WordPress Custom Theme Development Bootcamp
The 4-hour WordPress Custom Theme Development Bootcamp introduces participants to the fundamentals of WordPress themes, including theme hierarchy, essential files, and development tools. It guides attendees through setting up a local development environment, creating a basic theme with custom headers, footers, and navigation menus, and building main template files while customizing The Loop and adding widget areas. The bootcamp emphasizes hands-on exercises, encourages active participation, and concludes with a Q&A session to reinforce learning, making it an engaging and practical introduction to WordPress theme development.
What will you Learn?
Introduction & Setup
- Introduction to WordPress Themes
- What is a WordPress theme?
- Difference between themes and plugins
- Overview of theme hierarchy
- Setting Up the Development Environment
- Installing WordPress locally using XAMPP/localwp
- Introduction to PHP, HTML, CSS, and JavaScript in WordPress
- Tools: Code editors (e.g., VS Code), Browser DevTools, etc.
- Understanding the Structure of a WordPress Theme
- Essential files: style.css, index.php, functions.php
- Overview of other template files: header.php, footer.php, sidebar.php, etc.
Creating a Basic Theme
- Starting a New Theme
- Creating a new theme folder
- Setting up style.css and index.php
- Adding the functions.php file
- Basic Theme Setup
- Enqueueing styles and scripts (wp_enqueue_style, wp_enqueue_script)
- Adding a custom logo, title, and favicon
- Building the Header and Footer
- Creating and customizing header.php
- Creating and customizing footer.php
- Adding navigation menus
Building the Theme
- Creating the Main Template Files
- Setting up page.php and single.php
- Creating and customizing archive.php and search.php
- Adding custom template parts with get_template_part()
- Working with the Loop
- Understanding The Loop and its role in WordPress
- Customizing The Loop in different template files (index.php, single.php, etc.)
- Using WP_Query for custom queries
- Adding Widget Areas
- Creating widgetized areas (sidebars, footers)
- Registering and displaying widgets in the theme