29 Oct 2009 Posted in Computers, Tools and Resources

WordPress Themes – sometimes not as easy as they look

I have been trying to find a theme for my blog. I want one that displays the writing in a clear and clean manner, and …

Nearly everywhere I have read recommends the Thesis theme, but my understanding is that is is well built at the back end but you need coding skills to design the front end. I may end up going that way, because the alternatives all have problems.

I found Elegant Themes, which look very nice. It’s US$19.95 per year to use all of them, and you keep them if you don’t renew. I’ve been experimenting with one now – StudioBlue – it’s on the right. Ih shows featured posts and lists of posts by category and is very configurable. It allows ads in the top right corner, but I’ve realised that I have to insert code to put them in there, instead of just in a widget editor, so that’s out.

I also tried one called eNews which showed pictures, but it required a thumbnail to be generated for each post, as well as the code-insertion drama mentioned.

It’s not that I am unable to learn to code, I was a programmer for many years. I just don’t want to spend my time doing that. If writing a post is an extra hassle I’ll do it less often. I would be prepared to spend more to get something more user-friendly but I want to try it out before I buy it, and not find out that I have to mess with code when I’ve already paid for it.

Of course, the real reason for all this mucking around is not for this blog but for my business blog and website.

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2 Responses to “WordPress Themes – sometimes not as easy as they look”

1. Thomas MacEntee says:

   29 October 2009 at 9:55 am

   I agree – the beauty of WordPress is how robust the program is in allowing you to customize your blog as compared to Blogger. But even for a techie like me WP can be challenging.

   I like this template but the font is too small – at least for me.

   Cheers!
2. Carole says:

   14 November 2009 at 5:16 am

   Still playing with themes. I like this one (PureType) but it’s a bit bland.