- A) The Anatomy of a WP theme.
- B) Child Themes.
- C) Bare Bone Themes (Underscores and friends)
Learning Objectives
- Child Themes
- Barebone
- From Scratch
Sources
- Stepping into Templates.
- Site Design and Layout.
- Underscores.
- Child Theme.
- 25 Tutorials.
- WordPress Theme Development Cheat Sheet.
Inspiration – CssZengarden
If you want to experiment with style, then the CSSZengarden is an excellent challenge. When your CSS is ready just implement your new creative style in WP.
Also try to install some Web Developer Tools in your favorite browser. I use the Web Developer for Chrome, but you may want something more fancy than that.
From a designer’s point of view much can be done using CSS. But you have to analyze the ids and classes in WP – when you know them – the magick of the designer may begin.
Dive into a Child Theme
- Find the ids and classes in a not too complicated WordPress theme.
- Hack a CSS that will change some of these styles.
- Try to implement a fancy online font (e.g. google fonts) via CSS.
- Use CSS to hide what you do not need – and add ornaments, icons and elaborate decorations.
Ad A) The anatomy of a WP theme
- style.css (also check this page)
- index.php
- header.php
- the loop
- footer.php
- The Loop (and The Loop in action)
The minimum requierements for a WP theme is:
- style.php
- index.php
- The Loop
- A very, very, very basic theme…
- Navigation
A basic overview of a WP theme on Siteground: “How to Create WordPress Theme”
- How to add widget areas in your theme.
- How to add menus to the theme.
Ad B) Child Themes
If you modify the code in a WP theme everything is lost when you update to a new version. Updating is important for security reasons. So how do you avoid this problem? The answer is:
– Use a child theme!
Create a folder on your PC for the files. Then make a file and name it style.css. Edit the comments for wordpress. Import all stylesheets from your theme. Then you’re ready to improve the design. Below is a sample style.css file.
Ad C) Themes (more or less) From Scratch
Security
Usefull tools