If you want something done right, you might have to do it yourself. While there are, finding one that has the exact look and functionality you need can be difficult. In fact, you might be tempted to create your own theme instead.

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Getting started with theme development can seem overwhelming, though — especially for a beginner. Fortunately, creating a custom theme for WordPress is a relatively straightforward process. It also doesn’t require much technical knowledge or experience with web development. Plus, building your own theme can be well worth the effort since you can get your site looking and operating just right.

An Introduction to WordPress Theme Development You want your site to look great and have all the functionality you need, so you check out the. Unfortunately, nothing you see fulfills all your requirements, and you don’t want to compromise on your vision. Maybe you want that will make your site stand out, or you just don’t want to spend the. At this point, you might start to consider creating your own theme.

Fortunately, developing a theme for WordPress is not the overly complicated affair you might imagine it is. Thanks to the platform’s inherent user-friendliness and the numerous tools available, almost anyone can create a custom theme. We’re going to take you through the process of creating your first theme. To get started, you’ll need two things:. Your own. A You’ll also benefit from having experience with local, as you’ll be using one to create your theme.

Having some understanding of and will also be helpfule (if not necessary). Finally, there’s one important tool you’ll want to have, which will make the process of creating a theme much easier: a starter theme.

What a Starter Theme Is (And Why You Should Use One) A starter theme is a bare-bones WordPress theme that you can use a basis to create your own. Using a starter enables you to build on a solid framework, without having to worry about the complexities involved in coding a theme from scratch.

It will also help you understand how WordPress works by showing you the basic structure of a theme and how all its parts work together. There are plenty of excellent starter themes out there, including, and (just to name a few).

We’ll be using Underscores for our example below. It’s a solid choice for beginners, as it only contains the basics. Plus, this starter theme is developed by Automattic, which makes it more likely to be safe, compatible, and well supported in the long run. Step 1: Set Up a Local Environment The first thing you’ll need to do is to create a. This is effectively a server that you install on your computer, which you can use to develop and manage local WordPress sites. A local site is a safe way to develop a theme without impacting your live site in any way.

There are you can create a local environment, but we’re going to be using. This is a fast, easy way to install a local version of WordPress for free and is compatible with both Mac and Windows. To get started, select the of DesktopServer, complete the registration process and then download the installer. Once the installer is downloaded, you can run it. When the installation has completed, you can open the program, where you’ll be asked to configure your new local environment. This is, and you’ll have your local WordPress site ready in a few minutes. Once installed, your new site will look and work exactly like a live WordPress website.

Step 2: Download and Install Your Starter Theme Like most starter themes, is very easy to get started with. In fact, all you need to do is to go the website and name your theme. If you want, you can also click on Advanced Options to customize the base theme further. Here you can fill out more information, such as the author name, and give the theme a description. There’s also the sassify! Option, which will add files to your theme. SASS is a preprocessing language for CSS, which enables you to use variables, nesting, math operators, and more.

When you’ve made your choices, you can click on Generate, which will download a.zip file containing your starter theme. This is the core around which you’ll develop your own theme, so. Once you’ve installed your theme, you can preview your site to see how it looks.

It’s very basic right now, but that won’t be the case for long! Step 3: Understand How WordPress Works Behind the Scenes Before you can customize your theme, you’ll need to understand the purpose of its components and how they fit together. First, let’s discuss, which are the main building blocks of a WordPress theme.

These files determine the layout and look of the content on your site. For example, header.php is used to create a header, while comments.php enables you to display comments. WordPress determines which template files to use on each page by going through the. This is in which WordPress will look for the matching template files every time a page on your site is loaded.

For example, if you visit the URL WordPress will look for the following templates files in this order:. Files that match the slug, such as this-post. Files that match the post ID. A generic single post file, such as single.php.

An archive file, such as archive.php. The index.php file.

Since the index.php file is required by all themes, it’s the default if no other file can be found. Underscores contains the most common template files already, and they will work right out of the box. However, you can experiment if you want to get a feel for how they work together. Another important element you need to grasp is. This is the code WordPress uses to display content, so in many ways, it’s the beating heart of your site.

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It appears in all template files that display post content, such as index.php or sidebar.php. The loop is a complex subject that we recommend you if you want to grasp better how WordPress displays post content. Fortunately, the loop will already be integrated into your theme thanks to Underscores, so there’s no need to worry about that for now. Step 5: Export the Theme and Upload It to Your Site When you’ve finished tinkering with your theme, it’s time to make sure it works properly.

You can ensure this by testing the theme. To quickly make sure that your theme will perform well under most circumstances, you can use the data. This is a set of dummy data you can upload to your site, containing many different variations of styles and content. It will enable you to see how your theme copes with unpredictable data. When you’ve thoroughly tested your theme and are convinced that it meets the, all that remains now is to export it. The easiest way to do this is simply to find where the website is installed on your local machine, most likely in a folder called Websites inside your default Documents directory. Open the website’s folder and access /wp-content/themes/, where you’ll find your theme.

You can now use a compression tool, such as, to create a.zip file based on the folder. Simply right-click on the folder and select the option that enables you to zip it, such as Compress “folder.” When the folder has been zipped, it’s ready to be uploaded and installed on any WordPress site, just as you installed your Underscores theme at the start. If you feel particularly happy with the result, you could even submit your theme to the.

Q: Is there a quick way to prepare Mac in order to start building something based on SharePoint Framework? A: Mac development environment can be configured based on a guide below Install Homebrew Homebrew is a package manager for Mac. Open Terminal and run a command below /usr/bin/ruby -e '$(curl -fsSL Run this line of code below to make sure everything was properly installed and ready to move forward brew doctor Install Node.js and npm Run this command in a Terminal brew install node Download Visual Studio Code Download from an official website. Install Yeoman and Gulp Run these commands in a Terminal npm install -global yo npm install -global gulp-cli Install Yeoman SharePoint generator Run this command in a Terminal npm install -g @microsoft/generator-sharepoint Now, you have your development ready and as you can see SharePoint Framework is a platform independent.