For starters see Site Design and Layout in Codex (official documentation wiki). Overall your question is somewhat broad. Specifics will depend on theme you are going to modify; what content you want to use; how easily editable you want it to be; etc.
You can either manually enter content into the_excerpt section or use this code in your functions.php file in your theme function custom_excerpt_length( $length ) { return 200; } add_filter( ‘excerpt_length’, ‘custom_excerpt_length’, 999 ); Change the number 200 to the number of characters you want until it’s the number of lines you’re looking for.
WordPress adds a unique class for each page in the body tag, you can use that class to target specific elements on your page through CSS. .page-id-32 .menu-item-31 {display:none;}
Create a simple page which is needed to be the homepage and another page on which you want to show your recent blog posts. Then go to Settings > reading and set a static page option in front page displays option. Then for the front page select box, select the new homepage and for the … Read more
The simplest way would be to duplicate your index.php in to a file named home.php in your theme’s folder. Another way would be to create a new page template same thing (copy index.php into it) and add this at the very top <?php /* Template Name: My Home Page */ Then head over to the … Read more
If $query->query_vars[‘suppress_filters’] is not set you will get that message. Use empty($query->query_vars[‘suppress_filters’]) instead of false == $query->query_vars[‘suppress_filters’] ) or use $query->get(‘suppress_filters’) like this false == $query->get(‘suppress_filters’). Untested (minimally tested) but I believe either of those should give you the same results minus the notice.
Use the WordPress Reading settings for your posts page named blog and create a static front-page.php file for your front page in your theme.
I think the general suggestion is to use WP_Query instead of query_posts partly because query_posts used WP_query in a simplified way and can cause problems down the road. So for sure check out the WP_Query page, specifically the Multiple Loops example: http://codex.wordpress.org/Class_Reference/WP_Query#Multiple_Loops So the code using WP_Query would look something like this: <?php $counter = … Read more
Add this code in your theme’s functions.php add_action(‘wp_footer’, ‘my_home_page_styles’, PHP_INT_MAX); function my_home_page_styles() { if(is_front_page()) { ?> <style> #main { margin-left: 0 !important; } .container { width: 95% !important; } </style> <?php } } Don’t forget to clearing your cache before refreshing. Use Ctrl + F5 to refresh in Google Chrome.
In a nutshell it’s really done with shortcodes but many themes use a visual builder so you don’t really need to know the shortcodes. One of the most used visual builder is Visual Composer plugin.