Class 3

WordPress Theme Development

What We'll Cover

Lots! The crux of the course will be digging into WordPress PHP and building a custom theme using the Underscores starter theme. We'll talk about the difference between the concepts of a "theme" and a "website," as well as how (and when) to customize the WordPress content structure.

We won't only be learning WordPress! Our themes will be styled using Sass, everyone's favorite CSS pre-processor, and we will be building our themes mobile-first, following best practices for creating speedy, performant sites on all devices.

The Project

Although you are free to work on an existing project, the curriculum is based on building a specific project from beginning to completion. The theme we build will be worthy of release on the WordPress Theme Repository, child theme-ready, and easy for others to install and use. I recommend building your theme with a specific use case in mind. For example, your theme could be intended for:

• Farmer's market
• Restaurants
• Artist portfolios
• Your aunt's knitting business
• A simple blog
• ...anything!

Pre-knowledge

This is an intermediate level course, and the following pre-knowledge is required:

Front-end Development

• Have used tags like <aside>, <section>, and <article>
• Created layouts with CSS and/or have used a grid framework like Bootstrap’s
• Used a jQuery plugin
• Familiarity with fundamental programming concepts like variables and functions

WordPress

• Knowledge of the WordPress admin
  • Created posts and pages
  • Used widgets/sidebars
  • Created a static homepage
  • Installed a theme and plugin
  • Understand that themes and plugins can be terrible

If you have any questions about your qualifications for this class, please be in touch. Additionally, all of the knowledge necessary for this class is covered in the first two Tackle Box classes, Web Development Essentials and WordPress Fundamentals.