Set Up a WordPress Theme in 60 Seconds: The Right Way!

[@ultraspy5474]

Okay, I’ve watched so many of your tutorials I’ve lost count. But showing me the exact steps finally makes sense. “Explain it to a 5 Year Old” wins again. Thank you!

[@jamiewp]

Great to hear!

[@marekeisenman-soletraderco3711]

Bravo! Header, body and footer. That is it...

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@MbonisiM]

You made it much easier to understand now

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@HelenaDenley]

Yay - this is what I've been needing. I was only speaking to my husband about it last night, feeling a little confused because I have come from a long history with Studiopress themes and Genesis framework, and then Kadence and now I want to make the jump into block themes, so this was perfect. Thank you 🙏

[@jamiewp]

That's so great to hear Helena 😃

[@aabb-xe2mz]

It can't be explained more clearly. :)

[@jamiewp]

Thank you 🙏

[@jdccool]

Blocka 101. Thank you, Jamie. Most helpful.

[@jamiewp]

My pleasure - hope it was useful :)

[@derek-hanson]

Yeah, this is like a pet peeve of mine when working with sites. I could see a scenario where you just have a one page marketing site and just doing it in the template editor, but more often than not keeping the two separate is the best approach. The layers of abstraction in WP aren’t as soft as they seem, especially with a morange explanation 😅

[@jamiewp]

Yup agree - i'd like to see more abstraction between pages and templates.

[@daveden2]

You make FSE look really easy!

[@jamiewp]

Thanks 🙏

[@kevinschmidt2210]

Isn't that concoction called Orange Julius?

[@jamiewp]

Wow, I just had to look that up. Just goes to prove there's a market for everything 😂

[@maartenklem2272]

I almost watch all your videos for the awesome cat treat section at the end but the video is very helpful. Thanks so much!

[@jamiewp]

You're very welcome!☺️

[@MarkFaamaoni]

Huzzah! Perfect explanation.

[@jamiewp]

Thanks Mark 🙏

[@EricBright250]

Thanks. I am wondering what would happen if you don't initially created header, body and footer in the home template.

[@kaysha]

Brilliant

[@jamiewp]

Thanks 🙏

[@alexandrepessoa]

great video. I've been doing this since you brought this up, months ago and really is much bertter, since on can target the page with SEO plugins or any other stuff. 👍

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@visualmodo]

Truly good job!!!

[@jamiewp]

cheers

[@Dougster123]

Most attempts at relatable analogies in tech fail horribly; However, THAT, was a great analogy 👍 LOL.

[@jamiewp]

Thank you :)

[@shivatomix]

Hahaha - you're absolutely right! I guess people are confused because that's exactly what TT4 does: mixing template (front page) with content ... In former days a rule in web coding was: don't mix styling with content ... that times are over it seems ;-)

[@jamiewp]

thanks , yup i would like to see a clearer boundary between the two (it really confuses people)

[@richmaniow]

Very useful, it does highlight that WP needs to sort out the interface, too many important things buried within menu's that all look the same at the moment. ps I prefer your videos without the background music if possible, as I find it hard to separate the music from the speech.

[@jamiewp]

Thanks Richard - noted about the music 👍

[@paulroos8517]

Thanks. Your cat deserves TWO treats. Dilute and give the morange juice to the roses and pour yourself a glass of Cape Pinotage. 😃

[@jamiewp]

😂 tks Paul

[@amigospower]

Jemie , Brilliant! as always 👌💯👑

[@jamiewp]

Thank you 🙌

[@kenyie8080]

Can you also cover an example where the content starts with a cover block header image and there is random whitespace between the header and the cover block? I ended up using some custom css to overwrite the spacing but I don't know what is the "proper" way to find where the spacing got introduced to remove it.

[@thomassaunders225]

This seems to be a "glitch" that happens with WP sites sometimes. It is usually resolved by dragging the sliders for the margins back and forth ending back with no margin.

[@kenyie8080]

@@thomassaunders225 I've seen that, but in this case the devtools showed it was some sort of gap/spacing between all elements of the content almost as if it was flexbox. When I have a moment I'll go find the css rule I needed to add

[@jamiewp]

What theme were you using?

[@kenyie8080]

@@jamiewp It is with Spectra One Block Theme. I found the spacing coming from this rule: :where(.wp-site-blocks) > * { margin-block-start: var(--wp--preset--spacing--x-small); margin-block-end: 0; } The CSS rule I needed to add through the Styles > Additional CSS is: :where(.wp-site-blocks) > * { margin-block-start: 0 !important; margin-block-end: 0 !important; }

[@antygod]

the main thing missing from this video is the why. why is it necessary to do this? i understand the separation of template and content, but why is that important for a homepage which is usually relatively static and not something that is frequently updated? also, (this is perhaps rhetorical, or at least something you might not be able to answer) if having a Front Page template is so important why doesn't WP include a Front Page template by default rather than us needing to create one for every site? also part 2: the revenge of the also. how is the Front Page template different from the Blog Home template? why have both?

