How To Change Colors In Wordpress Theme
If you've installed a WordPress theme but information technology'south not quite right for yous, you lot may be feeling frustrated. There are plenty of options available to you lot for customizing your WordPress themes.
The challenge is finding the correct way to do information technology.
In this post, I'll steer y'all through the options for customizing your WordPress theme, assistance to decide which one's right for yous and show you how to do it safely and efficiently.
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Options for Customizing a Theme
Before we dive in and offset making changes to your theme, information technology pays to sympathize what the options are, equally they suit different situations.
Here's an overview of the options available to you:
- If y'all desire to add together functionality to your theme, install a plugin.
- Utilize the Customizer in your WordPress admin screens to customize fonts, colors and possibly layout too, depending on your theme.
- If you lot're working with a page builder theme, use its features to customize the pattern of your site.
- If you lot've installed a framework theme, use 1 of the available child themes to customize your site, along with whatever customization options viable own the admin screens.
- If your theme is specific to your site and you lot're comfy doing information technology, edit the theme's code directly.
- If you desire to edit the code of a 3rd-political party theme, create a child theme.
If you lot want to edit the code, you have a number of options available to you, from using the cake editor, to the Customizer, right through to editing the files. We'll look at them all in this post, but let'due south start with the simplest option: installing a plugin.
Do Y'all Actually Need to Customize Your Theme?
Sometimes you lot don't demand to customize your theme at all: instead, you need to install a plugin.
Themes dictate the design of your site: the way information technology looks and the way it displays content (employ our theme detector tool to place the underlying theme for a design you like). Plugins add actress functionality.
If the changes you want to make are focused on functionality rather than pattern, consider installing a plugin yourself. This could be a plugin yous need to write, one you download from the plugin directory, or i you buy.
If you find yourself wanting to edit the functions.php file in your theme, ask yourself:
Would I want to keep this functionality if I switched themes in the futurity?
If the answer is yes, that code should go in a plugin, not your theme.
Skilful examples of what y'all would utilize a plugin instead of a theme including adding widgets, registering custom post types and taxonomies, creating custom fields and adding extra features similar a store or SEO enhancements.
Customizing Your WordPress Theme via the WordPress Admin Screens
If the changes yous want to brand are design-focused and relatively simple, yous may be able to brand them via the admin screens. The Customizer gives you a variety of options for tweaking your theme: what's available to y'all will depend on your theme. And you may see something called the Editor in the Appearance menu. Steer clear of this, for reasons I'll describe before long.
Customizing Your Theme via the Customizer
The easiest way to customize your WordPress theme is using the WordPress Customizer.
You access this in one of two ways:
- When viewing your site (when y'all are logged in), click the Customizelink in the admin bar at the meridian of the screen.
- In the admin screens, click on Appearance > Customize.
This takes you lot to the Customizer.
In the screenshot above, I've installed a free theme called ColorMag which has lots of customization options. Information technology'south added sections to the Customizer for design features including a header image, social media, category colors, and a Blueprint Options tab that takes yous through to yet more tabs where you can make changes to the layout and design of your site.
Different themes have different customization options, but newer themes seem to exist adding more and more of them all the time. If you find a theme that you like but that isn't quite right for you lot, you lot might detect that customizing information technology gives you exactly the design and layout y'all demand.
The Theme Editor (and Why Non to Use information technology)
In your admin screens, you may discover an choice called the Theme Editor, which you acmes via Advent > Theme Editor.
This gives y'all access to the files in your theme, meaning that you tin straight edit them.
Don't.
Even if you're comfortable writing CSS or PHP, editing the files in your theme like this is a very bad idea, for two reasons:
- If you've bought or downloaded a third-party theme, any changes you make will be lost the side by side time you update the theme (and you should keep your theme updated for security reasons).
- More importantly, if y'all make a change that breaks your site, information technology won't be tracked and the previous version of the file won't be changed. You could irrevocably suspension the site.
If you want to edit the code in your theme, you should do information technology using a code editor (cheque out the best free HTML editors), and you shouldn't t edit the files in your live site until you've tested information technology on a WordPress staging site. If you need to edit a tertiary-party theme, you should do then via a child theme. More on both of these afterward in this post.
WordPress knows how unsafe it is to use the theme editor: information technology even gives yous a alert when you endeavour to admission it.
So take WordPress's communication: don't employ the theme editor!
Using Page Builders and Frameworks to Customize Your WordPress Theme
A large proportion of WordPress themes take customization options, meaning y'all can make changes to the design and layout via the Customizer.
But some themes take this further and are designed to be extended and significantly customized. Those themes are called theme frameworks.
Some other choice is to use a plugin that lets you design your site using a convenient interface: those are chosen page builders.
Using a Page Architect to Customize Your Theme
Page Builder plugins are designed to make it easy for y'all to set the design of your site, using an interface that lets you encounter what you're getting.
