[Resolved] new to word press – is this going to be too hard for me?

Hi rod2

Thanks for reaching out.

WordPress.org has pretty strict rules on what’s allowed in themes and what isn’t. Anything that is considered plugin territory isn’t allowed, lightboxes are a good example of that. My favourite gallery lightbox combo is:

Jetpack Tiled Galleries: http://jetpack.me/support/tiled-galleries/
Jetpack Carousel: http://jetpack.me/support/carousel/

Ideally you should be able to build your site without touching a line of code. A build process usually goes something like:

• Do everything you can with theme settings.
• Add additional functionality using plugins.
• Tweak a little using Custom CSS if necessary.

Ultra, unfortunately, doesn’t have any functionality to handle a splash page. Here are a few plugins you might consider for that task:
https://wordpress.org/plugins/search.php?q=splash+page

If you’re after a simple, minimalist theme you could also check out our first theme, Puro: https://purothemes.com/themes/puro/

To answer your initial question. No, it should be relatively straightforward to build your site out using Ultra or any theme of your choosing 🙂