First, I should give a shout-out to Ian Stewart for pointing the concept of theme frameworks out to me. If it wasn’t for him, I’m not exactly sure what I’d be doing in terms of WordPress right now.
Although The Sandbox was probably the first real use of this idea (at least that I know of), it was Thematic that really pushed the limits. I liked Thematic and would’ve designed child themes for it, but I like my own coding style a bit more than Ian’s.
Following his lead, I created the Hybrid theme framework. In this post, I’ll try to explain my reasoning behind this and address a few questions that have come up. This will not serve as a complete guide on theme frameworks; it’s just a few thoughts.
What is a theme framework?
I’m going to answer this in terms of my own framework, which may differ slightly from others’ views.
A framework is a solidly coded theme that should serve as a base for other projects.
Some can be extended through the use of child themes. A child theme hooks into its parent (the framework) and uses all of its template files and functions. The child can change both the way the parent theme looks and functions.
I honestly could’ve written Hybrid as a set of plugins instead of a theme, but I prefer to work within the framework of theme development rather than plugin development.
Here’s a list of the things that should be the focus of a theme framework. Some of these things should be standard in any theme though.
- The number one focus should be on the theme user’s content.
- Bullet-proof CSS with multiple variations.
- Valid XHTML with semantically-named classes and IDs.
- Dynamic classes that allow users to style individual elements according to the page the visitor is on and/or other factors.
- Should be flexible enough to make nearly any layout through CSS alone.
- Make extensive use of action and filter hooks to allow for overriding functions in child themes.
- SEO ready.
- Support multiple popular plugins that need to be added within template files.
- Provide solutions to common problems with WordPress.
- Compatibility with multiple versions of WordPress.
- Follow accessibility guidelines.
- Make the best use of microformats possible.
- Build on top of what others have done to make WordPress much cooler.
That’s the short list, but it covers the major bulletpoints of my list of things that should go in a framework.
WordPress is flawed
I don’t mean this in a negative way. I enjoy working with WordPress because it’s a very simple system that was made to be extended through themes and plugins. As a theme developer, it’s my job to overcome what I think might be flaws with the system, to provide solutions, a better user experience.
Sometimes WordPress spits out invalid XHTML (a rarity), but it happens. WordPress isn’t always the most accessible system on its own, which is something that should be addressed within themes. It’s probably one of the most beneficial platforms in terms of SEO, but theme developers should make this better. There are also things that I think should work in a different way, so I try to work those ideas into the theme.
When I say WordPress is flawed, I don’t mean that the system is bad. I mean this opens opportunities for theme and plugin developers to shape the sytem into something better than what it already is.
Why I really created a theme framework
I’m going to be brutally honest here and tell you that I didn’t create Hybrid for you all, at least not at first. I created it to have an easy way to manage my own blog.
I’ve never used a theme on my blog that I’ve publicly released before. Prior to Hybrid, I hardcoded just about everything around here. At a certain point, that becomes frustrating. So, when I started working on it, my goal was to make a theme for me, Justin Tadlock. I needed a theme that I could easily use out of the box, something that would cover all my needs.
I needed something that I wouldn’t have to hack up to make it work how I wanted.
Believe me, themes I’ve used here on my blog have been massively more complex than anything I’ve ever released into the wild. Recoding a theme from scratch every time I wanted a different look was not an ideal solution.
Once the theme was at a standard that was good enough for my own site, I started thinking about how to make it good enough for your sites. That’s when the theme framework was born. That’s why the first publicly released version was 0.3.
The second most important reason for creating a theme framework
I also wanted something that was flexible enough to use over and over in any number of projects. Reusing code is a foundation of good development practice. Whenever my coding skills advanced and I found a better way to do something, I’d have to recode each theme individually. With a framework, I only have to recode one theme.
Imagine if you had 10 themes to recode. Or even 20. Or 50.
Building the framework on top of semantically marked up XHTML is important here because if the XHTML is good, you can do some magical things with the accompanying CSS. I’ve coded two child themes for public release and two child themes for personal use in one month on top of the Hybrid theme. I’d be lucky to knock out two standalone themes in one month.
One could argue that solidly coding a theme from the start, coding a theme the right way, would do away with this problem. That’s true, to a degree. However, all developers and designers become better at their trade over time. I will not be as knoweldgeable today as tomorrow. Good practice this year might not be good practice next year.
