American University WordPress Theming Lecture
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This document discusses principles of WordPress theme design. It covers common template files like style.css, index.php, single.php, and others. It also discusses other templates like category.php and tag.php. The template hierarchy is mentioned. Popular theme frameworks like Hybrid, Thematic, and Carrington are covered. Best practices like using hooks in themes and internationalization are also summarized. Finally, some essential plugins for WordPress blogs are listed.
American University WordPress Theming Lecture
- 1. Principles of WordPress Theme Design
- 3. StyleSheet • style.css • The only required file • Includes Headers that will be used by WordPress /* Theme Name: Custom Theme Theme URI: http://emmense.com/ Description: A Child Theme of Twenty Ten Author: Aaron Brazell Author URI: http://technosailor.com Version: 1.0 Parent: twentyten */
- 4. Most Common Templates • index.php • functions.php • single.php • archive.php • comments.php • search.php • header.php • footer.php • sidebar.php • page.php
- 5. Other templates • category.php • category-x.php • tag.php • tag-x.php • taxonomy.php • taxonomy-x.php • attachment.php • author-x.php • author.php • 404.php • page-x.php
- 8. Why use a Theme Framework? • Themes present content according to the desires and tastes of the designer • Frameworks provide an extensible way of empowering designers within a set of guidelines.
- 9. Why use a Theme Framework? • Frameworks realize the principle of separation of content and presentation • Early Predecessor: CSS Zen Garden • Change a theme using only CSS. No markup modifications
- 10. Hybrid • Hybrid (http://themehybrid.com) • Templates for everything • Admin Pages for content control
- 11. Thematic • Thematic (http://themeshaper.com/thematic/) • Focuses on Widget Areas and Grid layout • Modify EVERYTHING via CSS
- 12. Carrington • Carrington (http://carringtontheme.com/) • Most Robust: Focuses on Typography, semantic markup and Ajax • Includes a Mobile Theme
- 13. Best Practices
- 14. Use Hooks In Themes • Let plugin devs build for your template • Add filters and actions throughout themes • Examples: • do_action(‘before_content’); • apply_filters(‘logo’, ‘logo.jpg’);
- 15. Internationalize! • Internationalization (i18n) is important • Use load_theme_textdomain() in functions.php • Utilize __(), _e(), _c() and _x() to provide translatable strings • Don’t forget the .po file • More info: http://codex.wordpress.org/I18n_for_WordPress_Developers
- 17. Essential Plugins for Any WordPress Blog • Headspace 2 SEO (http://wordpress.org/ extend/plugins/headspace2/) • Akismet (http://wordpress.org/extend/ plugins/akismet/) • MobilePress (http://wordpress.org/extend/ plugins/mobilepress/)