. dats why kene tahu basic html dulu. he3. kalau nak gune nama lain pun boleh. takde masalahnyer. :)

Wizurai on December 16, 2006 at 12:09 am said:

kalo nak letak sidetbar ngan rightbar sama jugak ke cara dia?

kalau macam ni, selalu orang buat die call file. nak call file tu kene gune php.

Masa Pembelajaran Themes telah pun Bermula! | RajaBLog.info
January 29th, 2007 | 2:09 am

[...] Klik disini untuk ke Cyperhack.net [...]

goggle
February 6th, 2007 | 1:58 pm

I found your tutorial extremely useful as a basic guide to starting the wordpress theme

Interesting Links - December 15, 2006 » Freakitude
February 6th, 2007 | 4:36 pm

[...] Make Your Own Wordpress Theme [...]

CypherHackz
February 6th, 2007 | 5:33 pm

goggle on February 6, 2007 at 1:58 pm said:

I found your tutorial extremely useful as a basic guide to starting the wordpress theme

thank you for your comment. :)

My Homework » Blog Archive » Hello world!
February 17th, 2007 | 12:29 pm

[...] Found it here. [...]

brokensyllabus.net » Blog Archive » Make your own word press theme
February 21st, 2007 | 1:28 pm

[...] Make your own theme tutorial [...]

Josef
March 7th, 2007 | 8:16 am

I think the tuturial is very useful. I follow it step by step. But I don’t belive the ‘copy and paste code’ in my computer will run at the end.

I need a zip-file of all the related files from the demo theme. Does someone has al link with the ready final demo code?

cu

CypherHackz
March 8th, 2007 | 8:21 am

i guess you can find it in the wordpress default theme. :) i just use some codes (not all) from there.

khalid
March 9th, 2007 | 11:58 am

nice tutorial
Thank you:)>-

CypherHackz
March 9th, 2007 | 8:16 pm

thank you. :d

Digital Caribbean » Blog Archive » links for 2007-03-19
March 19th, 2007 | 9:31 am

[...] Make your Own Wordpress Theme - Part 1 at CypherHackz.Net (tags: wordpress HTML) [...]

» I Need You at ChoosingDestiny.Org - ChoosingDestiny.Org
April 2nd, 2007 | 12:15 pm

[...] a new way of theming my WP template (many thanks to CypherHackz), instead of modifying from the defualt WP template which will only make a mess whenever I upgrade [...]

wordpress developer » Blog Archive » Ulkoasua muokkaamaan
April 11th, 2007 | 4:06 am

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April 12th, 2007 | 3:03 am

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doug rosbury
April 23rd, 2007 | 5:53 am

your tutorial aside, you need to brush up on your english.

Christina Bay
April 28th, 2007 | 5:53 pm

Hi,

Wow, congratulations for being among the first few top search results to ‘wordpress theme tutorial’ keywords.

I’ve bookmarked your site. I’ve been wanting to create my own template for a while. Your guide will certainly come in handy.

Thank you very much!

Chrissy
http://www.hotelsandtravel.org

CypherHackz
April 29th, 2007 | 11:19 pm

doug rosbury on April 23, 2007 at 5:53 am said:

your tutorial aside, you need to brush up on your english.

ha3. yeah! sure… lol…

Tiger-Whispers Designs » » New Design
May 9th, 2007 | 10:38 am

[...] be changing the index page through Wordpress. I have found a wonderful new Wordpress tutorial from Cyperhackz.net (this link will take you directly to the tutorial) and I am thinking that I may have a grip on it. [...]

Wordpress Links
May 10th, 2007 | 11:02 pm

[...] Make your own Theme [...]

Anders Moen
May 27th, 2007 | 8:10 pm

Thanks for this great guide! Very useful

» My First Theme
May 28th, 2007 | 1:24 am

[...] the index page, I felt like I needed some gratification for my hard work, so I found a how-to on making your first WP theme, and dove right into chopping up my XHTML. For the most part, theme-izing your design is pretty [...]

CMS Articles, CMS Reviews and CMS Demos
June 7th, 2007 | 4:38 pm

Nice tutorial.

I have also written a similar article called Developing a Wordpress Theme.

Solo Tutoriales » Como Crear un theme para WordPress
June 8th, 2007 | 1:05 pm

[...] CypherHackz - Make your Own Wordpress Theme - Part 1 [...]

CMG Technologies
June 8th, 2007 | 6:11 pm

Hey there, I have some free CSS templates at http://www.cmgtechnologies.com.....plates.php, is there a way you can port those to wordpress for me, for a fee or something ? Or some sort of partnership ?