This argument is trivial at best. If all software, themes, plugins, or even WordPress was coded the right way from the start, there’d be no need for new versions aside from enhancements. (This is to address your remark the other day, Ptah).
Are theme frameworks only good for developers?
Jeff Chandler posted this on Twitter:
basically, it came to a point where end users don’t benefit from theme frameworks , only theme devs do.
That may be an accurate comment in some regards. It’s also a question I feel that needs to be addressed in a longer, more thought-out post than this one. So, the question is ultimately whether end users benefit from theme frameworks. If they don’t, then we’re all wasting our time building them for anything outside of client work.
Here’s a list of things that directly benefit the end user:
- Rock-solid code for their site that is continually being updated and refined.
- Developers can churn out child themes more quickly, so the end user gets more choices.
- Easily skin your site with seasonal looks.
- You don’t have to worry about adjusting to a new theme developer’s coding style when changing themes.
- No need to transfer custom functions and features from one theme to the next.
- Building a community around one framework offers more ideas and neat things for the end user to work with.
I’m sure there are other developers that can add to this list.
Even with those benefits, there is another level of complexity. The idea of a parent/child theme relationship just confuses some people. I’ve had a lot of support behind the Hybrid theme and frameworks in general from my users at Theme Hybrid. Many of them have hopped on the child-theme bandwagon and haven’t looked back. But, there are still some users where the idea simply doesn’t register with them.
The biggest issue is understanding the concept because it is still a relatively new idea in the WordPress world, even if it has been around for some time. The best way to compensate for this is writing in-depth, quality tutorials for users that want to customize their theme.
I try to make some look at the framework as if it were a required plugin. Basically, it’s like saying that this is required for your child theme to work.
What this theme framework is all about
To break this entire post down for you, here’s the list of what I want to accomplish with my theme framework:
- Have a theme that’s good enough for my own site.
- Ability to reuse code for child themes to release back to the WordPress community.
- Have a theme that would allow quicker turnaround on client projects.
- Make it easier for end users to directly benefit from theme updates without breaking their customizations.
Other resources and theme frameworks
Here are some useful resources on theme frameworks and child themes:
- How to make a “child theme” for WordPress
This is the only guide you’ll ever need. It also has links to loads of other references that I need not rehash here. - Frameworks, Child Themes, Filters, and Hooks?
A good writeup by Dan Philibin of WP Candy on the concept. - Theme Shaper
Ian usually has something to say on the subject, so just subscribe to his feed.
Theme frameworks you can try out:
- Hybrid (my theme, of course!)
- Thematic
- WP Framework
- The Sandbox
If you’ve created a theme framework, let me know, and I’ll add it to the list.
Final thoughts
If you’ve made it this far into the post, I’m happy that you’ve managed to make it through it all. I couldn’t possibly put down all of my thoughts and ideas into one post, so I tried to keep it as brief as possible. I’ve hardly scratched the surface of theme frameworks in this post though.
I would recommend trying out any of the frameworks mentioned within the post if you haven’t before. Also, post any and all questions you have regarding theme frameworks, parent themes, child themes, or anything at all dealing with this concept in the comments. I’ll try to address them either in the comments or a followup post.
Oh, and merry Christmas! I hope everyone has a great holiday season.
[...] But when I found Hybrid: WordPress theme framework. I am deeply impressed and almost cry. Please see the reason Why I (Justin Tadlock) created a WordPress theme framework. [...]
i made it to the end do i get a xmas present for reading it all ?
best of luck to you for the future i do enjoy reading your thoughts and comments…
and a happy new year to boot..
shoot i do love your sites…
@Justin – I didn’t think the old school theme could work with HF (hybrid framework), but you made it work. Now, I’m waiting on Life Collage so stop writing filler posts and release LC already.
@Ian – Update themeshaper.com damnit!
====
Happy new year to both. I’m actually going to miss the upcoming new year because my flight to vietnam is on dec 31. I’m going there to celebrate the Lunar New Year. Afterward, I’ll work on some new designs for Hybrid and Thematic if you guys are open to collab.
“The number one focus should be on the theme user’s content.”
I absolutely agree, and I find that this is where many themes fail. Often, it seems that the no. 1 focus is showcasing the graphical skills of the designer.
