Should you develop custom themes for clients? When is it necessary? Why should you build custom themes for clients? Things that will be covered in this talk include, starting a theme from scratch, theme boilerplates, working with clients through the process, cost, performance, properly planning theme architecture around clients content, integrating with plugins and custom plugins, presentation vs functionality, updates and maintenance, shipping and installing the theme, training clients, populating site with content, and getting paid!!

1. Developing Custom
Themes for Clients

2. Steven Slack
freelance Web Developer @ S2 Web
@slacktronic
s2webpress.com

3. 1mundoreal.org
Rio de Janeiro - 2007

4. #1 rule in creating custom themes for clients:
Caring!

5. What is custom?

6. Tailor made
A custom theme is built specifically
to meet the needs of your client’s
business or project.

7. Planning
icon by Björn Andersson, from The Noun Project

8. Purpose & Goals

9. Content
Determining context

10. Site Architecture
Determine hierarchy of site navigation and structure

11. Site Architecture
Determine hierarchy of site navigation and structure
custom post types, taxonomies, featured images,
custom fields, sliders, widget areas, theme
options, etc...

12. Plan out the features

13. Do you really need to build a
custom theme?

14. You may need a custom theme if:
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You need to present different types of content in a unique way
You need to present a plugins presentation in a certain way
To Create a Unique look to the WP theme
To take advantage of templates, template tags, and the WordPress Loop
to generate different website results and looks.
To provide alternative templates for specific site features, such as category
pages and search result pages.
To quickly switch between two site layouts, or to take advantage of a
Theme or style switcher to allow site owners to change the look of your
site.
To provide “some” theme options for custom presentation
To take advantage of custom fields and meta data.

15. Determining Cost

16. ●
How much does it cost? “It depends”
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Try it out - Scope out a project as best you can, track your hours
to determine cost for future projects
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“One size fits all” doesn’t apply - different types of themes are
going to have different prices
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Stay on track - avoid scope creep and put language about
changes and modifications in the contract.

17. Time to make something!!

18. Designing the site
● Work off of site architecture / wireframe
● Design Preference - Browser? Photoshop?
● This is only one portion of the design process not a finished product

19. Development
There are several ways to begin developing custom themes:
1. Child Themes
2. Theme Frameworks
3. Starter themes

20. Child Themes
“A WordPress child theme is a theme that inherits the
functionality of another theme, called the parent theme.” - Codex
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Inherits parent theme functionality
Good for simple theme modifications - add theme support, custom
backgrounds, changing colors, etc…
keep customization separate from parent theme core functionality
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allow parent themes to be updated without destroying your modifications
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take advantage of effort and testing put into parent theme
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save on development time; no need to recreate the wheel
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are a great way to get started to learn about theme development

21. Child Theme Considerations
Parent theme may contain tons of features which you do not need

22. Theme Frameworks
“A ‘drop-in’ code library that is used to facilitate
development of a Theme” - Codex
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Developers can leverage a framework’s built-in code, options,
plug-ins, and themes from which to develop.
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Eliminates the need to re-invent the wheel for each project.
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Decrease time spent developing a theme

23. A few popular frameworks:
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Builder
by iThemes
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Canvas
by WooThemes
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Genesis
by StudioPress
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Hybrid Core
by Justin Tadlock
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Thesis
by DIYThemes
Review of 10 popular frameworks - torquemag.io/review-10-frameworks

24. Theme Framework Considerations:
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Adds a layer of complexity to WordPress
More to manage, more to update, and a sometimes a bulkier
admin.
Plugin compatibility
Some frameworks charge for support and updates
Unused features and options

25. Starter Themes
Base themes with all the essential files and
functions required for a WordPress theme but with
minimal to no styles.

26. A few places to start:
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Underscores
- underscores.me
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Roots
- roots.io
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Bones
- themble.com/bones

27. Starter theme considerations
Choosing a starter theme to work with is up to your preference and depends on
the way you like to work.
Example: Roots is built with Twitter Bootstrap and uses LESS. Bones is based
on the HTML5 Boilerplate and is ready for LESS or SASS development.
Using a starter theme gives you control over what features you want to add.
The world is at your fingertips.
You will need some time and skills to build a custom theme with a starter theme

28. Building the custom theme

29. Theme Options
● Keep them to a minimum, if possible
● Theme options should affect display
not functionality.
● Use the theme customizer
● Use WordPress Options API

30. Presentation and Functionality
Generally, when we refer to functionality in
WordPress we are speaking of plugins while themes
handle the presentation.

31. Functions
Avoid the temptation to put A LOT of
functionality in your functions.php file
Create a library with specific functions

32. Functionality
E-Commerce
Advanced Search
Slider
Directory
Events Calendar
Shortcodes
Portfolio
Front-end Registration

33. Required Plugins?
How about suggested plugins?
TGM Plugin Activation
The best way to require and recommend plugins for
WordPress themes (and other plugins)
tgmpluginactivation.com

34. Put extra functions into a plugin.

35. Data Portability

36. Organization & Maintenance
Portable Plugin
Easier to debug
Separation of concerns

37. Wrap plugin functions in conditionals in the theme
<?php // if Advanced Custom Fields function exists and the
field is not empty display the field
if ( function_exists( 'get_field' ) ) {
if( get_field( 'some_custom_field' )
the_field( 'some_custom_field' );
}
}
) {
?>
If the plugin is disabled you will avoid receiving error messages or a blank screen.

38. Take your
shortcodes
with you
sh
od
ortc
es

39. What does the business owner get?

40. A well organized WordPress
environment will have a cost benefit to
the client, business, or individual

41. A more stable environment will save you time on
debugging, fixing problems or moving data,
hence saving your client money.

42. Best Practices

43. Follow WordPress Coding Standards
make.wordpress.org/core/handbook/coding-standards

44. Debug!
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Set WP_debug to true in your wp_config.php file.
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Use developer plugins - wordpress.org/plugins/developer
/**
* For developers: WordPress debugging mode.
*
* Change this to true to enable the display of notices during development.
* It is strongly recommended that plugin and theme developers use WP_DEBUG
* in their development environments.
*/
define('WP_DEBUG', true );

45. Use the theme check plugin

48. Performance
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minimize http requests
minify scripts and styles
reduce image sizes
use sprites in your theme images

49. Reviewing the theme with
the client

50. “Can we make this area a scroll area?”
“I want this to be a dropdown box.”
“When you click on this button I want it to go to the contact page.”
“I don’t really understand what all this Lorem Ipsum is?”
“That wasn’t in the mockup.”
“That looked different in the mockup.”
“These aren’t my photos!”
“What are we looking at here? I don’t understand.”

51. Present the theme to the
client with their content
● Load the clients content into WordPress. Hire
someone if necessary
● Present client site on your test server (staging site)
● If they already have a WP site - export their data
and import it into your development environment
● Disable search engine visibility in Settings =>
Reading

52. Fine tune the theme

53. Deploy!
-Take the custom theme
live

54. ● Use an under construction plugin while
prepping the site.
● Upload theme and plugins
● Upload data if needed.
● Configure theme and plugin settings
● Double check everything

55. Training, Support,
and the Future

56. Training Resources
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Video Tutorials
PDF Guide
WP Beginner
- WP101.com
- WP Easy Guide ( easywpguide.com )
- Beginners guide to WordPress ( wpbeginner.com )

57. Support ?

58. ● Managed Support - managewp.com
● Case by case bug / improvements
● Managed WordPress maintainence fantasktic.com, wpmaintainer.com,
maintainn.com

59. Thanks !!
Thoughts? Insights? Questions?