How Themes Files Work

There are two ways to customize a Wordpress site:

1) Themes - You can create your own theme from scratch (which is what we will do shortly), or you can add/edit existing themes. Themes are for presentation and should only be edited to affect the look of the site.
2) Plugins - You can create your own plugins or install from existing plugins. Plugins are for changing or enhancing the Wordpress application's functionality. The following video discusses HTML and PHP code. Do not feel overwhelmed if you are unfamiliar with these languages.


Themes work by combining PHP files together to generate the Wordpress site’s pages in the browser. PHP code is always enclosed inside tags that look like this:

<?php //PHP code goes here ?>

and HTML is displayed in tags that look similar but don’t have the question marks:

<h1>This is an HTML heading element</h1>

When we learn about template files, we'll have a complete understanding of what each file does in the theme folder.

Complete and Continue