Installing Thesis 1.6 for the First Time
Installing Thesis 1.6 for the first time can be a daunting task, especially if you have little experience with WordPress, FTP programs, or file permissions. But setting up Thesis is not hard, and this guide offers step-by-step instructions to installation along with plenty of illustrations to help you. The tutorial follows the standard Thesis 1.6 installation process.
Before you start the installation
1. Make sure WordPress is installed on your server. This may sound silly, but there are more than a few support requests on the forum where the user has not installed WordPress yet.
2. Download the Thesis zip file from DIYthemes and unzip it on your computer. There will be a Thesis_16 folder after you do so.
3. Be sure you know how to change file permissions. If you’re uncertain, read the article “How to Change File and Folder Permissions.”
4. Make sure you know how to upload files. If you use an FTP program on your computer, usually you can just drag the folder from your computer onto the proper place in your FTP program and drop it. If you are using cPanel or a similar host program, refer to “File Management Using cPanel.”
If you haven’t thought about an FTP program for your computer yet, maybe it’s time to do so. Check out the articles “FTP Programs and Text Editors for Windows Users” or “FTP Programs and Text Editors for the Mac” for free FTP and editor programs. They will make file operations and customization a lot easier.
5. Read all the instructions below before you start.
Now, for the DIYthemes instructions and my comments:
1. Upload the new Thesis 1.6 folder to your /wp-content/themes folder.
Figure 1: The /wp-content and /themes folders
1. Locate the /wp-content folder in your root directory. Inside it will be a folder called /themes. The folder structure will look like Figure 1.
2. Upload the entire Thesis_16 folder you unzipped on your computer to the /themes folder. Do not upload individual files!
Figure 2: Thesis has been uploaded to the /themes folder
3. When you are finished, you will see the /thesis_16 folder within the /themes folder, as in Figure 2.
2. Locate the /custom-sample folder and change its name to /custom.
Figure 3: Thesis custom-sample folder before renaming
1. Open your /thesis_16 folder and locate the /custom-sample folder within it. It will look like figure 3.
Figure 4: The Thesis folder with the custom-sample folder renamed to custom
2. Rename the folder “custom.” When you are done, your Thesis folder should look like Figure 4.
3. Locate the layout.css file inside your newly-renamed /custom folder, and change its permissions to 666
Figure 5: The custom folder's contents
1. Find the layout.css file within your /thesis_16/custom folder and highlight it.
Figure 6: The layout.css file and the file dialog
2. Most FTP programs allow you to right-click on the file to bring up a dialog similar to the one in Figure 6. Choose “Get Info,” “File Properties,” or similar wording. Refer to the cPanel article mentioned above if you are using that program.
Figure 7: Changing the file permissions on layout.css
1. A file properties dialog will pop up. Choose “Permissions” or similar wording.
2. If there is a box that you can enter the file permission numbers, enter 666. If not, set file permissions to Owner: Read, Write; Group: Read, Write; and Others: Read, Write. “Owner,” “Group,” and “Others” may be worded differently, but they will be close enough to figure out.
3. Click the “Apply,” “Save,” “OK” or similar button to save your changes.
4. Change the permissions of your /custom/cache folder to 775.
The full instructions read,
[optional but highly recommended] If you’d like to give Thesis the ability to auto-crop thumbnail images for you, then you’ll want to change the permissions of your
/custom/cachefolder to 775.
Trust me, you will want to have Thesis to do this for you, so you need to change the permissions!
1. Locate the /cache folder. Open up your /custom folder.The /cache folder is within the /custom folder within your /thesis_16 folder as shown in Figure 5.
Figure 8: Changing the file permissions on the /cache folder
2. Use the same procedure you did when changing the layout.css file’s permissions: Highlight the /cache folder, right-click on it, and get to the “Permissions” panel in the file dialog.
If there is a box that you can enter the file permission numbers, enter 775. If not, set file permissions to Owner: Read, Write, Execute; Group: Read, Write, Execute; and Others: Read, Write, Execute. “Owner,” “Group,” and “Others” may be worded differently, but they will be close enough to figure out.
3. Click the “Apply,” “Save,” “OK” or similar button to save your changes.
5. Inside your WordPress dashboard, go to Appearance -> Themes, and then activate Thesis 1.6.
1. To get to your Administration panel, type “your-domain-name/wp-admin” in your browser. For example, I type in the following to get to the Thesis Theme Tools Admin panel:
thesisthemetools.com/wp-admin
2. In the menu on the left in your Administration panel click on “Appearance,” then on “Themes”
Figure 9: The themes panel with the Thesis 1.6 theme
3. Click on the Thesis 1.6 theme image shown in Figure 9. You will be taken to a simulation of how it will look (but believe me, it never looks right!). Click on “Activate Theme” in the upper right corner to make Thesis 1.6 the active theme.
