Category: Themes

A Month of Theme Development

August 28, 2015

For many years I silently worked on building better WordPress themes. Only a few times did I let the general public know what I was up to. I would usually work hard for a little while, only to get overcome with client work. When client work slowed down, I would start over, improving on where I previously left off.  I can’t even count how many times this has happened over the years. (A few of you may remember the “Rampart” theme I was working on last year. Yes, this is an improvement on that theme, with better code and a better plan).

For the past few months, I’ve been slowly working on a new theme once again. This time, however, I don’t want it to get buried, I don’t want it to get abandoned, I don’t want it to die. So I’ve come up with a plan to make this theme happen. First, let me explain what kind of theme this is, and then I’ll explain my plan.

Longview: a theme for developers only

First of all, I want to be very clear. This is not a theme developed for end users. It will not do everything “with no code needed” and it would fail miserably on ThemeForest. This is a theme for developers who want a theme built with them in mind. A theme that follows best practices and coding standards. A theme that is extensible and well documented. A theme that makes a developer’s life easy.

Here are a few things that make the Longview theme great:

(more…)

Introducing Solum, a WordPress Starter Theme

January 10, 2014

As I mentioned a week ago in my New Year post, I’ve been working on a new WordPress starter theme. I know there are plenty of starter themes available already, so I want to spell out my goals for this starter theme clearly.

  1. Do things the WordPress way.
  2. Include only the most necessary components (I know this is vague. Think: no amazing features, almost no styles, etc).
  3. Pass the Theme-Check plugin tests.
  4. Be easily extensible.
  5. Serve as a tool for teaching the proper way to build WordPress themes.
  6. Include comprehensive documentation.

I don’t think I’ve achieved these goals yet, but I’m working on it (although it does pass the Theme-Check tests). If you’d like to check out what’s been done so far, or help Solum reach the goals listed above, check out the Solum Github page.