Installing Thesis for the First Time
Installing Thesis 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 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 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 1.5.1 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 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 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 folder has been renamed
1. Open your /Thesis folder and locate the /custom-sample folder within it.
2. Rename the folder “custom” as in Figure 3.
Figure 4: The Thesis folder and all its files and folders
When you are done, your Thesis folder should look like Figure 4. If it doesn’t, I recommend you delete it and start over.
3. Locate the layout.css file, and change its permissions to 666.
Figure 5: The layout.css file and the file dialog
1. Find the layout.css file within your /Thesis folder and highlight it.
2. Most FTP programs allow you to right-click on the file to bring up a dialog similar to the one in Figure 5. Choose “Get Info,” “File Properties,” or similar wording. Refer to the cPanel article mentioned above if you are using that program.
Figure 6: Changing the file permissions on layout.css
3. A file properties dialog will pop up like the one in Figure 6. Choose “Permissions” or similar wording.
4. 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.
5. 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] 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/cache folder to 775.
Trust me, you will want to have Thesis to do this for you, so you need to change the permissions!
Figure 7: Location of the /cache folder within the /custom folder
1. Locate the /cache folder. Open up your /custom folder. The /cache folder is inside the /custom folder within your /Thesis folder as shown in Figure 7.
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.
3. 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, Execute. Note that Others: Write will be the only option left unchosen. “Owner,” “Group,” and “Others” may be worded differently, but they will be close enough to figure out.
4. 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. 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:
http://thesisthemetools.com/wp-admin
2. From your Administration panel click on “Appearance,” then on “Themes.”
Figure 9: The themes panel with the Thesis theme
3. Click on the Thesis theme image. You will be taken to a simulation of how it will look (but believe me, it never looks right!). Click on the button to make Thesis active.
4. You will be taken to the Thesis Options panel. Although it’s not strictly necessary, click on the “Big Ass Save” button at the bottom of the panel to complete the installation.
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 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.
What next?
Your comments are always welcome, and are important to this blog’s community! Leave a comment now, or read the comments.
You can find several related articles in the “Related Articles” list below. In the footer you will find a lists of Popular Posts, Recent Posts, and you may browse by Categories, or tags. There’s also a Google Custom Search box to help you find just what you want.
Get free updates by RSS or email!
If you have enjoyed this article, please consider subscribing to article updates, using 
an RSS reader, or 
by email. It’s free and is a great way to make sure you don’t miss a single article! I also invite you to follow me on 
Twitter!
Why not share this article with others!
Share this article with your friends using your favorite social media service, such as 
StumbleUpon, or 
Digg. Check out the icons below under “Share This Article With Others” for other social media, including del.icio.us, Technorati, Sphinn, Friendfeed, FaceBook, MySpace andLinkedIn! You can also email or print the article, and even tweet it using Twitter!
{ 4 trackbacks }
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Simple steps with profound importance.
Thanks for sharing the procedure in such easy steps.
Team, thank you for your comment!
I find that almost any seemingly complex procedure can be broken down into small, easy steps. The Thesis installation process instructions are sparse and can be really confusing and frustrating to the new user. But as you see, when the steps are small and laid out plainly, it’s not such an ordeal after all!
Hi,
Thanks for the well documented tutorial.
I don’t own the Thesis theme yet but I will after I return from vacation in a weeks time.
I already have a WordPress blog set up on a server with lots of content on it, videos, audios, images, stuff.
What problems can I expect to run into when reconfiguring all my pages and their content when I load in Thesis?
Will I lose any Search Engine rankings?
Regards,
Mark
Thanks for the comment, Mark!
You won’t lose any of your search engine rankings, because your posts and pages haven’t changed, and that’s what the ‘bots look at. All you’re changing is the presentation of those posts and pages using Thesis.
This article really helped me, and I thank you for that. You smartly augmented DIY’s Thesis instructions. It’s good to have a user’s perspective of the theme apart from that of the in-house crowd.
Damian, thank you for the compliment! I believe that those closest to the theme sometimes forget that it is not normal and natural to install it 3 times a day! So I approach such articles as if I knew nothing about it, and have to explain it to myself.
No matter what I seem to do, I can’t seem to get this theme to resize anything. My understanding is I can plug any sized image (the full url) into the post image field and it should resize it to match the size of the column.. is that not correct?
Also, how on earth do I get thumbnails to show up in the post?
Hi, Mike,
Resizing is done according to which way you put images into your post: via the WordPress media uploader or the Thesis image fields below the post.
I have heard about resizing problems with both WordPress and Thesis with very large images. However, I don’t trust resizers to not mangle my image, so I resize all my images before uploading. I suggest that you not try to upload enormous images, and if you have the software, to resize them before uploading.
Thumbnails not appearing in posts is a continual question in the Forums. The answers to the problem are numerous and varied. Sometimes it’s just simple setup and sometimes it’s as arcane as your hosting service having to change the settings on your account to allow them. I can’t get into a full discussion in a comment, but I’m planning an article with practical suggestions about thumbnail images.
Really great tutorial!
Thanks for sharing, I’m sure many will find this helpful.
Now it’s off to tinker with that theme. ;-)
Thank you for the compliment, Jimi!
Thanks for the visuals (I understand that better). I had already installed Thesis after I saw I was suppoed to change permissions (ok, I think I saw something from Thesis, but didn’t know what the heck they were talking about.)
So I did it in reverse order. Hope that works and don’t have to redo whole site. I will recommend this site to new Thesis users. Now to look for answers to other questions I have, like, how to get rid of weird script in comment box, how to rearrange top menu navigation order, etc…. LOL
I replied to Robin in a personal email, but I’ll repeat the answer here for the record.
Changing the permissions out of order will not harm anything. The worst that could happen is that Thesis can’t save your changes in Thesis Options and Design Options because your layout.css file permissions are wrong.
Much better explanation than the DIY site !
Thanks very much
Thank you for the compliment, Genaro!
Even as an experienced Thesis user who has gone through many upgrades, I find the instructions from DIYthemes confusing and sparse. I always have to read them through several times to make sure I don’t miss a step.
Hello, everybody!
I just wanted to apologize to you all for the delay in answering your comments. The last 6 weeks has been a circus, and I have fallen behind on almost everything. I’m gradually catching up, but it takes time.
I get an email telling me about each of your comments, and I answered the most desperate ones by private email, so I haven’t been slacking entirely!
Thank you all for being so understanding!
Mike,
Thank you very much. Your step-by-step explanation is superb!
I have a big problem… when I rename the “custom-sample” folder to “custom”… the wordpress dashboard go to blank. And the site is blank too… I can’t rename the folder and make thesis work.
I run thesis with the folder with its original name “custom-sample” but the changes I made in the custom.css don’t show in the web page.
What is wrong? I reinstalled thesis but I have the same problem every time…
P.D.: sorry for my english :S
Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! You are my hero. These instructions have been wonderfully helpful after many hours of struggling through trial and error–mostly error.
thank u very my friend
thank u i a new blogger its give me great information to me