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Building Custom Themes

Margaux

There are 3 paths you can follow to create a custom theme

Work from the ground up

Working from the ground up is like making a cake from scratch. You get to feel the pride of knowing you made something by hand. You also get to learn what goes into theme construction. However, working from the ground up requires a significant amount of time and effort. You will also need to update your theme quite regularly to keep up with WordPress’s frequent updates (every 50-90 days.)

Building based on a framework

Continuing the cake metaphor, building based on a framework is like a premade cake from the store. You have your cake (the framework), but you still need to add the decorations (the design) to reach your final product. The framework itself is a basic layout of a theme meant to be changed to match what your website needs. This can be beneficial because it can save you time, and if you use the right framework, it will be updated frequently, meaning you won’t need to worry about a WordPress update. The downside of this is that since you didn’t make the framework, you will need to spend time learning how it functions.

Building based on a starter theme

This option falls between the previous two. Building a theme with a starter theme is like making a cake with a box mix. You have the basic supplies for the cake; you just need to adjust it to your preferences.

What you should include in your word press theme

A WordPress theme is built out of several diffrent files some are needed in order to make your theme function while others are completely optional.

Required

  1. File named index.php
    • This is what you title your design’s html files
    • Can be broken down into
      • header.php
        • code containing content for the header
      • footer.php
        • code containing content for the footer
      • sidebar.php
        • code containing content for the side bar
  2. File named style.css
    • This is what you title yout design’s CSS files

Suggested

  1. Screenshot.png
    • This is a screenshot of your theme in action to display as an example of what your theme will look like when applied to a wordpress site.
  3. Single.php
    • makes a page (for example a blog page) look different than the home page looks.
  4. Page.php
    • Similar to a single.php but without a footer this is meant for more static pages.
  5. Archieve.php
    • Similar to the index.php but shows past posts.
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