Learning instead of creating… for now.

I started out working on not one, but two themes over the past few days and realized that while I do have a lot of CSS knowledge, I’m still a little lacking in the practice and experience departments.

I read through HTMLDog‘s CSS tutorial, beginner, intermediate and advanced and while I already knew most of what was there, I did manage to pick up a few things, like what it means when there are two numbers for the font separated by a slash. The first is font-size, the second is line-height.

I had been using and modifying the drop-down, flyout CSS menus from WordPress’s TwentyTen theme, but decided instead to try to understand, intimately, how it worked by creating my own menu system.

There has been a lot of frustration, but I’m starting to get it, and I’m learning a lot about the intricacies of CSS at the same time. I think I’ll continue doing this for a while, before I post my first free theme.

I also have a little more to learn about the ins and outs of WordPress before I’ll be fully satisfied. For example, I now realize that for any extra functionality, I must include it in the theme itself and can’t rely on plugins. It would be nice to be able to embed the plugins right into the theme, but sadly I don’t think that’s possible.

So, still a little more learning to go before I release my first masterpiece on the world. It’s for the best anyway. You don’t want to see my first theme. Really, you don’t.