Figure 10: The Thesis 1.6 Options panel
4. You will be taken to the Thesis Options panel, as shown in Figure 10.
6. You’re done!
The full instruction reads,
You’re done, but make sure you check out both the Thesis Options and Design Options pages that now exist inside your WordPress Dashboard. You’ll be able to do things like set up your navigation menu, set fonts and font sizes, select your layout, and much, much more. To put it simply, this is the part of Thesis you don’t want to miss!
Now it’s time to see your blog in Thesis 1.6 for the first time! It will be the spartan look of the fresh install, but you will change that, won’t you?
I hope these instructions have been clear and helpful. Feel free to make a comment, or if you want to email me, click on the “Contact” button in the nav bar.
©2009 Michael L Nichols. All rights reserved.
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great post, very helpful!
Thanks, Mike, very helpful! Worked perfectly. :)
Happy New Year Mike!!
I was side tracked with some research for a few days niche research, keywords, domain etc. and just finished installing 1.6 on a new site. Your directions were just what I needed!
Now the learning starts.
Thanks
Hi,
After reading your instructions for first time users, I think I shouldn’t have bought thesis. I have no experience with websites and I thought I would be able to do this. Before I ask for a refund, I will ask for help and maybe my questions will be an indicator if I overshot my abilities.
1} I don’t have a server, I have bought a place to host my website at Fasthosts. Is this ok or do I need to buy a server?
2) If I don’t need a server, what do I do now? I have downloaded Thesis and how do send (what?) to where or to Fasthosts ?
3) Do I need another program to write my website now, where do learn to write html?
4) Thanks for taking the time to laugh at me and with me in my situation.
Tim
Thanks! Only for me it didn’t work to upload the unzipped files. (WP didn’t recognize Thesis as a theme). I did a standard zipped install and then changed permissions with Cyberduck (my ftp client). I hope this will work just as well? Please tell me if this will potentially cause any problems later.
Hi, Tim,
1. You do have a server — your host, Fasthosts, reserved space on one of their servers for you when you subscribed with them. You don’t need to buy anything else.
2. You need to install WordPress in your domain account with Fasthosts, then install Thesis. The WordPress installation is explained in the Thesis Theme Tools article http://thesisthemetools.com/installing-wordpress-using-fantastico/
3. You do not need another program at all. WordPress and Thesis will write all the HTML for you. Later, if you want to customize your site, you might need to learn HTML. Both SAMS and the Visual Guide series have good books for learning the language.
There is a very good book that you should consider getting — I’ve used it myself. It’s called “WordPress for Dummies” by Lisa Sabin-Wilson. It is the most comprehensive, easy-to-understand resource I know of. It probably is available at your local bookstore, or can be found on Amazon at http://www.amazon.com/WordPress-Dummies-Computer-Tech/dp/0470402962/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1261880175&sr=8-1
Lots and lots of people completely new to websites have set up their domains with WordPress and a theme like Thesis. It’s really not hard to do if you understand each step. The “WordPress for Dummies” book will help a lot. So don’t despair! You can do it!
Hello, Peter,
Sometimes there are files missing when you copy the folder from your computer, and you won’t know it until you start using the theme. If WordPress didn’t recognize Thesis as a theme, then some essential files didn’t get copied.
Copying the Thesis zip file works just as well (though not covered in this article) and should cause you no trouble in the future.
Hi, that’s probably the issue (missing files) I seem to remember getting an error message to that effect (I sadly never write down error messages even though I am constantly hitting myself over the head for not doing so when something like this happens and I look for assistance on the web..)
I actually had to wait for 5 minutes and then refresh my ftp before I succeeded in changing permissions. But now it’s done and all seems fine.
But one question still remains, I know I’ve read several posts saying that “the correct” way to install Thesis is to unzip and then upload because if you don’t, there are stuff you cannot do with custom css and custom functions. But I really hope that since I have manually, after my “standard zipped install” changed the appropriate file permissions as you describe above, I will have no issues ?
Now I’m off surfing trying to decide which is the BEST way to change a background image (the background that shows outside my content area. I have been getting support from a really friendly guy over at the DIY forums, pbarron, but I thought this time I’ll try to google it first :D.
By “best” way I am considering whether or not to always use the “hook” feature or, as pbarron adviced me, to go for simple css whenever all I need to do is something simple (but no it’s not! not for me! ..yet…)
/Peter
What if you have Wordpress installed and just do an automatic upload of the theme? Do all those other changes you speek about still have to be done?
Thank you so much for the help! I was a little lost with the permissions and this cleared it up!
Hi Michael,
Thanks a lot for these instructions. It made it so easy to setup a fresh new blog that way.
Keep up the good work…