Question for the Wordpress go to guys

[Rick Buffkin]

I'm switching over to WordPress as a CMS for a couple of my micro-sites and I keep running into a small speed-bump. I want to have multiple themes on a single install of WP. I can't find a plugin that allows me to do this. There are plugins for how different users visit your site (ie: mobile or desktop). I've been using Joomla as a CMS for a long time and Joomla allows you to have different themes for individual pages. In other words what I'm looking for is to have different themes for each profit center (Service is diff from Parts, Parts is diff from Sales, New is diff from Used, etc..). In the Joomla admin panel, it's very simple. Just select the theme you want from your collection for that page and your done. Do you guys have any advice on how I can accomplish this with WP. Knowing my luck, it's a pretty simple fix and I'm overlooking it. As always, any help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Jerry Thibeau]

That's a tough one. I don't know of one. The guy to ask would be David Moon, but he's out grown us.

 

[kcar]

Never heard of that for Wordpress.. At most everyone just makes a bunch of wordpress installs on unique domains and runs different themes on each page. So Dealership could be one install + one theme. And domain name for sale or lease could be another install + another theme.. Then you can use a wordpress plugin to manage all of your sites together and edit them at once.

 

[kcar]

Sorry the forum changed my links? Also to be honest, I wouldn't run a ton of different themes. You need to continually update wordpress to protect your site, and it can mess up the themes. It's always best to work with one theme and customize it from there with plugins and widgets.

 

[yagoparamo]

Rick,

Plug in is not what you think... it means that someone wrote code to perform a task and that you can re-code it for the task that you need ad you don't have to do it from scratch. Plug ins make life easier because you can adapt things rather than writing the whole thing.

By playing just with a plug in you will find that most of the time they don't do exactly what you need them to do so you either live with their lack of features, options, or get to change the code.

 

[kcar]

WordPress Multiple Domains on One Codebase | Shawn Plep

 

[Chris Cachor]

Hey Rick,

You're going to want to go with Wordpress Multi-site (Wordpress MU). With this, you'll segment your database by site to allow settings, users, etc to be saved by individual site. So, in your case install-able themes for each site. Here's the link to research some more. The only thing I think you'll need is access to edit the virtual hosts file on your server to allow wildcard sub-domains. You may have trouble getting this done on shared hosting, but most virtual hosting plans will allow you to edit this file.

From there, you can create CNAME records in your domain registrar to point to those, so

service.websitename.com => myservicesite.com
parts.websitename.com => mypartswebsite.com

You'll be able to access this all from one login and only have one codebase to maintain, which is really nice

I can explain some more, but I think the link has enough info to get you started. PM me if you need more info.

 

[Rick Buffkin]

Thanks for the help and advice guys. I greatly appreciate it! The problem I'm running into is one of the websites requires the visitors to register to gain access to the site. With my current setup right now with Joomla, once the consumer registers on the website, a confirmation email is sent to the email address they imputed that contains a unique control number / ID number and a unique confirmation link. They have to open their email and confirm the registration by clicking on the confirmation link. They have one user name / password to access the entire site. From my current understanding with WP, the user would have to re-enter their UN / PW each time they clicked on a profit center if I go with multiple themes if I understand this correctly because they are separate sites. Please let me know if I not correct.

 

[Chris Cachor]

Rick,

Yep, that's a much deeper problem! Unfortunately, this is where a full blown CMS like Joomla runs circles around Wordpress. Is the user only allowed to login to the site they registered on or would this be considered a "network" of sites? I have one other option for you that may work, and that's just to dynamically switch the style-sheets out when the page loads. Could you provide any links?

 

[ZBennett]

Also:

Mastering Your WordPress Theme Hacks and Techniques - Noupe

Have a different template for specific Category
So, if you want to make the Category whose ID number is 7 look different from what it is currently (and different from other Category pages), just create a category-7.php template file (or whatever your category ID is) in your current theme folder and customize it as you please. WordPress automatically checks for this, and will use the file if it exists. Please notice how we added the “-” and after it the id number of the category.


That site has a wealth of knowledge. I recently installed and customized wordpress for the first time.

Make sure to always check this too:

The Very First Steps After a Fresh WordPress Install | CSS-Tricks