Title: Getting Started
Last modified: August 20, 2016

---

# Getting Started

 *  [davidkavanaugh](https://wordpress.org/support/users/davidkavanaugh/)
 * (@davidkavanaugh)
 * [14 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/getting-started-22/)
 * Hello. I searched through for a while and I wasn’t able to find my specific question.
 * I am new to dynamic site design. The only knowledge i have is html and css. I’m
   trying to figure out how to use wordpress as a cms and how to develop themes 
   from scratch. I have searched online, watched videos at lynda.com, and read a
   couple of dummies books. But I don’t seem to have enough basic knowledge to know
   where to start. I don’t have the money to take classes on this stuff, so any 
   guidance will be appreciated.
 * How can I go from being an html and css editor to being a php/mysql/.net/asp/
   wordpress/etc. WIZARD?
 * What did you do to get where you are? What did the pros do?

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

 *  [mchelles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mchelles/)
 * (@mchelles)
 * [14 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/getting-started-22/#post-2343430)
 * I would start with first setting up an XAMPP server on your computer, this gives
   you a nice playground for experimenting with wordpress and themes without being
   on a live server.
 * Nice tutorial here:
    [http://www.thespinningdonut.com/setting-up-wordpress-on-your-pc/](http://www.thespinningdonut.com/setting-up-wordpress-on-your-pc/)
 * Once you do that, then take the default 2010 theme and look at the different 
   parts of it. You’ll see basically what you have is an html template broken up
   into 6-10 different files (ie: header.php, index.php, single.php, page.php, footer.
   php, sidebar.php).
 * The html/css is the same – what’s different is that instead where there are normally
   words, you have php code…so instead of displaying “Hello World!” as the post 
   title it will show `<php the_title()? >
 * From there it is just about trial and error and messing around with various tutorials
   online – for example you can experiment with making posts loop based on categories
   or start writing your own wordpress functions/filters/hooks. (See the WordPress
   Codex and read and re-read it until you can quote it verbatim, lol). It is helpful
   to study other themes and plugins too. WordPress is GPL, so often times you can
   copy/paste/alter pretty much anything that already exists – no need to start 
   completely from scratch.
 * If there’s someone locally near you who can show the ins and outs of coding wordpress
   that can be helpful too 🙂

Viewing 1 replies (of 1 total)

The topic ‘Getting Started’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [beginner](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/beginner/)
 * [learning](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/learning/)

 * In: [Fixing WordPress](https://wordpress.org/support/forum/how-to-and-troubleshooting/)
 * 1 reply
 * 2 participants
 * Last reply from: [mchelles](https://wordpress.org/support/users/mchelles/)
 * Last activity: [14 years, 7 months ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/getting-started-22/#post-2343430)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics