Smashing WordPress: Beyond the Blog, 3rd Edition

Chapter 6: Advanced Theme Usage

To move beyond traditional WordPress sites, which build on the platform’s blog basics, you need to be aware of some of the more advanced features that are available to the theme developer. Most of these features build on the template tags and conditional tags that you have been using thus far, but the usage may differ. Some techniques, however, will change or add to the functionality of WordPress from within your theme, which may not be such a good idea if you’re looking to release it for general use but may be a good fit for the project you’re working on right now.

That’s what it all boils down to, really: taking WordPress and putting it to good use for the task at hand. Building a WordPress theme and releasing or even selling it is one thing, but building a fully fledged WordPress-powered site is something completely different. This chapter is all about taking that extra step and putting WordPress to good use. This includes having a sound theme concept, styling the content the way you want, adding custom features such as custom headers and backgrounds, and working with custom taxonomies when the default categories and tags won’t cut it. This chapter also covers adding even more hooks to your theme for easy inclusion of more features. Yes, there really is a lot you can do with your WordPress theme, so why not get to it?

Outlining the Theme

The first thing you should do when you’re starting a new WordPress project is consider what functionality ...