The power of the WordPress platform absolutely amazes me! I recently finished a project for a design company called TwistnShout which completely stretched everything I knew WordPress could do and then some.

TwistnShout main page with area to highlight recent projects.

The portfolio pages have a different sidebar file for each category which allows for the groups of thumbnails to change and be used for navigation.

The basic look of the site was given to me by the owner of the company, who is an amazing print designer. Amy knew the look she wanted, but she wanted a site that she could maintain on her own in the future. Based on her desire to make future modifications on her own, I knew WordPress would be the platform of choice. We hired Brian Gardner to create the site’s basic structure in the form of a custom theme that used multiple template pages and did not contain the comment features, and other typical blog elements.

Once Brian coded the basic structure, I was able to add the content, tweak the design and challenge myself even more.

Each primary section of content - the copy that Amy will most likely change from time to time - was created using a WordPress page or subpage. The side bar (right and left) content was hard coded in using individual theme files.

Amy wanted the testimonial quotes in the who we are section to change depending on which team member’s bio you were reviewing. She also wanted different navigation for each project type in her portfolio. This took some creative thinking, but I was able to achieve this level of customization through the use of detailed theme files. Each main navigation item already had a unique template that called the correct left navigation, center content and right sidebar. I just took it a step further by creating sublevel template and theme pages.

The development of the TwistnShout site was truly a team effort. Amy knew what she wanted and was willing to let Brian and I challenge the WordPress platform to create a scalable, professional looking portfolio site for her company.

I have lost count of the number of people who have asked, “Is that really WordPress?” To which I have been able to reply, yes it is!

Servers crash, databases notoriously corrupt and then there is the ever present human error factor! So what do you do when you are going about your daily business, check on your web site and see this:

Your beautiful, content-rich, ever popular site is gone!!! Oh no!

Super blogger, Gayla McCord of MomGadget  saw this exact message the other day. She hadn’t done anything other than go into her WordPress dashboard and approved a comment. At the time, she was not really concerned as to why it happened, rather she needed to know how to FIX IT and fast.

Luckily for Gayla, she had a good copy of her WordPress install on her local machine and the simple fix was to just upload the wp-config.php file again. The upload fixed the problem and MomGadget.com was up and running again.

The php files that give WordPress all its muscle are picky! Sometimes all it takes to send them off into a frenzy is a missing character (been there, done that) or forgetting to close up a tag (done that too). Sometimes it is simple hiccup on the server side. A while back my permalinks went all funky. It was a simple fix - if you knew what to do - just go into the permalinks area of your WordPress dashboard and reset them to default, save, then go back in and then reset your custom structure.

My advice to you is to always keep a good copy of your WordPress install on your local machine. When an error arises, try reloading the indicated file first.

Back up your actual WordPress database regularly, too!! April Groves of Making Life Work for You recently experienced this one when her web hosting went bad. Chris Cree of SuccessCREEations was able to help her restore everything, but she did lose some of her comments.

And just for good measure, you should also backup your daily data on a regular basis! Web sites are not the only thing that crash.

If you find yourself in a situation where things have gone awry:

1. Reload your basic WordPress files
2. Restore your database
3. Check with your web host - have they done any updates lately? Had any servers crash? Do they have a recent back up of your site?
4. Check the WordPress codex to see if any of the plugins you use are conflicting with another one.
5. Check the WordPress support forum to see if anyone else has experienced the same error - chances are, they have
6. Put out a call on your blog (if you can) or ask a blogging friend to put out a call for you. You would be amazed at the knowledge and generosity of the WordPress community.

Thankfully Gayla and April have happy endings to their recent WordPress scares! Have you got any WordPress survival stories? Feel free to share them with us - we all benefit!

Note: This is one in a series of tutorials on customizing your WordPress theme geared to the beginning or intermediate WordPress user.

One of the easiest ways to customize a basic WordPress Theme is by changing the background. Using this step-by-step guide, even novice bloggers can make small changes that will have a big impact!

When you first install WordPress the default template is loaded and it looks something like this:

In order to make changes to it, you need to first log in to your WordPress dashboard, choose Presentation and then Theme Editor. On the right hand side you will see a list of files you can edit. Select style.css.

Scroll down to the part of the code labeled body. In that code block you will see a line that says background. This is the part of the code that tells the template what color and/or background image to display. If you just want to change the background color and do not want an image in the background, you can easily change it.

I deleted the piece of code starting with “url” and replaced the color code with one for a deep red - #990000 (see a complete list of color names and codes). Once you make your change, select Update File and go take a look at your results.

Let’s say you want to get a bit fancier and would prefer to use one of the many beautiful free backgrounds available on the web (check my list of 13 sites for Beautiful Patterns and Backgrounds first). In which case, you need to find the background you want to use and download it. Use an FTP program (Need help? See my FTP tutorial for details) to transfer the .gif or .jpg file into the theme’s image directory.

Once the file is there, go back into your WordPress dashboard, select Presentation, then Theme Editor and open up the style.css file again. Take a look at the background line of code again and change kubrickbgcolor.jpg to the name of the background image you want to use - in my case, distressed-in-blue.gif (from Din Pattern).

Select Update File and take a look at your handy work.

Each theme you use is going to coded a bit differently, but the majority of them should operate very similarly to this - especially the ones that are well-coded. Once you get comfortable working with the style sheet and its components, it is relatively easy to make basic customization changes.

I plan on adding more tutorials to this series in the near future with one on adding a graphical header, customizing your fonts and colors, as well as other basic WordPress techniques. If there is any particular topic you would like me to deal with sooner rather than later, let me know!