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WordPress Theme Development

WordPress Theme development is one of the staples that may be getting pulled out, but the fact remains that all sites leading up to now are built on themes and the ability to create and manipulate them will remain valuable long into the future.

Learn the basics of WordPress before getting into Theme Development

WordPress Basics
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A theme can be as simple as two documents or expand to a nested directory structure containing complex files and libraries.

Being able to identify the bare bones of your sites needs will direct the complexity necessary for any WordPress theme. Scalability can be added but having a healthy grasp on future needs may eliminate tech debt later on.

Whether you chose to create a theme from scratch, use an existing one, or create a child theme from an already built out option, knowing your way around the code base and what you can and cannot do is crucial.

Building of the shoulders of giants is why we program in the first place. I have a mental construction that thrives on diving deep and starting from square one, but this also means I accomplish a lot less in a lot longer period of time all in the name of process over progress. I encourage anyone to find their own comfort zone and spend some time on it when beginning a new learning endeavor.

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Creating Your First Two-File Theme

We’ll be creating a new directory to hold our theme and creating an index.php file as well as a style.css file so wordpress can recognize our base theme.

Create Theme

What’s Ahead of You

There are many steps beyond creating a few simple files to get a robust theme up and running. They include creating separate files for separate sections and use cases, creating and leveraging functions to pass information around, and styling and formatting your site among others.

File Structure

header.php, footer.php, and various page template files.

Functions

functions.php, WordPress Built-in functions, and making your own custom functions

Logic and the Loop

Using conditional logic to show and hide elements, the famous WordPress Loop

Styling our Theme

style.css, enqueueing styles, going mobile

Some examples of various theme variations both simple, custom and out of the box.

FAQs

How long does it take to build a theme?

That truly depends on how deep you want and need to go and how much you want to build yourself and how much you want to leverage existing code. It can take less than ten minutes to get a ‘theme’ created that is viewable and usable, but there will be next to no functionality or style, or you can have a theme that resembles a fully functioning app and spend weeks or months.

Do themes cost money?

There are plenty of free options out there, but yes, some can cost money. Have I every paid for one? No. Making one from scratch is a costly and timely pursuit but WordPress and its many contributors have a large variety of free themes that can be catered to your needs or adapted with ‘child themes’ as we’ll discuss later.

Can I customize an existing WordPress theme for my needs?

That depends on what you mean by ‘customize’ but generally speaking yes. Many themes offer built-in abilities to change things such as colors spacing etc. If you want to do something even more custom like adding Javascript animations or functionality it is recommended you use what is called a ‘child-theme’ that inherits and features from a parent theme and only overrides or adds the functionality desired and implemented by the child-theme creator.

Where do I start?

The above section is a good place if you have a small handle on WordPress and are comfortable around a code-editor and developing locally. If not, you may want to start with the very beginning in my ‘Getting to Know the Locals’ tutorials.

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White abstract geometric artwork from Dresden, Germany