I found this forum while "pecking" around my WP control panel. This theme has come very highly recommended and I have seen some great examples of finished websites. My purpose for using this theme is to create a fully functioning affiliate website portal and not a blog.

My very newbie question is, where do I start? What places may I go to get instructions on building my website? I'm hosted at Host Gator and very happy with their service and support. I've successfully uploaded and installed WP and this theme. Where do I go from here?

I don't mind spending quality productive time reading and learning what is necessary to do it right. My philosophy on this journey is to fail often and fail forward, learning from it all the way.

Any insight, guidance, advice is welcome and appreciated.

Craig
http://www.beliefbuilder.com

An overall Tour inside Wordpress 2.7:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vUDM4q7utGQ

Videos showing how to configure Atahualpa

http://pinkspoonmaker.com/

Various Videos about Wordpress usage

http://wordpress.tv/

Thank you Flynn for responding with the enclosed links.

I've viewed each one and found them very informative, clear to understand, and will view them again actually participating in the process as I go along.

This information, especially in video format, is exactly what I am looking for in tutorials. This post should be a sticky for newbies and required forum reading.

Again, thank you and I greatly appreciate your personal participation in the forum.

Craig

Update:

I've been working on this as prescribed and found the PinkSpoon video removes the attributes I like about this theme template.

I've played around with the theme appearance categories, although I really don't know what I'm doing, thus bouncing back and forth to refresh my website to see what it really looks like. (I find this a pain.)

I guess I'm really looking to build this webpage totally by WYSIWYG including appropriate formatting. Am I asking too much?

Still floundering around working with cPanel on Host Gator, theme Appearance configuration, and WP-admin. Let's just say at this point it's not gelling with me. I'm challenged in connecting the dots without a solid structured step-by-step guide to follow.

I will put this together. If everyone else is able to do it, so will I.

There's definitely a lot that could be done to make Atahualpa more user friendly and I am adding these things step by step. If you compare it with other theme frameworks or customizable themes you'll find that the others are even more "developer oriented" than Atahualpa is, or limited in their customization options. Once the theme code changes have settled a bit, after 1-2 more updates, I'll set up a WIKI and tutorials.

Oh man Flynn!

I didn't mean to sound critical. In all actuality, I'm totally enjoying the learning process. I do get a "tad" frustrated with myself as the directions you provide are very clear, I just don't seem to be able to get them to work for me.

I've just finished all of the coding you recommending in the thread: Modify H1 Headline for SEO. I learned a great deal but it didn't solve my current challenge.

My title is still grayed out but will change to a red link, underlined when I hover, as do the titles, Posts and Comments. I've made the changes learned from previous post regarding the Blog Title, colors, text, etc. but it still stays grayed out. I've looked at the actual Source Code on my webpage and all of the elements show as correct. I'm baffled.

What may I be missing here?

I think this is an awesome theme and I'm learning a great deal working with it. No complaints on the quality and administration for configuring it to what I "think" I desire. You've done an awesome job.

I am about to release 3.3.3 now after I am through with the forum posts. 3.3.3 will include that H1/H2 improvement as a theme option.