[wp-hackers] newbie question on custom page templates

[Doug Stewart]

On Mon, Mar 12, 2012 at 11:09 AM, Andrew Gray <andrew at graymerica.com> wrote:
> My thoughts on purchasing pre-made themes.
>
> They are like a manufactured home.  It is great if you want one that looks just like that, but to try and get it to change to much is an uphill battle.
>
> If you need something custom, build it yourself, and if you can't figure it out, hire someone who can.  Start with a PSD mockup and cut it up into HTML, then add the wordpress code.
>
> We just got done building a website for a national bank that had 40 different page/ category/ archive templates,  four different contact forms, and nine custom post types.
>
> It was like building a custom home,  we had to plan, sketch and design every piece ourselves.  WP is a great platform, but it is not magic.  Theme designers are looking to sell as many copies of their theme, so they can not plan for you specific requirements.
>
> Wordpress sites only have to look like a blog if you let them.
>

Yes and no. Basing your work on a preexisting framework/parent theme
can ultimately save you a ton of work. I know folks who specialize in
doing things with Twentyten and Twentyeleven that you'd be
hard-pressed to believe.

A "premium" theme is little more than another tool -- just as you need
to learn the ins-and-outs of WordPress flows and syntaxes, you'll need
to do the same for these themes/frameworks. Once you get them down,
though, they can save you ALOT of work.

Think of them as those pre-fab house elements: LEGO bricks for
building a theme. They do a lot of the heavy lifting, you just have to
have the imagination to make a dragon.

-- 
-Doug