How to setup a blog for an existing website?

Major_Disaster · 27 Aug 2010 at 16:10

Hey all,

I have a website that i created and want to now add on a blog (blog.example.com) . The website is pretty standard static HTML / CSS.

I would think its pretty easy to actually install the blog (just put Worpress on the webhost) but what im worried about is actually skinning it to integrate with the rest of the site.

I have absolutely no experience with Worpress so have no idea if i would need to skin it or how hard it would be - any ideas?

Cheers

mr.sly · 27 Aug 2010 at 16:15

You'd skin it in pretty much the same way you created your site HTML/CSS. There's so PHP involved if you want to change the way articles are display and what information the user sees.

The Wordpress documentation is very good at helping out new users.

http://codex.wordpress.org/Main_Page

Just download and install MAMP (Mac) or WAMP (Windows) install Wordpress and get experimenting. Once you get into it, its very easy.

Major_Disaster · 27 Aug 2010 at 16:46

Thanks for the reply.

Ive just got an install up and running with the default TwentTen skin. Under the Appearances tab, i can see i can edit the CSS of the theme - should i just paste in my original CSS? Or do i need to create a new personal theme (somehow)?

By the way, did you mean theres "only" PHP involved, or "no" PHP involved?

Cheers

JonB · 27 Aug 2010 at 17:19

There is PHP involved, but you can quite quite a lot of examples from the Wordpress Theme Development documentation which help you achieve what you want to do.

You'd be best of creating a separate theme package than replacing the code in the existing one.

Take a read here, it will guide you pretty much from start to finish : http://codex.wordpress.org/Blog_Design_and_Layout#Themes_and_Templates

3dcandy · 28 Aug 2010 at 10:18

+1 for the above, but I always point people in the direction of making a custom child theme of twentyten (the default theme). You can just add/remove/change bits without really affecting stuff, and if you make an error, just remove the css/code and all goes back to being as it was. You can keep the custom header and other nice stuff and build up from there. You could always get a nice free theme and go from there if you wish...

If you want any help, then give us a shout...