“Are theme frameworks only good for developers?”
I agree again. The only feature in this concept that can be said to be more useful to developers than to the average WP user is the template overriding introduced in v. 2.7.
Why:
If you override templates of the parent framework, it would be a good idea to try to keep track of changes in the overriden templates from version to version. A developer who uses a framework to build sites professionally would do that anyway, I think, but for someone using a framework just for a personal site it would be too much of a hassle.
Other than that, child themes and parent frameworks (or, for that matter, good themes that work well as parent themes) are one of the most useful features of WordPress for *everyone*.
You can do anything with this combination, from adding a couple of lines to the child stylesheet to change a font, or a couple of lines to functions.php to insert something extra, to completely changing the look of a site.
All that without having to worry about changes in the main theme. You forget about it and you just enjoy the perfect upgradability and all the improvements of the parent theme from version to version.
PS. I may take that nice line and add it to the tutorial’s page.
Thanks.
PS 2. This child theme looks *very* good on justintadlock.com!
PS 3. Another interesting framework is Carrington, but Carrington is mainly for developers. (Its description says so.)
Excellent post on theme frameworks, Justin, especially for the unconverted. The more I play with Hybrid child theme designs the more I like it.
I had previously hard-coded your old themes and then of course was unable to update them with your newer releases, without a mountain of re-working.
Keep up the good work and have a great Christmas and New Year.
Great post, Justin.
When you see my Wordcamp presentation – when it eventually is posted online – you’ll see how similar your points are to mine!!
However, I would make a plea to avoid the terms “framework”. It’s too highfalutin for me and I’m much more satisfied with the terms “base theme”. The latter says as much as needs to be said, and no more. The term “framework” makes the whole thing very obscure and overcomplicates something that is actually quite simple.
Hope you’re having a great Christmas, buddy!
-Alister
great post, justin.
But honestly I have to agree here for what jeff said in twitter.I agree with some of the list of things you point out as user benefits.
But I think the end user should get more choices in selecting different layouts and designs with the help of child themes and not to choose them to get new functionality or features that doesn’t exist in base theme.
for example, In the case of hybrid, if the end user wants to have a featured gallery , you are forcing him to use the “old school” child theme where he should change his front page to a static page to enjoy all the benifits of that showcase template included in it.
As an end user, i want that featured gallery, showcase template and all other features you are going to introduce in feature should be in the default hybrid theme and we can have different layout like oldschool and leviathan from the child themes to choose…
so that, the person who wants a specific feature like a featured gallery or a tabs widget or a post section can switch on them,if we doesn’t want them we can turn it off.but that should be done irrespective of the layout you are using(it may be the base theme hybrid or child themes such as oldschool or leviathan).
@Arun – Frameworks or base themes are supposed to be the starting points for their niches. Don’t expect one framework/base theme to meet all needs. That’s why there are different frameworks / base themes for galleries, portfolios, magazine, and etc. At some point, the developer has to stop and filter out the non-essentials.
@small potato
I am not talking about any niches such as gallery theme, portfolio theme or magazine theme etc..I just talking about just the showcase template (it is not related to any niches) he added in oldschool…what if want that showcase template along with the simple look of base theme hybrid or the child theme leviathan.If the showcase template is present in the hybrid base theme i can easily use it on with hybrid or leviathan.but it is not….
Another concept of a WordPress Theme Framework from germany you can see in this first video. http://dynamicinternet.eu/blog/2008-12-01/wie-baut-man-2-blogs-in-7-minuten
Its just under development…
[...] Why I created a WordPress theme framework (tags: WordPress theme framework) [...]
@Arun – That’s what I was trying to get at. You can’t keep on adding features to the base theme if it doesn’t make sense for that framework’s niche.
[...] Themes: Start With a Solid Framework Why I Created a WordPress Theme Framework by Justin Tadlock is a good look at the reasons why WordPress Theme designers and developers should [...]
Wow. You sure are devoted to theme frameworks. Perhaps Potassium, my Sandbox design, deserves more of my love…
I should try to cook up a child theme for Hybrid too! It looks interesting, but I haven’t downloaded and tried it out yet.
@small potato
“it doesn’t make sense for that framework’s niche” – are you telling me that justin is making this hybrid theme for just a specific niche ?.
