Introduction to Custom Theming 1

Take your WordPress skills to the next level!

In this 2-part Immersion Session, we will be Building a custom WordPress theme from scratch! This session is great for anyone with some basic HTML/CSS experience who wants to learn to create custom themes for your sites. Breaking away from prebuilt, commercial themes brings your skills to a whole nother level, giving you flexibility, speed, and options for customization you never had before.

We will identify the critical files of a WordPress theme (HINT: there are LITERALLY just two!), template hierarchy, basic WordPress theme functions, and basic ways to split up your theme files for the most flexibility.

This session picks up where the Discovery immersion session leaves off. (In Discovery we have our website planned, designed, and all necessary content types and relationships identified.) However, it is NOT required for the Themeing sessions! All are welcome who want to learn the basics of WordPress themeing.

Workshop breakdown:

  • the basics of creating a local development environment using DesktopServer
  • Understanding the necessary parts of a WordPress theme
  • Helpful WordPress theme functions to make your life easier

In Custom Themeing Part 2 (after lunch) we look at a starter theme called Underscores (abbreviated “_s”) that makes custom themeing a breeze, and we finish and deploy our theme!

Speaker