WordPress Online

WordPress Theme Design is a short book, 204 pages and offers an experience very much like that given by the Peachpit Press’ Visual QuickProject Series. This is not a definitive guide to WordPress theming. Tessa Silver walks us through the creation of a WordPress theme intended for a monthly magazine site. As much CMS/beyond-the-blog flexibility of WordPress needs to be implemented by creative theming, this project offers an insight into how to customize WordPress for sites other than plain vanilla blogs. WordPress core features like “the loop,” are mentioned but we are referred to the WordPress Codex documentation for more information. That’s pretty much the way the book works, features or concepts, such as the loop or drop down menus are discussed, but for expanded explanations we are pointed to external web documentation.

The writing is clear and conversational and is targeted towards someone with a reasonable grounding in HTML and CSS, I’d say advanced novice to early intermediate. Those without an understanding of HTML will find it over their heads. A very basic understand of PHP syntax is also helpful. Except for WordPress specific code, experienced, standards aware coders will find much of the material pretty basic. Ms. Silver does create her design with modern web standards best practices, which she describes in a standards based context. The theme we create by following the tutorial is functional and illustrates some of WordPress’ advanced capabilities, which can be accessed only through clever theming. Basic SEO is mentioned, and some advanced WordPress plug-ins and capabilities are briefly covered.

Chapter 6 offers a short overview of WordPress functions and a nice template tag reference. In Chapter 2, Silver offers brief descriptions describing her design workflow process and some of the tools she uses. In chapters 3-5 we create the basic theme and are introduced to WordPress themeing conventions. Chapters 7-9 briefly discuss some advanced WordPress capabilities, mostly gained through the use of plug-ins and widgets.

Rating: 4 / 5

Well written. Good tips. Too short. Not a reference book. Hardly a “complete” guide.

I found most of the book to be fairly basic, but I am experienced in designing standards-compliant sites using the tools and technologies Tessa uses (PHP, CSS, XHTML, Dreamweaver, Photoshop, etc..). I suspect that others with similar backgrounds would find this book not so helpful. For those just starting with CSS and XHTML, this book would be a good starting point though. It is filled with good advice (the best advice is to use standards-based approaches and to separate content from design) and lots of tips ranging from SEO to Photoshop techniques.

With Tessa’s conversational writing approach, you feel that she’s your tutor who genuinely wants you to create great, standards-compliant WordPress themes. She talks with you and not at you making the book easy to read and understand. Some key highlights include:

1. Rapid Design Comping – which is a design process coined by Tessa that takes you through ten steps of the design process from sketching to production.

2. Great section on font choices and why you might use one font over another.

3. A good discussion on validating pages through the W3C’s XHTML and CSS validation services.

4. A good introduction on WordPress’ template hierarchy. This is very important to understand when developing WP themes. I would have liked an entire chapter on this, though.

One thing I found totally absent (aside from a quick mention in a sidebar note) is a discussion and walkthrough of WordPress’ OOP design. Just as it is important as a WP theme developer to understand the template system, good CSS, and XHTML, it is equally important to understand WP’s object oriented design. An entire chapter, early on in the book, could have been written to discuss this. Tessa would have made it simple and easy to understand, I am sure.

I would have liked a better reference section. With a better reference section, I would be more apt to keep the book on my desk. As it is now, it will likely sit on the shelf never to be read again!

Tessa creates a single theme in the book (an Open Source Magazine), and although most of the techniques apply across many different types of themes, having a few counter examples would get you started more quickly.

One key point not stressed enough in her text is the notion of reusability. The WordPress architecture makes it highly reusable (not just flexible) so that you can call a single function under different circumstances to bring back data for different contexts. This is a powerful design feature (well known to those object-oriented developer types) that can save you time and effort, while delivering consistent and predictable results. As I have used WordPress now on several of my sites, I find this to be one of its strongest assets. When developing new themes, I feel that this point should be made crystal clear.

Additionally, I think that a better discussion on some of WP’s core functions, and perhaps how they can and should be implemented, should have been included.

All said, this is pretty good starter book. As an experienced developer (not a WP theme developer though), I didn’t get much out of it.

Rating: 3 / 5

This is a rock solid book with great, practical advice on how to create a WordPress theme. The style is very relaxed and conversational yet to the point. I felt like the author just came by and hung out with me at my pc, teaching me how to create a WordPress theme. I’ve been using WordPress for years, but never had the time or discipline to track down all I would need to know to do this.

The pictures and examples are great, all the code can be downloaded from the book’s web site. I learned a lot not just about designing a theme for WordPress, but also gained some great tips on working with XHTML, CSS and how to troubleshoot both as well as Java Script.

I’d say a reader wants to have some familiarity with editing text files, sending them to a server and html. I thought the book did a great job of explaining anything else that would be needed. And I mention sending files to a server – but instructions are given for installing a local setup for testing. One could learn what this book has to offer without actually sending files out to a remote host.

