At last, here is my blog and I am writing my first blog entry. I have been designing for the past five years and have always dreamt of my very own personal website. And, also this is my first successful attempt to create a customized wordpress theme. Hope you like this.

My starting to the creation of wordpress theme started with the introduction to “Wordpress” by my friend Rohit, a few years back. And, the features really amazed me. It was one of the best things that I have ever seen at that time. I installed xampp on my system and started experimenting with it.  As soon as I installed wordpress on my virtual server and activated the default theme, and checked it on my browser, the only thing that came to my mind is how can I change the look and feel of this thing? How can I customize the links and other stuffs according my needs? Slowly I started looking into the backend admin part of this new masterpiece that I got acquainted with. From there I learnt that the look and feel comes from the theme folder. I headed straight for it. I opened the folder and started tinkering with the index files and images in the “images” folder; little known to the fact that most of the coding was in PHP. Tell you, I was really happy when I modified few images and changed the look of the default theme. Well, after a long duel with this I felt the urge to learn PHP, because only that would help me in creating my own theme from the scratch. And, that’s what I wanted after all. Between, I also got hands on with “Joomla”, an open source content management system (CMS), after I got a bit frustrated with not being able to change the wordpress theme according my needs. But, same problem got repeated with Joomla too. Backend coding: PHP. After this I thought I have to learn PHP, to conquer all of these stuff.

It was not long before recent times, that I got hold of an e-book that helped me learning the very basics of PHP. But, all these years after my first attempt I just searched and searched for a good tutorial that would help me in creating a wordpress theme from scratch, and that too in my way of understanding.  This was not the end of the world and I started learning the CSS based table less html structures for the websites. And, I started mastering this technology by heart, as, by then, I knew this help me too in my endeavor. It was just after I learnt the basics of PHP, that I got hold of this tutorial to develop a wordpress theme from scratch. Well…well… this was one of the best tutorials I could have ever seen. Whatever you see in my blog is just because of this. I would strongly recommend this tutorial, to anyone who has a sound knowledge of CSS and basics of PHP, and want to learn customization of wordpress themes.

Tutorial link: wpdesigner – So you want to create WordPress themes huh?

That was all about how learnt creating a customized wordpress theme. But all this started few months back, when I again felt that old urge of having my own website. This feeling never died in me, but it was hibernating for the last few years. And, I started with some jazzy new under construction design for my website. I ended up with a sleek new design that I thought would suite me the best and in establishing myself. This is where I felt that I should have a blog and the theme should match my current website design. And, the story after this, I have told you above.

I have also included a section (see below) totally dedicated to my recommended readings and websites that would help you in one or the other way. I will keep posting about new findings and other stuffs here. So, keep a watch out. I am also active on Twitter. You can follow me @shubhobroto. Hope you liked my site. Enjoy.