The sample theme below will give you a clear example of the minimal requirements necessary to create a working theme.
Sample Theme for Download
http://builderexample.com/files/others/blank_theme.zip
This includes all the files you need to get started.
Blank theme HTML showing only required elements
If you downloaded the file above, you should recognize the html below. Here is an example showing only the required html elements for a theme and nothing more:
<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd">
<html>
<head>
<title>Example Theme</title>
</head>
<body>
→ <h1 id="site_heading">Site Heading</h1>
→ <h2 id="site_subheading">Site Subheading</h2>
→ <div id="primary_navigation">Primary navigation list</div>
→ <div id="location_0" class="location">
Main site content
</div>
→ <div id="copyright">
Copyright content
</div>
</body>
</html>
In the code sample above, the required html elements are noted with arrows.
If the above was all the html in your theme, it would work; the requirements are very minimal.
We will automatically remove any html you place inside any of the required elements and then populate them with predefined html based on any content you add later using the editor toolbar.
In addition to the required html elements, you will be able to add Optional Components such as blogs, friends lists, photo galleries, and more using the editor toolbar. These differ from the required HTML Elements in that they are optional rather than required, but you can style them in the same way, by knowing what html gets inserted and creating css for it in your stylesheet.
