Author: Purab

Earlier 960 grid system was very popular among the wordpress theme developers. But 960 grid system is becoming older. Now days 978 grid system is becoming very popular. So I decided to create wordpress theme with 978 grid system.

how to develop wordpress theme with 978 grid system

In this article I will tell you how to create the wordpress theme with 978 grid system. For this you dont need to the PHP or wordpress API knowledge. If you are having basic HTML and CSS knowledge then also you can easily create the wordpress theme with 978 grid system. Main advantage of creating wordpress theme with grid system is SEO. If you add the grid system in your wordpress theme then that will be helpful for SEO also.

• Setup the local development environment and wordpress

For local wordpress theme development you need to install PHP, Mysql, apache on your computer or laptop.If you are using the windows then you can install wamp or xxamp server on your machine. If you are using Linux or Max then you need to install the PHP, Mysql, Apache to your PC.

After Server setup first install the wordpress to your local box. Then go to your wordpress installation folder. Go to WordPress root folder and open following folder.

wp-content->themes

Start developing new wordpress theme with 978 grid system.

• Create new theme folder in themes folder. (you can keep name as per your choice. I kept grid978 name for my wordpress theme)

• For creating wordpress theme following files need to be created in theme folder(for me in grid978 folder)

style.css – The main stylesheet. This must be included with your Theme, and it must contain the information header for your Theme.
index.php –  The main template. If your Theme provides its own templates, index.php must be present.
comments.php – The comments template.
single.php –  The single post template. Used when a single post is queried. For this and all other query templates, index.php is used if the query template is not present.
page.php – the page template. Used when an individual Page is queried.
author.php – The author template. Used when an author is queried.
archive.php –  The archive template. Used when a category, author, or date is queried. Note that this template will be overridden by category.php, author.php, and date.php for their respective query types.
search.php – The search results template. Used when a search is performed.
attachment.php –  Attachment template. Used when viewing a single attachment.
image.php – Image attachment template. Used when viewing a single image attachment. If not present, attachment.php will be used.

Or If you are not having knowlege of creating those files then you can download the empty wordpress theme or you can download wordpress framework. Check following article and download empty framework.

List of free wordpress theme frameworks for wordpress theme developer

I always like the Twenty ten wordpress theme. If you are not having good knowledge of CSS then you need to download this theme form following URL. After downloading copy paste the all the files in to your theme folder.

Twenty Ten

Or If you are having good knowledge of CSS then you can download the complete naked and blank wordpress theme from following URL: (I used the starkers wodpress framework)

http://starkerstheme.com/

• Download the 978 grid system

Then go to following site and download the 978 grid system.

http://978.gs/

I downloaded the zip file called brothersroloff-978-Grid-System-9bea20f.zip file. I extracted the folder.The package comes with a lot of files. I just coped the 978 Templates\CS978.css file in my wordpress theme folder. I opened the file and copied css code into my theme style.php file.

• Change your Theme name

Open your style.css file and put following code in that file.

/*
Theme Name:grid978
Theme URI:https://purabtech.in
Description:The completely 978 grid system ready wordpress theme (Based on Twenty Ten)
Version:1.0
Author:purabtech.in
Author URI:https://purabtech.in
Tags:wordpressapi, grid, 978 grid, 3 column, clean, basic
*/

you need to change the theme name and other information as per your choice.

Create Screenshot.png file with size on 400 width and 350 height and put that in your theme folder. Now if you check your theme in wordpress admin section. Your theme will be visible in wordpress admin section.

• Use Reset CSS in style.css file

You need to use the following style code in your style.css file for applying the reset CSS.

html, body, div, span, applet, object, iframe,
h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, p, blockquote, pre,
a, abbr, acronym, address, big, cite, code,
del, dfn, em, font, img, ins, kbd, q, s, samp,
small, strike, strong, sub, sup, tt, var,
b, u, i, center,
dl, dt, dd, ol, ul, li,
fieldset, form, label, legend,
table, caption, tbody, tfoot, thead, tr, th, td{background:transparent; border:0; margin:0; padding:0; vertical-align:baseline}
body{line-height:1}

h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6{clear:both; font-family:Helvetica,Arial,verdana,sans-serif}
ol, ul{list-style:none}
blockquote{quotes:none}
blockquote:before, blockquote:after{content:''; content:none}
del{text-decoration:line-through}
/* tables still need 'cellspacing="0"' in the markup */
table{border-collapse:collapse; border-spacing:0}
a img{border:none}

If you taken the twenty ten theme as a base then you dont need to put reset css in that file.

• Select your grid system and layout for your wordpress theme.

I planned the keep 390px as sidebar area and 558px as content area. For more information you can check following image.

