How can I hard code my sidebar?

You can… 1. Enter your sidebar.php file and remove everything.. (better to just remove the code that calls the widigtized sidebar see examples) example 1 (it might look like this): <?php if ( function_exists(‘dynamic_sidebar’) && dynamic_sidebar(‘pages’) ) : else : ?><?php endif; ?> example 2 (it might also look like this): <?php wp_nav_menu( array( ‘theme_location’ … Read more

simplified explanation on child themes?

You are correct. The child theme would over-ride the parent theme’s loop.php if you made changes. As for a simple tutorial I did a simple Google search, after a quick overview this one seems pretty simple: http://op111.net/53/. Just in case you haven’t been there, here is the WordPress Codex Page.

How to Include File from Plugins into Template?

plugins_url( ‘file_location/relative_to.plugin’, ‘plugin/file/location’ );, or something along those lines at least, should do it for you. Alternatively, you could work from the top down and say something like include( ‘/wp-content/plugins/you-plugin-name/file.php’ ) to get it, whichever is easier.

Making that Admin Bar transparent or a blue color

There’s a good plugin to make the admin bar blue in both the admin and front-end: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/blue-admin-bar/ If those colors don’t suit, play around with the plugin to figure out how to do your own. The key thing to notice about the plugin version is that by using a hook to enqueue the stylesheets, it’s … Read more