Creating a custom page

New to WP

[henry0]

I am a new WP comer, I plan to use WP to be a complementary site to my main site done from scratch with PHP and MySQL.

What should I look for/read/learn to create a page
that will allow me to display in a tabular manner

<td> aaa </td> <td> bbb </td> <td> ccc </td>
(I am not chained to that structure so if I can adapt something in that range I'll take it)

knowing that content will be coming from MySQL.
Ordered by Top category sub category and sub-sub category

Display a few rows then offer a pagination.

Also I need to figure how to set its admin side.

As you see piece of cake for a WP beginner :)

thanks

[lorax]

Oh lordy - steep learning curve if you're asking what I think you're asking. ;)

Read the themes section of the Docs: [codex.wordpress.org...]

[henry0]

That's exactly what I thought I was embarking on :)

[henry0]

Perhaps, testing something like "a child theme" (link available from your suggested reading) [op111.net ] should do it.
Anyway looks to be a good intro.

[lorax]

Yes, a child theme would be the way to go. I will sometimes cruise theme sites to see what they have, maybe borrow one that I can edit and turn into what i'm looking for, or just copy the design and implement my own.

The items to look out for are the gotchas involved with a) db calls and javascript load order, b) upgrades to the core WP code, and c) interference with plugins. Most of this you'll have to feel your way through.