Creating a Custom WordPress Theme

Now many people have many different ways of creating there custom wordpress themes. In this post I am going to cover my workflow and how I go about creating custom WordPress themes for my clients.

Creating The Static Site Using Only XHTML and CSS

I begin coding all of my themes by designing the basic site in XHTML and CSS. This is the step where I create all my graphics and repeating backgrounds I will need and the basic layout. I also perfect my CSS and my XHTML to make sure that when I start coding my loop and all my other WP functions the site will be easy to create. I also comment out the end of my header, my container, any sidebars and the beginning of my footer.

Filling in WordPress Loops. Adding to .PHP files. Creating Custom WordPress Theme

After coding the basic layout in XHTML and CSS, I start plugging in the basic info in a blank WordPress theme that I have. I start by copying my header parts from the basic XHTML file into header.php and the container into my index.php and footer into footer.php and everything else in its designated php file. Once everything is in its php files I start replacing images so that they use the proper in the image link. Once all that’s done I start working on the loops. I have already commented into my html where the loops are and the default css,xhtml foundation is already set so I just start plugging things in. The most important parts are getting the foundation set so that when it loops it will display correctly. Once you get everything working right in the XHTML file its all easy sailing from there. What I suggest doing is making sure you know the different tags and formatting that WordPress uses. Also make sure to use the query_posts to your advantage, that’s a really easy way to make specialized post areas by utilizing the category id.

So its just plug and play. This is just one way out of a million ways to code a custom WordPress theme. How do you go about it? Do you start from the top and not even mess with the XHTML file or do you use more planning? Let me know in the below comments. This is just a real small portion of what goes into making a custom wordpress theme, I didn’t cover magicfields, custom fields, custom page themes, any commenting themes, widget/plugins etc. If you want to see some more info on those subjects let me know and I’ll write some more posts. Until then, Jake