Pro WordPress Theme Development

Pro WordPress Theme Development

Released November 2013
Publisher(s): Apress
ISBN: 9781430259145

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Book description

Pro WordPress Theme Development is your comprehensive guide to creating advanced WordPress themes. Designed for for professional web designers and developers who are comfortable with PHP and WordPress, this book teaches you every aspect of professional theme development.

You will learn how to build themes from scratch, how to monetize the themes you create, and how to capitalize on this by creating advanced themes for your clients or selling premium themes. This book builds on your current knowledge of PHP and web development to create a WordPress theme from scratch. It uses a real-world theme example that you can build, to demonstrate each feature in a practical way. It shows you how to take control of WordPress with custom posts types and taxonomies, and covers anatomy and hierarchy, use of the loop, hooks, short codes, plug-ins and much more.

WordPress is one of the most successful open-source blogging and content management systems available, and theme development has become a major part of the WordPress ecosystem. Start working with WordPress themes like a pro today with Pro WordPress Theme Development.

What you'll learn

  • How to create a WordPress theme from scratch

  • How to use the WordPress system to your advantage to create amazing advanced functionality

  • How to earn money through selling your custom themes

  • How to take control of WordPress as a content management system with custom posts types and taxonomies

  • How you should secure your WordPress theme to give peace of mind to your user

    • Who this book is for

    Pro WordPress Theme Development is for web designers and developers who want to start creating their own themes and get the most out of them. This book is for web professionals who are familiar with PHP and WordPress, and have used both before, but want to go from editing themes to creating their own custom themes. Pro WordPress Theme Development is perfect for developers who want to create themes from scratch with advanced features, capitalize on the large WordPress community, and monetize their new found skills.

    Table of contents

    1. Title Page
    2. Dedication
    3. Contents at a Glance
    4. Contents
    5. About the Author
    6. About the Technical Reviewer
    7. Acknowledgments
    8. Introduction
    9. CHAPTER 1: Getting Started
      1. An Introduction to WordPress
      2. WordPress Themes
      3. WordPress in the near future
      4. Themes from Scratch versus Premade
      5. PHP in WordPress
      6. Debugging WordPress
      7. Summary
    10. CHAPTER 2: Theme Anatomy and Template Hierarchy
      1. The Bare Minimum
      2. Basic Template Files
      3. Functions File
      4. Template Hierarchy
      5. Post Formats
      6. More Theme Setup
      7. Building Your Theme, Part 1
      8. Summary
    11. CHAPTER 3: Content Options and the Loop
      1. WP_Query
      2. Constructing the Page
      3. The Loop
      4. Custom and Dynamic Content with Queries
      5. Properties and Global Variables
      6. Template Tags
      7. Using body_class( ) and post_class( )
      8. Building Your Theme, Part 2
      9. Summary
    12. CHAPTER 4: Using Custom Post Types
      1. Everything Is a Post
      2. When Do I Need a Custom Post Type?
      3. Creating Custom Post Types
      4. Displaying Custom Post Types
      5. Extending Post Types
      6. Building Your Theme, Part 3
      7. Summary
    13. CHAPTER 5: Creating Custom Taxonomies and Fields
      1. Introducing Taxonomies
      2. Creating Custom Taxonomies
      3. Displaying Posts by Custom Taxonomy
      4. Displaying Custom Taxonomy Information
      5. Introducing Custom Fields
      6. Custom Field Functions
      7. Custom Metaboxes
      8. Building Queries with Custom Fields
      9. Adding Custom Fields to the Feed
      10. Creating an Advanced Search Form with Custom Taxonomies and Custom Fields
      11. Building Your Theme, Part 4
      12. Summary
    14. CHAPTER 6: Customize with Hooks, Shortcodes, and Widgets
      1. Hooks
      2. Shortcodes
      3. Widgets (and Dynamic Sidebars)
      4. Building Your Theme, Part 5
      5. Summary
    15. CHAPTER 7: Theme Options and the Theme Customizer
      1. Why Provide Theme Options?
      2. Simple Customizations with Theme Features
      3. Saying Goodbye to Theme Options Pages
      4. Introducing the Theme Customizer
      5. Getting Started with the Theme Customizer
      6. How Theme Settings Are Stored
      7. Data Sanitization in Theme Options
      8. Automatically Update the Theme Customizer
      9. Adding Custom Controls
      10. Building Your Theme, Part 6
      11. Summary
    16. CHAPTER 8: Users, Roles, and Capabilities
      1. User System
      2. Customizing Roles and Capabilities
      3. Customizing User Login
      4. Managing Users and User Data
      5. Building Your Theme, Part 7
      6. Summary
    17. CHAPTER 9: Plugins: When the Time Is Right
      1. Plugins Bring Power, but Can Also Facilitate Evil
      2. Is a Plugin the Right Option?
      3. Making Your Theme Compatible with Plugins
      4. How to Select a Plugin
      5. Useful Plugins
      6. Summary
    18. CHAPTER 10: Security and Performance
      1. Security
      2. Performance
      3. Summary
    19. CHAPTER 11: Distributing Your Theme
      1. Before You Begin
      2. Marketing
      3. Theme Testing
      4. Distributing Your Theme
      5. Supporting Your Theme
      6. Summary
    20. CHAPTER 12: Extending Your Theme
      1. Child Themes
      2. WordPress Comments
      3. Internationalization
      4. Summary
    21. CHAPTER 13: Plugin Development
      1. Writing Your First Plugin
      2. Encapsulating a Plugin in a Class
      3. Dealing with Data
      4. Initializing and Cleaning Up
      5. Admin Settings Pages
      6. Adding to the Plugin Repository
      7. Summary
    22. CHAPTER 14: WordPress Multisite
      1. When to Use Multisite
      2. Installing and Configuring Multisite
      3. Users in Multisite
      4. Theme Development for Multisite
      5. Plugins with Multisite
      6. Summary
    23. Index

    Product information

    • Title: Pro WordPress Theme Development
    • Author(s):
    • Release date: November 2013
    • Publisher(s): Apress
    • ISBN: 9781430259145