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The various Appearance menus allow you to change how your site looks and behaves. If your site has been setup for you by a third party then it’s more than likely that you won’t need to change any of the settings in here.
Depending on the theme that your site is running, you may find that you don’t have all the menu options listed here, or you may have a couple of different ones. The reason for this is that a couple of the options under the Appearance section are theme based. For example, the default Twenty Seventeen theme allows you to customize options for how your theme displays. Not all themes will have these option pages, or if they do, they may be under another menu entirely.
The overall appearance of a WordPress site is controlled by the Theme. Although there is a default theme that comes installed with WordPress, most people will either download a new theme, purchase one, or have one custom designed and built. There are hundreds of places where themes can be downloaded for free and/or for a small fee. One of the best places to start looking for themes is in the official WordPress Themes Directory.
Clicking on the Appearance menu option will default you at the Themes screen. The theme that is currently active is shown at the top left of the screen. The other themes shown are ones that are installed, but not currently in use. To see a preview of your site in another theme (that isn’t currently active), you can click the Live Preview button associated with each theme. While the preview screen is displayed, you’re able to click your site links to view your various pages in the new theme layout as well as make various theme changes. To change your site to another Theme, hover your cursor over the theme you’d like to activate and click the Activate button that appears underneath the Theme. Alternatively, if the preview window is displaying, you can click the Save & Activate button in the top left corner of the window to activate the theme.
To view more details about a particular theme, hover your cursor over a theme thumbnail image and click on Theme Details. A pop-up window will appear that displays a larger image along with the theme description and other details.
Clicking on the Add New button at the top of the page allows you to upload a new theme to your site as well as search the WordPress Themes Directory for new themes and install them directly from within your Dashboard.
As well as the ability to preview a theme, you can also update various theme settings all while previewing the changes live. The options that you can change will be dependent on the individual theme.
For the currently active theme, clicking the Customize button allows you to update various settings whilst also previewing those changes. Until you click the Publish button, only the theme preview window is updated, not the theme on your live site.
For all other installed themes that are not currently active, click the Live Preview button to preview the theme, update its settings and activate the theme. Until you click the Activate & Publish button, only the theme preview window is updated, not the theme on your live site.
You’re able to add new themes to your site right within the WordPress Dashboard. At the top of the Themes screen there is an Add New button. Click this button to search and add new themes into your site.
After clicking the Add New button, you’ll be shown the Add Themes screen. It should look similar to the screen below. The Add Themes screen allows you to search and install themes directly from the official WordPress Themes Directory. By default, the screen will show a list of Featured themes.
You can use the links at the top of the page to filter the results to see Featured themes, Popular themes or the Latest themes. Click the Feature Filter link to filter the results based on the Tags you specify. There are Tags for Layout, Features and Subject.
Alternatively, click the Search themes… input field and enter text to search for a specific theme.
Hovering your cursor over each theme thumbnail will display extra buttons. To view the details of a theme along with a preview, click the large Details & Preview button or the smaller Preview button. Clicking the Install button will download and install the theme on your site. After the theme is installed, you will be given the choice to view a Live Preview, immediately Activate the theme or return to the Theme Installer.
On the Add Themes page, you also have the option to manually upload a theme to your site. To upload a theme, click the Upload Theme button at the top of the page.
Select your theme file from your computer by clicking the Browse… button. Your theme file must be uploaded in .zip format.
After clicking the Install Now button, your theme will be automatically uploaded to your site and installed. You are then given the option to preview the theme, activate the theme or return to the Themes page.
Using the Customizer, you can modify certain parts of your website. When you click on the Customize menu option you’ll be shown the various theme options that you can change. Depending on the theme that is currently in use, you may see more or less options than those displayed in the following image.
Clicking the small arrows will open and close each of the panels, giving you access to each of the various options. You’ll find that some of the options in the Customize screen are also available via other menu options. As an example, you can change the Site Title and Tagline within the Site Identity panel in the Customizer, as well as by using the General option under the Settings menu.
