If you have made any modifications to the theme’s template files or CSS, you may prefer to unpack the archive on your local machine and simply upload wp-content/themes/zenlite/library/custom-header.php to the same location on your server. This will ensure that all of your customisations are preserved.

Download the updated theme.

ZenLite Black Mandarin has all of its parent’s functionality but with a black and orange skin for those looking for a dark, single column, WordPress theme.

New features include:

• Toggle author display on or off
• Switch between Page or Category links in the horizontal navigation menu
• ZenLite Black Mandarin child theme

All menus are widget-ready and a custom widget-ready page template is also included. Header customisation available via the WordPress Admin interface along with an option to toggle sticky post display on the front page.

Halloween Pumpkins 1.3 is also available on wordpress.org.

ZenLite WordPress Theme

Read the full Interview on Shop Tab’s blog.

If you have customised the WordPress default theme, all of your changes will be over-written the next time you upgrade WordPress. So you need to protect them now by creating your own custom theme.

1. Using FTP (or whatever file management tool you have available), download the wp-content/themes/default folder to your machine.
2. Rename the downloaded folder “mytheme”.
3. Using a plain text editor, open style.css in this new folder and, at the very top of the file change:

   Theme Name: WordPress Default
   Theme URI: http://wordpress.org/

   to

   Theme Name: My Theme

4. Upload the mytheme folder to wp-content/themes on your server.
5. In WordPress, navigate to Appearance / Themes and you should see that the My Theme is now available as a separate theme. Activate it.

Your customisations are now protected against over-writing during an automatic upgrade.

1. Within the WordPress Administration area, navigate to Appearance / Editor.
2. Select single.php and change:

   <div id="content" class="widecolumn" role="main">
   

   to

   <div id="content" class="narrowcolumn">

3. Then change:

   <?php get_footer(); ?>

   to:

   <?php get_sidebar(); ?>
   <?php get_footer(); ?>

Repeat the last 2 steps for archives.php, links.php & image.php

First of all, you need to decide whether you’ll be running a web site or a blog that invites comments and discussion. Whilst most themes will work as well for a blog as they do on a basic, no discussion, site, you don’t want to find out that your comment display options are limited on your busy blog three months down the line.

If you’re not going to use Posts or comments, ignore any comment enhancements or featured post extras. They’ll be a bit pointless if you’ll be only be using Pages.

Layout

Next, decide what kind of layout you want. 1 column? 3 columns? A narrow or wide display? Focus your search on these decisions. using the Tags page on the WordPress Theme Directory might help in that respect.

When you start to view theme, try not to be too swayed by color. It’s usually far harder to change the layout of a theme compared to changing its colors – although themes with lots of graphical elements (patterned backgrounds, rounded boxes etc) also have their own problems.

To Hack Or Not To Hack

If you are comfortable using XHTML, CSS, PHP and WordPress template tags, go for themes that don’t have custom options. They’re often the easiest to hack.

If you’re non-technical and didn’t understand half of the last paragraph, look for themes that are widget-ready and offer custom header and/or sidebar placement options.

Something Old, Something New

Make a note of the last time a theme was updated. One that hasn’t been touched for years is far less likely to work effectively with the latest version of WordPress compared to one that has been updated recently. Take time out to read any comments posted against the theme. They might forewarn you potential problems.

Preview First

Use the Preview option to view themes in action. OK – so you only get to view a demo front page within a window but that page is carefully constructed to try and give you a good idea of how the theme will look on a working site. Scroll right down. Check the various Headings. Examine the list displays. How readable is the text generally? The closer this preview corresponds to what you want on your site, the smaller the risk that you’ll need to undertake any heavy customisation.

In Summary

Time taken choosing your theme — rather than grabbing the first one that takes your fancy — will pay dividends in the long run.

Happy hunting!