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WordPress Theme Development - Beginner's Guide
With a little knowledge of HTML and CSS, you can kiss goodbye to third-party themes for your self-hosted WordPress sites and start building your own. This beginner's guide shows you how in plain language and clear instructions. In Detail If you've been using WordPress to build websites for yourself or clients, you've probably reached a point where you need to build your own theme. Being able to build your own themes means you can build beautiful, bespoke websites using WordPress and means you’re not limited to the themes you can download. WordPress Theme Development Beginner’s Guide will take you through the process of building your first WordPress theme. It will show you how to write the HTML and CSS your theme will be based on, then convert that code to PHP for use in WordPress. Once you’ve done that you'll learn how to add more features to your theme and make it responsive, accessible and SEO-friendly. Start by designing your theme using HTML and CSS, then work through the steps to turn this into a fully functioning WordPress theme, including creating template files, adding template tags and PHP to display content, and giving your theme extra goodies like menus, widget areas and more. Create a gorgeous, responsive and standards-compliant design for your theme using HTML5 and CSS3. Take your HTML and use it to create PHP template files using the WordPress template hierarchy, then add in template tags and the loop to display pages and posts in your theme. Add widget areas, menus and featured images. Learn how to debug your theme and validate it, ensuring it's standards-compliant and accessible. Find out what steps you need to take to release your theme to the public, and finally learn some extra tips and tricks such as how to enhance your theme for SEO and how to add support for the WordPress theme customizer. At the end of WordPress Theme Development Beginner's Guide you'll have the skills you need to build quality WordPress themes using your own designs. Working through a straightforward worked example, you’ll learn the steps you need to follow to create a theme from scratch. What you will learn from this book Approach A Beginner's Guide packed with clear step-by-step instructions to create powerful and professional themes for your WordPress website Who this book is written for If you've used WordPress to create self-hosted websites using themes you've downloaded but want to start building your own, this book is for you. You will need an understanding of how to use WordPress and some understanding of HTML and CSS. Simple PHP will be included in the book but you don’t need any prior PHP knowledge or experience – it will all be explained for you.
252 pages, Paperback
First published May 30, 2008
3 people are currently reading
24 people want to read
About the author
Rachel McCollin
15 books8 followersI'm a voracious reader and read in a variety of genres including thrillers, mystery, literary, sci-fi, historical and urban fantasy.
I'm also a writer - please check out my author page under my pen name, Rachel McLean.
I'm also a writer - please check out my author page under my pen name, Rachel McLean.
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
June 4, 2013
I was intrigued when I was asked to review this book. I have worked extensively in WordPress since 2008, having written several plugins and modified countless plugins and themes. The term “Beginner’s Guide” threw me off, as I figured with my background, it would be too basic for me. Wrong. The level of writing was just right. The author assumes the reader is an experienced WordPress administrator with some PHP and CSS coding experience.
The book sets out to help the reader build a WP theme from scratch, and at first I thought, why would anyone want to? Most theme work is done by modifying the supplied Twenty Twelve theme or some other framework. As I progressed in reading, the answer emerged. Working from a blank page gives the developer ultimate flexibility. Also, the learning experience gave me a deep understanding of how themes work.
The bottom line is, I liked the book. It is clear that this is written by authors with extensive knowledge and is not their first time teaching this topic. Their experience shows. Chapter 1 introduces WordPress and the various components of that world. In chapter 2 and the balance of the book, a magazine theme is built step by step. The exact look of the example theme is not important. You are encouraged to build your own instead, but the download materials are the example. I read one criticism that the book photos were hard to decipher, as the theme is dark with white lettering. My review is done from using the PDF book version, so the diagrams are in colour and easy to understand.
A key focus of the guide is on handling the three browser sizes: desktop, tablet and smartphone. It is one of the better explanations I have read. The authors provide a clear direction on how to handle various screen sizes.
The authors use an interesting writing style. They present a topic, then ask the reader to enter some code and try it. Then in a “What just happened?” section, the code is explained in detail. This approach took a bit to get used to, but it works well. The building steps are also small enough that it is clear what is accomplished in each.
The book builds from the most basic theme to widgets, custom menus and beyond. I will definitely use this as a reference in my theme work. When I finished the book, I felt I could tackle a theme from scratch or modify a theme with more confidence.
The book sets out to help the reader build a WP theme from scratch, and at first I thought, why would anyone want to? Most theme work is done by modifying the supplied Twenty Twelve theme or some other framework. As I progressed in reading, the answer emerged. Working from a blank page gives the developer ultimate flexibility. Also, the learning experience gave me a deep understanding of how themes work.
The bottom line is, I liked the book. It is clear that this is written by authors with extensive knowledge and is not their first time teaching this topic. Their experience shows. Chapter 1 introduces WordPress and the various components of that world. In chapter 2 and the balance of the book, a magazine theme is built step by step. The exact look of the example theme is not important. You are encouraged to build your own instead, but the download materials are the example. I read one criticism that the book photos were hard to decipher, as the theme is dark with white lettering. My review is done from using the PDF book version, so the diagrams are in colour and easy to understand.
A key focus of the guide is on handling the three browser sizes: desktop, tablet and smartphone. It is one of the better explanations I have read. The authors provide a clear direction on how to handle various screen sizes.
The authors use an interesting writing style. They present a topic, then ask the reader to enter some code and try it. Then in a “What just happened?” section, the code is explained in detail. This approach took a bit to get used to, but it works well. The building steps are also small enough that it is clear what is accomplished in each.
The book builds from the most basic theme to widgets, custom menus and beyond. I will definitely use this as a reference in my theme work. When I finished the book, I felt I could tackle a theme from scratch or modify a theme with more confidence.
Displaying 1 of 1 review