As you make your changes on the left-hand side of the Customize screen, the live preview on the right-hand side is automatically updated. You can also use the live preview window on the right-hand side of the page to navigate around your site.
By default, the Customizer will show your homepage in the preview window. Not all Customizer options affect the homepage though. You’ll find that some options in the Customizer may also affect other parts of your site such as your blog, or static Pages. You can browse around your site in the live preview window to view these other pages, just like you would when viewing your site in a separate browser window.
Until you click the Publish button, only the theme preview is updated, not the theme on your live site.
By default, your changes are published immediately when you click the Publish button. By clicking on the small cog icon () next to the Publish button, you can also elect to save a draft of your changes, or have them automatically published at a later scheduled date and time of your choosing.
To help with testing your site across various devices, the Customizer also allows you to preview your site in mobile, tablet and desktop views. At the bottom of the Customizer panel, click one of the view icons ( ) to change your site preview so that you can get an idea of how it will display on a regular desktop, a tablet or smartphone device.
Widgets are independent sections of content that can be placed into any widgetized area provided by your theme. Although these widgetized areas are commonly called ‘Sidebars’ and are quite often located in the left or right-hand column, they can be also located anywhere within your site and are entirely dependent on the current theme as to their location. Lots of themes use these widgetized sidebars in the footer area.
There are numerous widgets available by default which allow you to add extra content to your site, such as Recent Comments, Categories or Custom Menus, just to name a few. New Widgets can also be installed via plugins and again, depending what the plugin is used for the extra functionality it brings to your site will vary.
The Available Widgets section contains all the widgets you may choose from. To populate one of your Sidebars, drag and drop a widget to the desired location. Once the Widget is dragged to a Sidebar, the widget will open up to allow you to configure its settings. Click the Save button within the Widget to save your settings.
If you want to remove a widget from a Sidebar but save its settings for future use, drag it into the Inactive Widgets section. If you simply want to delete the Widget from your Sidebar, click the Delete link within the Widget.
The small arrow next to the Sidebar title will toggle the sidebar open and closed. If you drag and drop a widget onto a closed sidebar, the sidebar and widget will automatically open.
The Header menu option will only be available if your current Theme is making use of this option. It allows you to choose an image (or if your theme supports it, a video) to display in the header area of your site. Clicking the Header menu option will take you to the Header Media panel in the Customizer. In the default Twenty Seventeen theme, the Customizer panel is called Header Media as it supports both images and video. In other themes it may be called Header Image if the theme doesn’t support video headers.
You can select one of your previously uploaded images or you can upload a new image by clicking the Add new image button. If you’re using the Twenty Seventeen theme, the header also supports video so you can select one of your previously uploaded videos or you can also choose to upload a new video by clicking the Select Video button. If you have videos that you’ve previously uploaded to YouTube, you can also enter a YouTube URL in the appropriate field. To save your changes, click the Save & Publish button at the top of the page. Again, depending on the theme you’re using you may or may not have this Header option.
The Background menu option is another theme specific menu. It allows you to choose a background image for your site. Clicking the Backgroundmenu option will take you to the Background Image panel in the Customizer. You can select one of your previously uploaded images or you can upload a new image by clicking the Select Image button. To save your changes, click the Save & Publish button at the top of the page. Again, depending on the theme you’re currently using you may or may not have this Background option.
The Editor menu allows you to edit the individual CSS and PHP files which make up your Theme. Normally once a theme is installed and configured on your site, there’s no need to make any changes within here. Extreme care should be taken with this option to avoid making changes to files that will affect how your site is displayed. Incorrectly modifying any files within this section can cause your site to display incorrectly or at worst, not at all. Extra caution must be taken if you intend to make any changes here.
| It cannot be stressed enough how dangerous this option is if you know nothing about HTML, CSS or PHP. Modifying your theme files can drastically change how your site displays and depending on what gets changed, can even stop your site from displaying altogether. |
