Check the theme author’s reputation first!!  You are downloading this piece of software to your server, so treat it like it is a piece of foreign software.

Here is selection method D:

Look for these:

We are looking for function in this phase, as that is very difficult to change without php & html knowledge.

• good ad placement opportunities (under featured section, top sidebar, possibly in header)
• supported featured slideshow on front page – we can add this ourselves, but there is a chance that the plugin will conflict the theme we’ve chosen.  This way, we know it will work.
• single nav bar – this is my personal preference for readability
• enough sections for my content, but not so many that it is difficult to find things
• width of template – it is a bit of a hassle to change the width of the container that holds everything, so I generally try to find something that is the right width right off the bat

Disregard these:

We can live without these features as they can easily be configured through the stylesheet.

• search placement & style
• subscribe /rss buttons placement and design
• colors
• typography
• logo images/ sidebar backgrounds / posts background/ blog background / decorative details
• outlines – rounded or square
• nav bar placement – above or below header
• size of header

Check under the hood for the following:

How the theme is written is actually more important than any of the outside stuff.  This is why, for the professional design services, I usually select the template we’re working with, not the client.

• CSS File: there are 2 ways most of us write CSS files.  Here is the method used less often (and I find it really hard to read):

• And this is my preferred style:  I only look for this in a theme as a “good to have” not a make-or-break it item.

• drop-down navigation bars
• favicon and stylesheet links, & the wordpress version link is removed.  If these things are done, it tells you that the author was current and thorough in his work.
• each multi-post page should have an if-then-else statement for the headers – this tells you that the author was up on his SEO practices
• a legendary comments template – this tells you that the theme is not only backwards compatible but also the author didn’t skip corners and it is likely to be forward compatible too
• look for all the text to be wrapped in tags like this:  <?php …  ?>  This means that the site is likely to be compatible with browsers for the sight-impaired

By this time you should have a very nice, easy to edit, theme.

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Did I miss something that you must have in your theme?  Let me know in the comments!

My preferred themes?  Without a doubt, StudioPress themes.

1.  Go to Pages Admin Panel.

2.  Hover over a page, and click “quick edit”.

OR

2.  Hover over a pge, and click on “edit”.

3.  In a Page, find Attributes >> Order.  In the quick edit screen, find “order”.

4.  Enter an order number for that page.***

4.  Click Save/Update.

***Use 1000′s for the top layer of Pages and separate by 5′s. This will leave you room to add pages without re-numbering all preceding pages.  The top level pages will be numbered like this: 1010 – 1015- 1020 -and so on.  Sub-page(2nd layer) will start with 2000′s so they will look like this: 2010 – 2015 – 2020 and so on.  This will let you know immediately which level of pages you are working on. This method suits if you have less than 9 LAYERS, and less than 19 pages per layer – so practically everyone.

I will answer any questions left in the comments here!

W3Schools

Here is the list of their references:

HTML & CSS
REFERENCES
HTML Tag Reference
HTML Event Reference
HTML Color Reference
XHTML Tag Reference
CSS Reference

XML Languages
REFERENCES
XML DOM Reference
XSL Reference
XSLT Reference
XSL-FO Reference
XPath Reference
XQuery Reference
XLink Reference
Schema Reference
XForms Reference
RDF Reference
RSS Reference
WAP Reference

Browser Scripting
REFERENCES
JavaScript Reference
HTML DOM Reference
VBScript Reference
E4X Reference
WMLScript Reference

Server Scripting
REFERENCES
SQL Reference
ASP Reference
ADO Reference
PHP Reference
ASP.NET Reference
.NET Mobile Reference

Multimedia
REFERENCES
Media Reference
SMIL Reference
SVG Reference
WAP Reference