Just a great book that I found to be extremely helpful to someone with no web design background, but I want my blogs to be more unique.
Rating: 5 / 5

Tessa has done us all a really great service by writing this book for us.

There seems to be some confusion about who the book is targeted to, and who would get the most out of this book. Let me describe a bit about what I got out of the book, my background, and why I think this is a wonderful book that you should pickup.

Some people have given this book low reviews because they think it’s to complicated, others think it’s too easy.

I’ve been designing websites since before I had a computer. I used to write code in my (paper) notebook using nothing more than an HTML reference guide (and a quick trip to the library to put in code). I started designing websites for small companies (still do), and eventually went to college to get a degree in web design.

What I love the most about this book is, Tessa doesn’t waste my time explaining basic CSS, html layout, php, stuff I could care less about in a WordPress Theme Design book. Instead she jumps right in and starts teaching “the good stuff”. Some people are complaining that they cant follow along, but really, if you’re going to design a website, you need to sit down, learn some xhtml and css. Familiarity with php and mysql is not necessary thanks to using WordPress and this book (though a little can go a long way).

What this book does give you is a way to translate your previous webdesign skills into the “WordPress” world, as quickly, and painlessly as possible. I love it!

I really wish this resource had been available back when I started tinkering with WordPress themes a while back, and I think it can and will help anyone who wants to create a WordPress theme.

As someone who has created a theme from scratch, and who edits themes to suit clients needs, I can tell you I did get value from this book. Most of what I enjoyed was Tessa’s workflow. It is so simple, so powerful, and yet, so “right”.

Her “rapid design comping” is quite logical, and after reading this book, taking notes, and working on a new project, my life has become easier. I used to use a very convoluted way to create my themes, by reading this book, and using many of Tessa’s frameworks, I have streamlined my own workflow and my workflow has improved.

For this and this alone, this book warrants 5 stars.

If this book had been expanded into some monolithic 400-600 page treatise covering xhtml and css along with an exhaustive copy and paste from the wordpress codex, I would of hated it, and honestly, probably wouldn’t of finished it.

Instead the author focused on teaching you an efficient workflow on how to design a theme using WordPress.

If you do not know CSS, I recommend checking out “Styling With CSS” and “The Zen of CSS Design” which are both fantastic resources that can and will teach you what you need to know.

Bottom Line:

If you are new to “web design” and want to create a nice theme for your WordPress blog, have never coded (or have, but nothing professional or really “looked good”) this is a great book, but you really need to pickup a CSS book and XHTML book to go along with it.

Read this book now, for a big picture overview (chapters 1-2), then learn some xhtml, so you can get the markup and the feel (don’t spend to much time on it), then follow along with a nice CSS book following through the examples (spending much more time), then come back to this book. The author does give you some free resources in the book to learn more about CSS and XHTML.

If you are a designer, who knows CSS and XHTML so well they can write it on paper, you will love this book because it does not waste your time, and gets you ready and working on your theme as quickly as possible.

In all honesty, you can read chapters 1-3, then start making your theme, check back on chapter 4, validate your code (thanks for dedicating a chapter to this often overlooked aspect of webdesign), then read chapter 5 when your ready to pack up your theme. (Taking maybe 2-3 hours of your time, Tessa makes it that easy).

If you’re the kinda person who could care less about creating a theme from scratch, and instead, you want to just “modify” a certain theme to make your site look better, this is a good book, you will want to read chapter 6 especially, and honestly, reading the whole book (even if just doing light reading on the first 3 chapters), and I see no reason why you cannot modify your theme, and bend it to your will. However…

If you have no CSS experience, you do need to pickup a CSS resource. And you should really know some basic XHTML (it’s not complicated, really, spend an afternoon playing around with it, work through a CSS book, then come back to this book, and you’re gold).

In the end, I give this book 5 stars. I got value out of it, it wasn’t confusing, it improved my workflow, and I think anyone can buy this book, and make themes (maybe not right away depending on previous experience).

I would love to see a more advanced book come out later, maybe even by the same author, but in the end, this is a great book, I loved it, and I think if you approach it with an open mind (not expecting this book to cover the whole field of webdesign, and teach WordPress) you will love this book, and keep it by your desk when you work on your next project.

Rating: 5 / 5

This book is fantastic. I am a beginning Wordpress blog developer and needed something other than [...] Codex to help me understand the intricacies of creating a [...]. Silver helped me with my own design process which was a bit jumbled before reading the book. Wordpress Theme Design is concise and takes you step by step through the process of creating a blog; although you must know some CSS, XHTML and PHP before you can fully understand the blogs innards. It’ll just make more sense while reading if you have some idea of what you are reading.

Great book I would recommend this book to any beginner trying to understand and develop their own wordpress blogs.

Rating: 5 / 5