In these 12 videos, Jon Lebensold will take someone with some beginner HTML and CSS skills through the steps needed to build a WordPress template from scratch. The videos use only a collection of freely downloadable tools that are available on Windows and Mac.
The goal of this set is to focus on the different files used in a functional WordPress template and how they all work together to build a unified design that is extensible and driven as much as possible from the WordPress blogging framework.
Included in this set is the construction of a dynamic top-level navigation, a widget-friendly sidebar, a customized search form and a specially-designed home page.
It is assumed that the viewer understands HTML and a bit of CSS. A basic understanding of PHP is helpful, but not required.
While its best to follow along and write the code, the project files are still included in this video - for those lazy folks out there!
More videos from the course:
More details about the videos:
1 - Technology Overview Duration: 2:55 We're going to look at some of the technologies used in this video set, where to get them and what the goal of this video series is. We'll also briefly look at some sample templates that have been created using the technique found in this video tutorial series.
2 - Basic WordPress Template Structure Duration: 16:19 We'll look at what are the very basic requirements for a WordPress template and how to satisfy them.
3 - Introducing the WordPress API Duration: 8:51 Using some very simple PHP, we'll begin to feed data from the WordPress administrative dashboard onto our template.
4 - The WordPress Loop Duration: 14:34 We'll look at how a typical front page for a blog is constructed using "The Loop", a concept found in most WordPress templates.
5 - Creating Top Level Navigation Duration: 16:46 With a bit of CSS, we'll create a top-level navigation system that's driven entirely from content found in our WordPress administrative dashboard.
6 - Adding Older and Newer Entry Pages Duration: 9:36 We'll extend the WordPress loop so we can access content that's been archived off the main web page. This will also help us in making a template that facilitates searching through WordPress' built-in search engine.
7 - Creating a Sidebar Duration: 11:28 Our first stab at the WordPress sidebar. We look at creating more chunks of database-driven content with the help of simple PHP functions.
8 - Separating Content Style for Posts and Pages Duration: 8:10 We'll start to carve out separate files for our header and footer, as well as the sidebar. This will help prepare us for creating custom templates for different aspects of our WordPress template.
9 - Making Pages and Posts Duration: 10:23 With the concepts learned in the last video, we can now create a page template which differs from what our blog looks like.
10 - Creating a Widget-ized WordPress Sidebar Duration: 16:37 We'll look at creating a custom search form, a widget-ized sidebar as well as a templates' functions.php file. By making our sidebar widget-friendly, we let the dashboard administrator control what appears on the sidebar without having to hand code everything like we did in video #7.
11 - Creating a Custom Home Page Duration: 10:20 Using some more simple PHP tags, we'll add some custom content to the home page of our website.
NOTE: get_post() is not required and might throw errors. This should be omitted from your template.
12 - Adding Comments and Metadata Duration: 16:11 Before sending our template into the wild, we need to include support for comments and various metadata on our actual blog posting page. We add this feature to our template and do some refining of our template with CSS.
Questions? Just send us an email at videos at killersites.com
