jspura Jan 30, 2017 · 11:22 pm #5854 Hi all, I’m using the Ultra theme on wordpress for my first website and I have the site synced up to Transmit, so I can easily download the specific files to my desktop, edit in my text editor, and have it show directly online.
But I’m having trouble navigating around to see just where my content to edit is. For example, my site has a simple nav-bar menu that has 4 links/page to it. One of the pages is my ‘projects’ page. It is called http://www.myhomepage.com/?page_id=8. So I’m looking for this inside my Ultra theme folder, within my wp-content folder.
Where do I find this page?? I just want to use it for editing in my text editor, instead of directly through the WP dashboard.
Thank you!
Andrew Misplon Puro Jan 31, 2017 · 2:29 am #5858 Hi 🙂
Thanks for reaching out.
All WordPress themes completely overwrite their own folder during theme updates so it’s important to not make any edits to the theme files directly. If you want to make edits you’ll need to use a child theme. Your content won’t ever be visible via FTP, your content is outputted dynamically via PHP in the files you see in the theme. If you let me know what you’d like to change I can advise the best way to go about that.
jspura Jan 31, 2017 · 4:48 am #5860 For example I am wanting to input my own div classes and organize a projects section that displays a title and then an image, with maybe 3 projects per row. I would like to do this in my separate text editor, then when I save it, it will automatically save the new one to my files in the server, so I can see the updates live online.
How do you suggest I go about this? I also want to know for future reference, as I will be working with themes going forward and want to add my own classes for styling purposes etc. I also want to be backing up my files so this type of content is safe, as well as the theme configurations themselves.
url: http://www.juliansalari.com
projects page: http://www.juliansalari.com/?page_id=8
Thank you.
Andrew Misplon Puro Jan 31, 2017 · 5:24 am #5862 Theme settings and content are saved in the database so you’d back them up the same way as you would backup WordPress as a whole. There are many options for this, I don’t have a personal preference to recommend.
Whenever editing a theme at a code level you must work from a child theme. Here is an explanation of child themes: https://purothemes.com/documentation/general-wordpress/creating-child-theme/ and here is a starter child theme for Ultra: https://purothemes.com/documentation/ultra-theme/child-theme-library/.
If you only need to make design level changes then it would be best to just work with the CSS selectors that exist on the page already. You can add Custom CSS from Appearance > Customize > Additional CSS or use a plugin like Simple Custom CSS.
For your projects page, I’d recommend using Page Builder by SiteOrigin, you could insert custom classes at a widget or row level using Page Builder.
If you want to add custom template files for your project page then you’ll need to understand a bit about WordPress template hierarchy: https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/basics/template-hierarchy/.
To take a step back for a moment, I’d recommend this. You could install Jetpack (plugin) and enable https://jetpack.com/support/custom-content-types/. That’ll add a new post type to WordPress called Portfolio. You could then add templates to your child theme that specifically target this post type.
If you just need to control the layout of a page with a few projects then using Page Builder by SiteOrigin and adding classes as required via the widget or row sidebar would be the quickest solution.
jspura Feb 1, 2017 · 3:09 am #5866 Thank you I will check these out!
Andrew Misplon Puro Feb 1, 2017 · 3:30 am #5867 Sorry my reply wasn’t clearer. At this stage your question is still quite high level, hence all the different thoughts I had. If you want to quickly customize a few blocks using your own classes then Page Builder by SiteOrigin would be useful. You could design the layout, add widgets to each block and add classes via Page Builder. If you want a custom post type and want to style that using template files then adding Jetpack Post Types, a child theme and files to target the post type would be the way to go, lots more time and work though.