CypherHackz
June 9th, 2007 | 9:34 am

check your email. i just sent a reply to you. :)

Blank Wordpress Theme at cannontrodder’s world - cannontrodder - Getting nothing done since 1975.
June 15th, 2007 | 3:36 am

[...] created the theme for this site by following a tutorial at http://www.cypherhackz.net. Before I started to build the site up into this style, I took a zip of the [...]

Rijalul Fikri
June 16th, 2007 | 1:22 pm

Nice tutorial! Thx’s for sharing it with us. Very useful tutorial for me as a newbie in this field. It’s been a long time for me to find how to themes my own design. Thank you !!! :)

masst
June 17th, 2007 | 4:48 pm

I’m still blur with all this codes and stuff.. Got the heart to do it but just confused. =S

zaki
June 21st, 2007 | 10:20 pm

this page ranked 18th on google for ‘how to create wordpress template’ not bad.. Cool:d

Wordpress: The Ultimate Blackhat Platform
July 1st, 2007 | 7:06 pm

[...] Make your own wordpress theme: http://www.cypherhackz.net/arc.....me-part-1/ [...]

untuk
July 3rd, 2007 | 5:51 am

untuk! :o

Everything You Need to Run a WordPress Blog << Vandelay Website Design
July 10th, 2007 | 6:11 am

[...] Make your own theme [...]

Nathan
August 8th, 2007 | 5:18 am

for some reason i keep getting errors on the index.php page. i even copied exactly what you had on your index.php file, and it’s still giving me errors. what am i doing wrong?

my website

10 links per creare il tuo tema WordPress | Napolux.com
August 21st, 2007 | 3:04 pm

[...] Make Your Own WordPress Theme [...]

uowz.com - free for freedom » Blog Archive » Dress Your Blog for Success
October 5th, 2007 | 1:14 pm

[...] Make Your Own WordPress Theme from CypherHackz [...]

Tutorial ang Hebat ! TQ | gurucyber.com
October 25th, 2007 | 5:16 pm

Memang best tutorial hang ni.. teruskan usaha murni tue..:d

reezluv
November 20th, 2007 | 1:54 pm

wow..nice tutorial..malay one..patut tulih ebook lagi bagus..:)

Membuat Themes Wordpress « Belajar Wordpress
November 23rd, 2007 | 11:38 pm

[...] ? jelas ! … kalo mau sih bisa belajar di Cypherhackz atau WPdesigner ini, step-stepnya ada n jelas kog kalau rajin dan familiar sama [...]

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November 24th, 2007 | 7:35 pm

[...] Make your wordpress theme - in 6 Schritten zum eigenen 2 Spalten Wordpress theme [...]

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November 25th, 2007 | 3:37 am

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December 12th, 2007 | 9:30 am

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Choosing A WordPress Theme | LimeTouch
December 16th, 2007 | 11:36 am

[...] If you have decided to create your own WordPress theme, here is a very comprehensive 7 step guide by cyberhackz.net on how to integrate WordPress functions and setting the layout for your theme. [...]

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December 16th, 2007 | 11:48 pm

[...] ? jelas ! … kalo mau sih bisa belajar di Cypherhackz atau WPdesigner ini, step-stepnya ada n jelas kog kalau rajin dan familiar sama [...]

sensibleguy
December 21st, 2007 | 6:58 pm

ummm do you know how to create a bloggers template on our own or how to convert a wordpress theme to bloggers??

CypherHackz
December 22nd, 2007 | 6:34 pm

Nope. I don't know anything about blogger structure and don't know how to convert wordpress theme to blogger. Sorry buddy. Can't help.

sensibleguy
December 24th, 2007 | 12:31 am

Its okey

Membuat Themes Wordpress | :: prime79 ::
January 10th, 2008 | 11:09 am

[...] ? jelas ! … kalo mau sih bisa belajar di Cypherhackz atau WPdesigner ini, step-stepnya ada n jelas kog kalau rajin dan familiar sama [...]

» Wordpress theme creation. at SPIRALOZDOTCOM - somehow you ended up here.
January 25th, 2008 | 12:07 am

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February 1st, 2008 | 5:40 am

[...] Make Your Own Wordpress Theme at CypherHacks [...]

Jeffry
February 5th, 2008 | 8:17 pm

woohoo

megat
February 15th, 2008 | 4:07 pm

Wow awesome!

From here probably i can make myself more better tahn b4 eheh ;)

Thanks bro!