Plan your layout for developing the wordpress theme with grid 978 system. I planned the following layout for creating the wordpress theme.

• Start using the 978 grid system for building the theme

Note :In this tutorial I am given the whole wordpress theme files for download with all the assets. You can download the our grid978 wordpress theme and check the code.

For setting the main container. I first opened the header.php file and inserted the following code after the body tag.

<div class='layout-978'>

Then I opened the footer.php file and before wp_footer() function put the close div code.

• Setting header and menu section using 978 grid system.

Open your header.php file and after ‘layout-978’ div put following code in file.

<div class='row header'>

// Here is all header and menu code

</div>

• Setting footer section using 978 grid system.

Open your footer.php file and after ‘layout-978’ div put following code in file.

<div class='row footer'>

// Here is all footer code

</div>

• Setting up the main content area and sidebar area with grid 978 system

Using following code you can set the main content area and sidebar.

<div class='row'>
<div class='col7'>
// Main content Area
// This block code used in loop.php, single.php and page.php file
</div>
<div class='col5'>
// Top Side bar Area
// This block code used in sidebar.php file
</div>
<div class='col5'>
// Main Side bar Area
// This block code used in sidebar.php file
<div class='col2'>
// Primary Side bar Area
// This block code used in sidebar.php file
</div>
<div class='col3'>
// Secondary Side bar Area
// This block code used in sidebar.php file
</div>
</div>

For this I used the header.php, footer.php, singe.php, page.php and sidebar.php file.

Note : In this tutorial I am given the whole wordpress theme files for download with all the assets. You can download the our grid978 wordpress theme and check the code.

• Set the content width for your theme

Open your functions.php file and find the following code and replace it to

if ( ! isset( $content_width ) )
 $content_width = 558;

• Set the menu with CSS style

For multilevel menu support you need to put the following code in to your style.css file.

/* =Menu
-------------------------------------------------------------- */
#access{display:block; float:left; background:#51011f; margin:0 auto; width:978px; border-bottom:1px solid #28000f}
#access .menu-header,
div.menu{font-size:14px; font-weight:bold; margin-left:0px; width:978px; text-shadow:1px 1px 1px #000}
#access .menu-header ul,
div.menu ul{list-style:none; margin:0}
#access .menu-header li,
div.menu li{float:left; position:relative}
#access a{color:#fff; display:block; line-height:34px; /*line-height:38px; */padding:0 10px; text-decoration:none}
#access ul ul{box-shadow:0px 3px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.2); -moz-box-shadow:0px 3px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.2); -webkit-box-shadow:0px 3px 3px rgba(0,0,0,0.2); display:none; position:absolute; top:34px; left:0; float:left; width:180px; z-index:99999}
#access ul ul li{min-width:180px}
#access ul ul ul{left:100%; top:0}
#access ul ul a{background:#51011f; line-height:1em; padding:10px; width:160px; height:auto; opacity:0.9; color:#fff}
#access li:hover >a,
#access ul ul:hover >a{color:#B8F01C}
#access ul li:hover >ul{display:block}
#access ul li.current_page_item >a,
#access ul li.current-menu-ancestor >a,
#access ul li.current-menu-item >a,
#access ul li.current-menu-parent >a{color:#fff; background:transparent url(images/arrow2.png) top center no-repeat}
#access ul ul li.current_page_item >a,
#access ul ul li.current-menu-ancestor >a,
#access ul ul li.current-menu-item >a,
#access ul ul li.current-menu-parent >a{color:#fff; background:#853E08}
* html #access ul li.current_page_item a,
* html #access ul li.current-menu-ancestor a,
* html #access ul li.current-menu-item a,
* html #access ul li.current-menu-parent a,
* html #access ul li a:hover{color:#fff; background:#853E08}

You can change this code as per your wordpress design and colors.

• Set the footer widget area

Open your functions.php file and find and replace the following code.

find before_widget section for footer section and add the div with class “col3”. I used the 222px grid size for footer widget section.

You can add this code in sidebar-footer.php file also. you just need to add the div with class “col3” before all widgets.

Your wordpress theme is completed with 978 grid system. You can change and add more styles to your wordpress theme as per your design and colors.

• How theme is looking

After creating theme is looking as follows:

• How to mange the widget section the grid978 wordpress theme.

If you check your wordpress admin area. Go to appearance->Widgets section. This will look as follows:

Apart from this you can mange the Menu, Background and header image from this wordpress theme.

You can download the complete source code here.

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Download Source Code

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If you want to see the Demo of Grid978 wordpress theme then you need to check following URL:

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Grid978 Theme Demo | Download

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This 978 gird system based free wordpress theme framework is created by purabtech.in. If you are having any doubts about developing wordpress theme with 978 grid system then you can write to me on wordpressapi@gmail.com