The Bloggers With The Most To Say
Explain It To Me Like I'm Six. And By "It" I Mean CSS.
I'm convinced that if I like the way my blog looks, I'll be motivated to write every single day. Incentive.
I just don't even know where to begin. I have Wordpress right now and strongly dislike their template collection; all rigid and stuffy. I upgraded to the CSS editor but I clearly have a lot to learn. And I do have a little experience with FTP from a class I took in my freshman year of college. I had a Geocities page when I was, like, 12. But beyond that, my webby, techy, widgety knowledge is very, very limited.
If anyone knows of a really helpful tutorial that caters to rookies like me, that would be fantastic. I was browsing GoDaddy's FileZilla instructions and I have a slight headache now.
Thanks in advance for any help that any of you might be able to give. And if you'd like to share your own self-hosting experiences, that would be great.
I just don't even know where to begin. I have Wordpress right now and strongly dislike their template collection; all rigid and stuffy. I upgraded to the CSS editor but I clearly have a lot to learn. And I do have a little experience with FTP from a class I took in my freshman year of college. I had a Geocities page when I was, like, 12. But beyond that, my webby, techy, widgety knowledge is very, very limited.
If anyone knows of a really helpful tutorial that caters to rookies like me, that would be fantastic. I was browsing GoDaddy's FileZilla instructions and I have a slight headache now.
Thanks in advance for any help that any of you might be able to give. And if you'd like to share your own self-hosting experiences, that would be great.
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by DShan on -
any specific questions? the basic CSS stuff is probably less important than finding a template that you feel you can slightly tweak to love your look. what kind of look are you going for?
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Permalink Reply by Call Me KP on -
I found a template that I like; it's pretty and clean. And not cheesy. Except that when I downloaded it, I found I had to upload each piece via and FTP rather than copy/ pasting a style sheet. And to me that option seems easier. I'm just not sure what to do next.
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Permalink Reply by David Stehle on -
See if this helps you. It's a CSS tutorial with some really basic codes to get you started.
http://www.w3schools.com/css
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Permalink Reply by Call Me KP on
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Fantastic. Thank you.
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Permalink Reply by debi on -
Something else I like to do is when I'm viewing a site I love the layout, I check out their code. I see how they did what they did, and see what works.
Fiddle around. A lot. You learn a lot by trial and error. Make mistakes, get messy.
And I google EVERYTHING. I also have a book on HTML & CSS, and another on PHP. I look at them often.
You'll get it, just takes a little effort. And yes, having a good-looking blog makes you want to post more, I think! Just always back up/save what you are working on before you start fooling around. And save multiple copies if you like something.. so you have options.
I also like to sometimes take a current theme and then go on a major tweaking spree to make it my own. It gives you a good base when you don't know what to do.
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Permalink Reply by jess on -
As a professional css/html developer, I cannot recommend w3schools enough for getting started in CSS. They are phenomenal.
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Permalink Reply by Nick Tabick on -
It reminds me of all the "code generators" from the MySpace era, but if you'd rather use a point-and-click theme generator, you can try the one available at http://www.yvoschaap.com/wpthemegen/. If anything, it might at least help you figure out some cool tricks. Of course, I don't know how much use you'll get out of it (if any) while you're hosting at WP.com.
I also recommend the Web Developer Toolbar extension for Firefox, which includes a live CSS editor. (You can edit and preview the changes you make to the CSS for a page as it displays for you, then copy the changes you made to WP.com.)
I've been self-hosting (including managing the server doing the hosting) for several years, and if there's one tip I have for you, it's to make sure you take regular backups. (I should say that that tip applies even if you're using WP.com for your hosting. It's more important than you think...) Tip aside, I can say that my experiences have all been excellent, but your mileage may vary depending upon the type/amount of traffic you attract and how you handle it.
Feel free to bug me if you have any questions. (Actually, that goes for anyone.)
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Permalink Reply by cooper on -
I'm confused do you have a wordpress self hosted blog? It looks like you have a free wordpress.com blog and you can't use file upload there, at least not as far as I know. You have to past the css from your browser.
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Permalink Reply by Call Me KP on
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Cooper- Yes. I do have a free WP blog, but I can still edit the CSS. My issue was that I found a template that I liked and I thought it was going to be a simple copy and paste. But the zipped file contained pieces of the layout that I'd have to host on my own. But I'm not sure how to go about doing that.
But really, I am thankful for all of the advice so far. You've all been super helpful. So thank you!
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