Building WordPress Themes from Scratch

Included with the book is a WordPress theme and other necessary files, so roll up your sleeves and let Joe take you through the process explaining what you need to do – and why you’re doing it – every step of the way. Who This Book is For I’d like to say that this book is for anyone interested in WordPress, regardless of background. However, to keep it streamlined, I do assume that you have a solid understanding of HTML, CSS, javascript, PHP and MySQL. I will be looking at converting HTML to a WordPress theme, building plugins, and more, all from scratch. So, if you’d like to learn how to do all of this, then this book will be right up your alley! What This Book Includes Packaged with this book, you will find: A fully functioning WordPress theme called ‘Director’. A set of PSD files for the Homepage, Directory Page, Blog, and Single Business Page. A set of HTML files created from the PSDs. They will be used to create the ‘Director’ WordPress theme. On top of the four pages created from the PSDs, the HTML folder also includes a /css/ folder for four CSS files: style.css, reset.css, master.css, and ie.css. Plus you also get all images used in the HTML template. What This Book Covers This book reads much like a long, multi-part tutorial, where I take you through my design process, explaining what I do (and why I do it) every step of the way. Although it’s a fairly linear guide, my hope is that you can visit any main section of the book for quick reference. So, here’s what I’ll be doing: Converting HTML/CSS to a Dynamic WordPress Theme Included with the book is a PSD that I’ve transformed into HTML. The first part of this book will be taking the resulting HTML/CSS and converting it to a WordPress theme. Along the way, I’ll talk about the various theme pages we’re working with, the WordPress theme hierarchy, and of course, the WordPress Loop. Creating a Custom Post Type This, in my humble opinion, is one of the best additions to WordPress in recent releases. With the ability to make your own content types — each with its own theme template — you can take WordPress from being a CMS only limited to blog posts and pages, to a CMS that can manage any kind of content you can imagine. In this book, we’ll be creating a business listing type, which will allow us to create a business directory. Theme Options and Widgets With WordPress, you can make a theme your own by adding a ‘theme options’ page and custom widgets. In this section, we’ll make it very easy for people who use our themes to add their own customizations without delving into the code or creating a child theme. Creating a Plugin One of the most powerful facets of WordPress is the fact that it’s pluggable. We can add functionality to our installation of WordPress without changing the core WordPress files. There are vast directories of both free and premium plugins available that vastly expand the capabilities of WordPress. In this final section of this book, we will build our own plugin.