WordPress is easily one, if not the most, popular blogging platforms on the web. With the release of WordPress 3.x, the potential for what you can do with this open source software is limitless.

This technique intends to show you how to get your WordPress wielding the power of the future web, that being HTML 5.

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Ingredients

• WordPress 3.x
• Your favourite HTML 5 compliant browser (e.g. Internet Explorer 9)

Directions

1. Setup WordPress on your server or host.
   • Note: You can setup a WordPress.com account, but you will require an paid add-on to really take advantage of this technique.Login to the administration panel.
2. Login to the administration section of your blog, using your web browser. 
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3. On the left side of the page, click the Appearance heading. Then, click on Themes.
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4. At the top of the page, select the Install Themes tab.
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5. In the search box, type the “toolbox” and click search.
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6. In the search results, you should see an theme called Toolbox. Click the Install link in the Toolbox item.
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7. A dialog window should appear with a sample picture of what the theme looks like. Click on the Install Now button in the bottom right corner.
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Et voila! Once the installation is done, you are done and ready to bring your blog into the future of the web. Try previewing your blog in HTML 5 by clicking the preview link.

Now, you are probably thinking “Man…HTML 5 looks like junk”. To that, I respond: “HTML was never why your site looked good in the first place. It was the CSS.”

Now you have an un-stylized theme that uses HTML 5 elements throughout your WordPress site. If you want to learn how to apply CSS to your WordPress blog, you should check out the WordPress codex that pretty much covers everything there is to cover about WordPress development.

Now, remember how we noted earlier that your free WordPress.com account wouldn’t take advantage of this technique? That is because, as of the time of this writing, you needed to pay a fee to use custom CSS.

Remember now, this only gives you the foundation to create your own HTML 5 WordPress site. There are some HTML 5 themes out there that already look good, and were built using this as the foundation and added some CSS 3 to really spice it up.

Looking forward to seeing more HTML 5 WordPress sites! Enjoy developing the future of the web.

Resources

• Toolbox Theme
• JustCSS Theme
• WordPress Installation Tutorial
• WordPress Theme Development Tutorial

This post also appears at http://david.wes.st