You install a page builder plugin with a compatible theme, and then use the options it gives you to design your site exactly the manner y'all want it.
I of the well-nigh well-known page builders is Elementor, only yous tin can observe out most some alternatives in our roundup of page builders.
Folio builders permit y'all edit your posts and pages with a drag-and-drop interface, meaning you can see how your content volition expect and can make each page loo unique.
Below, I'thousand using the Elementor folio architect with the How-do-you-do Elementor theme, which is compatible with information technology.
Page builders give y'all lots of flexibility with the layout and design of your pages. If yous're used to a website builder like Wix, they tin assistance ease the transition to WordPress. And if you prefer a WYSIWYG interface for your WordPress content, they can aid you blueprint your pages quickly.
Using a Theme Framework to Customize Your Theme
An alternative to page builders is theme frameworks. These are suites of themes designed to work together. There'south i parent theme which is the framework, and a choice of kid themes that you can apply to customize the chief theme and brand it look the fashion you want.
An instance of theme frameworks is Divi, which has customization options that permit you tweak the design of your child theme fifty-fifty further, including a drag and drop interface similar to those of folio builders.
Recommended reading: Divi vs Elementor: WordPress Page Builder Plugins Comparison
Editing Your WordPress Theme's Lawmaking
If you're comfortable editing CSS and/or PHP, and then you tin edit the code in your theme to customize your theme.
This gives you the greatest degree of control.
If you're editing your own theme, which is specific to your site and was developed peculiarly for information technology, then you tin can make edits to the theme directly. But if yous're working with a third-party theme and desire to edit that, y'all should create a child theme to avoid losing your changes next time yous update the theme.
Editing Theme Files
The first step to editing your WordPress theme is to understand which theme files command what, and which you lot'll need to edit.
The Stylesheet
Every WordPress theme has a stylesheet, called manner.css. It contains all of the lawmaking for styling your site: layout, fonts, colors, and more.
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If you want to change the colors in your theme, for example, you would make edits to the stylesheet. If you lot want to add a new font, you would use the stylesheet to apply it to different elements such as the body text and the headings.
Pay attention when editing the stylesheet: specificity means that the code for an element isn't always coming from where you think it is. Elements will inherit styling from other elements that are above them in the hierarchy of the page unless you add styling which is specific to the lower element.
To notice what CSS is affecting which elements on the page, y'all can employ the inspector in your browser to view the CSS (Chrome DevTools in this example):
You can then use this to write new CSS that targets private elements or a range of elements or classes on the page.
If all this talk of elements, classes, and specificity is new to y'all, you lot may desire to steer clear of direct editing your theme'south CSS. At least until y'all've learned more almost CSS and how information technology works.
The Functions File
Some other file that pretty much every theme will have is the functions file (functions.php). This is the file that makes a agglomeration fo stuff work in your theme. Within it, you tin can notice lawmaking to register theme features similar featured images, widgets, and more.
If you're tempted to add functional lawmaking to your theme, this is where you'll add information technology. Simply beware: in most cases, you should really exist writing a plugin. Ask yourself:
Would I desire to proceed this functionality if I switched themes in the future?
If the answer is aye, write a plugin instead of adding lawmaking to the functions file. Plugins don't take to be large: there's aught to stop yous from creating one for a couple of lines of code.
The functions file is all written in PHP, and so you'll need to be familiar with that. Don't blindly copy code y'all discover via a Google search: have the fourth dimension to work out what that lawmaking does and to understand it. That way you're less probable to add lawmaking that isn't every bit practiced as it should be.
The Theme Template Files
Nigh of the files in a theme are theme template files. These are files which determine what content WordPress outputs on a given page, and are chosen according to the template hierarchy.
If y'all want to modify the way content is output on a given postal service type, page, or archive, you'll need to either edit one of these files or create a new one.
For case, say your theme has an archive.php file that's beingness used to output archive pages for categories and tags. Yous want to make changes to the mode tags are output. So you create a file called "tag.php", which would be based on archive.php with your tweaks.
Again, exist careful editing the files: they could break your site. Always test on a local installation using a tool like DevKinsta and/or WordPress staging site first.
Whichever of these file types y'all need to edit, you should do it properly. Read the section beneath on best practices to discover out how to edit your code in a way that won't break your site and won't crusade you security headaches.
Customizing a Third-Political party Theme With a Child Theme
If the theme you're running on your site is from a third-party and you want to edit the lawmaking, yous'll need to create a child theme.
This is because if you edit the theme directly and then you update it (which y'all should), y'all'll lose all the changes you made.
Creating a child theme consists of four steps:
- Create a new binder in wp-content/themes.
- In that folder, create a stylesheet. In that stylesheet, tell WordPress that this is a child theme of your existing theme.
- Add copies of the files y'all want to edit to the child theme and edit them there.
- Activate the child theme in your site.