Maria Irrera
March 3rd, 2008 | 1:03 am

How do i make the css file???

bilalghouri
March 7th, 2008 | 6:44 pm

open a text editor , write css code, save it as name.css :)

I Hate My WordPress Theme! Yuck!! | Internet Business Opportunities | oibo dot org
March 13th, 2008 | 3:01 am

[...] slightly old posts over at CypherHackz.net that teach you how to create your own WordPress themes - http://www.cypherhackz.net/arc.....me-part-1/.  Fantastic!  Just what I was looking [...]

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March 28th, 2008 | 8:30 pm

[...] Make your Own Wordpress Theme by Fauzi Mohd Darus [...]

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April 7th, 2008 | 7:39 pm

[...] Make Your Own WordPress Theme [...]

Sufiyan
April 9th, 2008 | 3:29 pm

thanks for this great tutorial

Alina
April 10th, 2008 | 9:43 pm

Nice tutorial!

I have a question: can one integrate a wordpress theme into blogger ( aka blogspot)? How?

CypherHackz
April 10th, 2008 | 11:23 pm

If for that, you need to do a loy of modification to that theme. :)

» Blog Archive » links for 2008-04-10
April 11th, 2008 | 7:44 am

[...] Fonts Of The Month: GrauBlau, Nevis | Fonts | Smashing MagazineMake your Own Wordpress Theme - Part 1 at CypherHackz.NetWPDesigner » So you want to create WordPress themes huh?The W3C CSS Validation ServiceThe W3C [...]

Net Covered
April 18th, 2008 | 4:07 am

Nice guide there. You’ve explained everthing well. By the way I got similar tutorial at my blog. I hope it’s good enough. I tried to explain everything step by step and very comprehensively, too.

» Blog Archive » Make your Own Wordpress Theme - Part 1 at CypherHackz.Net
May 9th, 2008 | 5:34 pm

[...] Make your Own Wordpress Theme - Part 1 at CypherHackz.Net [...]

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May 27th, 2008 | 11:11 am

[...] ? jelas ! … kalo mau sih bisa belajar di Cypherhackz atau WPdesigner ini, step-stepnya ada n jelas kog kalau rajin dan familiar sama [...]

kelly
May 27th, 2008 | 8:38 pm

Thanks for the tutorial! Qoooool!

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May 30th, 2008 | 4:55 pm

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Superman7878
June 1st, 2008 | 10:47 pm

well i wil give it a try

freelance web designer
June 2nd, 2008 | 12:10 pm

Thanks for nice tutorial. I will give them a try and let you know.

Gfanatic » Blog Archive » Don’t forget Google Analytics, or else!
June 6th, 2008 | 12:41 pm

[...] I made my own Wordpress theme, and experimented with php codes, css, and html. However, I wasn’t satisfied with it. I was [...]

Killua
June 11th, 2008 | 12:27 pm

Nice tips, how about archive page n’ search result page?

kang bull
June 20th, 2008 | 7:24 am

i’ve search many sites to get the fit tutorial for wordpress, and i fall here, wow … with your illustrations, its make me easier. Thanks.

rohaza
June 24th, 2008 | 2:57 pm

helo bro. thanks a lot. memang tutorial ni BANYAK mengajar saya budak yg baru belajor ni..

walaupu basic tapi berharga sangat..

saya dah lama nak buat wordpress theme sendiri…lagi ummphh..asyik pakai template orang aje….saya tak mau jadi end user aje….keep a good work bro;;

rohaza
http://rohaza.com

Zalebox
June 26th, 2008 | 1:17 pm

Thank you so much.

Nice article! It’s very useful.

:)

Making Own Wordpress Theme
July 16th, 2008 | 9:39 pm

[...] are wpdesigner and cypherhackz [...]

Make WP theme « Better Wordpress..
July 21st, 2008 | 10:32 pm

[...] This tutorial is split to 7 chapter, see here. [...]

Construido en erian
August 13th, 2008 | 3:37 pm

[...] muchos tutoriales que me ayudaron a darle exactamente la forma que yo quería. Uno de ellos fue este, que si bien es un poco despelotado, me aclaró un par de [...]

rad_thundercat
August 27th, 2008 | 12:19 am

This is great, thank you.

Would you ever have time to do a write-up on how to add a ‘magazine’ style index.php?

Sort of like Mimbo.

Blogger, Gunalah Wordpress di BlogAku.Net
September 7th, 2008 | 10:04 am

[...] cantik-cantik dan memang menarik digunakan. Dah tu pulak, ianya percuma lagik. Selain daripada itu, kaedah untuk membuat theme Wordpress tidaklah sukar. Aku sudah buat beberapa themes untuk Wordpress. Themes blog yang korang sedang [...]

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