[@jamiewp]

Here's a longer explanation kzbin.info/www/bejne/iKSpfnuXm9-IsJYsi=rzJEQ-4PcepvV3xb - i kept this video deliberately short and simple 👍

[@antygod]

@@jamiewp thanks

[@paycenodom3150]

Hey is there a way to change the color of a link I'm trying to edit the color of the link to white so it doesn't blend in with the background which is also blue

[@jamiewp]

Yes, you can do this in Global Styles 👍

[@ahmetakdel]

Pill knowledge thanks🎉

[@jamiewp]

👍

[@waynecoombes3960]

Like it says in its description, The Front Page Template "Displays your site's homepage, whether it is set to display latest posts or a static page. The Front Page template takes precedence over all templates." Surely IF IT DOES NOT EXIST IT SHOULD BE ADDED AS A DEFAULT BEST PRACTICE just as you describe, Correct?

[@jamiewp]

Exactly 👍

[@refsvik]

Thank you. I got it now ;-)

[@jamiewp]

Great 😊

[@SingaporeMathsAcademyUK]

Thank you. Why do we need a front page template? Wouldn't pages template be enough after setting the correct homepage in settings?

[@jamiewp]

Great quesiton - you could do that but then your front page is using exactly the same template as all the page on your site. In my experience, most sites use a different layout for the home page than normal pages eg. not display page title. So using a front page template gives you the ablility to create a layout that is different to normal pages.

[@SingaporeMathsAcademyUK]

@@jamiewp thank you, I see you're an early bird too.

[@jamiewp]

@@SingaporeMathsAcademyUK Yup

[@p__wing]

Cogent metaphor about separation of concerns, but I maintain that orange juice and milk mixed together, if you drink it quickly, is delicious! #JusticeForMorange

[@jamiewp]

😂

[@MbonisiM]

Now 😅we need Ice Cream 2:43

[@jamiewp]

😂

[@codeAlongwith]

Should be a way to lock clients out of site editor?

[@jamiewp]

Only Admins have access to the site editor

[@napynap]

I've done that with orange juice on cereal. No, I wasn't awake yet!

[@jamiewp]

hehe 🤪

[@yvieormsby]

Setting up my first WP website today, and just noticed this new vid. Perfect timing ✌🏽 Is it best practise to do this for the "blog template" too? I tried to add the "content" block (as in vid) but instead of showing the "blog page" content, it looks like it's trying to show a (non-existent) "post" content in that space.

[@jamiewp]

Fab, thanks for commenting 💪

[@OliPH01]

Fab?​@@jamiewp

[@HullioGQ]

Why do clients have access to templates? I only show them how to manage content. I always discourage them from adding new content pages that do not have a template assigned - it messing up the design language and UI/UX.

[@jamiewp]

Only Site Admins have access to templates

[@HullioGQ]

@@jamiewp I consider myself an artist. My work on their websites should never be messed with! 😃

[@FlorentClaude]

Hi Jamie, To me, the whole point of using a template is to reuse it for many pages. By setting the default template, wouldn't your example make more sense? I was even considering, since FSE, NOT to use ANY content on the homepage!! All would be in the template :-O Regards

[@jamiewp]

Yes …but your home page is normally different to internal pages eg displaying page titles

[@FlorentClaude]

@@jamiewp indeed. And we then create 1 template that's used for only 1 page.

[@jamiewp]

@@FlorentClaude Yup the front page template

[@FlorentClaude]

@@jamiewp Since template AND content both use the same tool (Gutenberg), I find it hard to explain to clients why we need 2 different places to edit the whole homepage (template + content). On the opposite, they get it well when 1 template is used for multiple pieces of content (page, posts etc). Regards

[@DarrinRich]

After that is it the best time to start doing global styles?

[@jamiewp]

Yup

[@DarrinRich]

@@jamiewp Thank you sir. I recently started a site and going to redoo it the right way hopefully.

[@jamiewp]

@@DarrinRich ok good luck

[@thomassaunders225]

Morange for the win. 🤣 I guess it doesn't taste like a dreamsicle.

[@jamiewp]

😬😂

[@codeAlongwith]

Is this Spectre?

[@jamiewp]

This demo is using the Ollie Theme, but the principle will work with any WordPress Block Theme.

[@haegarNL]

Either I am too stupid to follow this "logic" or there is flaw: When I create a new "Front Page" template I can never directly assign this template to a page!!?? Even in your example the inspector on the right side shows template "pages" for the front page??? And you cannot change this in the inspector to any other page template. However when I assign my page as "Front page" in the settings it actually uses the right front page template. But it does not show up in the inspector...

[@jamiewp]

Yes you are right - the inspector just shows the page template. I think it's a bug that it doesn't show the front page template, but I'll add a support ticket.

[@caseyhill5138]

@@jamiewp I have the same problem. I don't see how to assign the page as "Front Page" so I am not understanding that. When I go to the homepage displays static page, Home is an option but nothing about Front page. Not a good sign when I'm so confused this early in the game. LOL

[@jamiewp]

​@@caseyhill5138 When you assign a page in Settings / Reading to the Homepage: dropdown it will use the Front Page Template (if you created a Front Page Template). That's all you have to do 👍

[@DarrinRich]

👋Yep. That's me, I was doing it all wrong.

[@jamiewp]

Hope this helped Darrin 👍

[@CarlMadsen]

I'm guilty of this. Just did it again two weeks ago. The one page website is a template. I'll do better next time.

[@jamiewp]

Yes me too - it's so much easier and nicer to keep them separate 👍

[@aztecs8879]

I couldn't concentrate on the content sorry; the music was too loud and very irritating and broke my concentration unfortunately.

[@jamiewp]

Noted - tks for the feedback 👍

[@comartse]

Or, as the Germans say "Ordnung muss sein"

[@jamiewp]

Exactly :)