WordPress will always use a file from the child theme to output content unless at that place is a file college in the hierarchy in the parent theme. If there are two versions of the aforementioned file, it'll use the one from the child theme. This means your new file in the kid theme volition override the one from the parent theme.
Best Practices for Customizing WordPress Themes
And then you're planning on customizing your theme. Before you lot go ahead and make the changes, follow these tips to ensure you lot're doing it safely and that you won't break your site, make it vulnerable to attacks, or lose your code.
If Possible, Customize Without Editing Code
If yous can make your customizations via the Customizer or elsewhere in the admin screens, this is safer than editing the lawmaking.
But edit the code if you ware familiar with CSS (for the stylesheet) and PHP (for other theme files) and you know how to do information technology safely.
Apply a Local Development Site to Brand Your Changes
If you're editing the code in your theme or creating a child theme to brand changes, you should practise the development piece of work on a local installation of WordPress with your theme installed and your content copied from your live site.
This style, you have a mirror of your live site to test your changes. Working on a local site will have no outcome on your live site and can be quicker.
Even if you're using the Customizer, it can exist helpful to use a local version of your site for testing equally you can publish your changes and test them out without affecting the live site.
Once yous've tested the changes to your theme yous can upload information technology to your live site or, fifty-fifty amend, you tin exam it on a staging site and so push it to live.
Use Version Control
When y'all're making changes to your theme, you should use version control to track your changes.
At its simplest this ways changing the version number of the theme and keeping copies of both versions. But if yours gong to do version command properly, you need to utilise a service similar GitHub to track your changes.
This fashion, if a alter causes problems, y'all tin can hands roll it back without having to make manual edits.
Version control is even more helpful if you're working as function of a team, every bit y'all'll be able to come across what other members are doing. Brand certain to read our git vs Github guide.
Utilise a Staging Site to Test Your Changes
If y'all take access to a staging site (such equally Kinsta's gratuitous staging that comes with all plans), testing on this before activating the new version of your theme (or the new child theme) on your live site is the safest manner to proceed.
This is because any local site will have some differences from your live site: it's on a dissimilar server (one created on your local machine), it may exist running a different version of PHP or any of the other tools that run your site.
Make a copy of your live site on your staging server and then upload and activate your new theme. Test your site thoroughly to be sure everything works, and then y'all can push your changes to your live site.
Make Your Theme Responsive
Whatsoever changes you demand to make to your theme should work on mobile as well as desktop.
With more than and more people accessing the internet via mobile telephone, and the Mobile-offset index from Google, information technology's probably more than important now for your theme to work on mobile than information technology does on desktop. So whatsoever changes you make to your theme demand to be mobile-friendly or preferably mobile-first where relevant.
This will mainly utilise to whatever changes you make to your styling or layout: check that the new layout works on mobile and that yous've added media queries and then that the layout adjusts to different screen sizes.
If your theme isn't responsive, it'll negatively impact your search engine rankings and conversion rates.
If y'all don't have admission to lots of dissimilar mobile devices to test on, you lot can employ a tool like BrowserStack to see how your site looks on dissimilar devices. Y'all tin too use the Developer tools in your browser and the responsive views in the Customizer.
Make Sure Your Customizations Don't Impact on Accessibility
Any changes to your theme too need to be accessible for users with disabilities or sensory impairments.
This isn't only near ensuring your site works on screen readers: other considerations such every bit color schemes and font sizes are important for a big number of people.
If the changes you're making to your theme are to brand the colors brighter or the text smaller, call back once again: this might make it difficult for people to read or interact with your site.
Before you make any changes live, use an accessibility checker to test your site and be sure information technology isn't excluding people.
Stick to the WordPress Coding Standards
If you're editing the code in your theme or creating a child theme, yous must make certain your code is in line with the WordPress coding standards.
These standards exist to ensure consequent and quality of code and to avoid code that's a mess. There are standards for PHP, CSS, and JavaScript so take some time to check those that are relevant to yous and brand sure you lot follow them.
If your existing WordPress theme is well-coded and you write any new code in a fashion that's consequent with that, you're on the way to ensuring that your lawmaking is compliant. Make sure yous add comments to any changes y'all make to the theme so that you or others know what you lot did when you come back to work on the code in the hereafter. You may call back you won't forget just after a few months have passed, it's surprisingly easy to forget why you edited a line of code.
Summary
Customizing your WordPress theme isn't all that difficult. Sometimes it's a uncomplicated instance of using the Customizer to make changes to the fonts, colors or your favicon (make sure to read our in-depth guide about WordPress fonts). Other times, you lot take to create a new child theme to add a new template file to a theme.
The options you accept for customizing your theme include using a plugin or the Customizer, editing the WordPress theme's code directly, or creating a child theme.
Identify the right option for yous and brand your customizations safely, all without breaking your site.
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Source: https://kinsta.com/blog/how-to-customize-wordpress-theme/
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