I don’t think so!..
With the help of just the templates what he added in hybrid,we can create sites for any niches..I don’t think,adding a another single template to the already existing 13 templates is not that hard.If you guys are not adding it, as an user, i can assume that you are finding it hard to style that one(showcase template) for all the child themes to come.
guys i dont want quarrel anymore…I always respect all the time, effort, work and creativity you guys put together for themes and wordpress…If my words are hurting somebody ,i am sorry.
I just telling you guys what i think (as an user).The one reason i am feeling sad because ,i don’t know why you guys are accepting or seeing a point in the view of developer and not in a way the user thinks.
if you think or tell me that i am wrong,but say the users(community) are going to benefit from frameworks,then
i just say one thing…
Run the below as an open poll to the readers in themehybrid.
Do you want the showcase template in the base theme hybrid? yes or no.
Do you want all the features of options in hybrid ? yes or no.
I can say most of the users will answer yes to both question.Eventhough i know that the latter is not possible ,the people are asking for it until now.That’s because justin shows the world what can be done in a wordpress theme through “options” and “structure”.
so that the people are interested in seeing all of them in hybrid (after justin says that “Hybrid is the future”).But i will not tell that people dislike child themes.As justin says “most” of the users (including me) are already in the child themes bandwagon but still they dont want to loose the features of options theme…
where is your search box ?
@dinu
May be,you should be an exclusive member to find that search box.Just kidding.
@Arun – You didn’t quote the complete point I was trying to make. I’m not just talking about the showcase template. What I’m saying is no one theme will be the end-all theme. If you keep adding more and more features then you end up with bloat. For example, the Options theme got to a point where it was too much for the users to keep up with.
No one wants to style 50 different templates or 100 features even if there are already 13 templates. That’s why I think every framework should focus on flexibility for its niche, not try to be the end all theme to satisfy every feature request. On the other hand for Hybrid, if enough people ask for the showcase feature to be included with the base theme and if it makes sense for Justin to add it to the base theme because it’s along the lines of what he’s trying to accomplish with Hybrid, then you’ll eventually see the showcase feature in the base theme.
It’s the same thing WordPress itself is doing. It extends itself through plugins. When a plugin gets popular enough, the developers add it to the WordPress core files. However, they don’t add just any popular plugin. Whatever they add has to make sense for other users too.
Ian — Sorry, no Christmas presents for reading.
Small Potato — I’m still debating on whether Life Collage should fall under the Hybrid framework. I sliced open my most important computer finger with a razor the other day, so I’ve gotta let it heal before I can seriously do any work. I’m definitely open to more collaboration as well.
Oh, and I think that’s a different Ian above.
Have fun in Vietnam!
demetris — I purposely left out Carrington because I feel that it really only benefits developers.
I’m trying to stay away from template overriding as much as possible with my child theme releases. That way, users can use that functionality of WP 2.7 if they want to. So, the biggest challenge becomes not overwriting templates and still making the child theme function like I want it to.
John — I hope I’m converting you then! The more you play around with theme frameworks, the easier it is to see how they can really work in your favor.
Alister — I’ve been patiently waiting for your WordCamp presentation every day.
I agree that the term “framework” might be better served as “base theme” as well. I’ll try to work that more into the discussions.
Arun — I think you have the wrong idea about what WordPress theme frameworks should be like. If every single feature ever was available in the base theme, what would be the point in having more than one WordPress theme?
Small Potato has it right. A framework, or base theme, should only contain the essentials.
Never gonna happen. Imagine how massive a style sheet would have to be to accomodate every feature someone wanted added into a base theme.
I’ll probably have to address your comments in a longer blog post because what a framework is supposed to be is not what you’re asking about.
Oh, and I hate tabs.
Soean — Thanks. I’ll check that out once I finish catching up with things.
BoltClock — Yep, I’m pretty committed to them now. I’d love to see what you could come up with for Hybrid. We have a Community Forums section devoted to user-created child themes as well.
dinu — I haven’t added the search box into this design yet. I was being lazy since it’s just a temporary design.
Small Potato — You definitely have it right. I don’t want to add features that will add bloat. I’ve actually cut out a ridiculous amount of this in my development version.
Page templates are only added to the base theme if they can serve almost any child theme. I can probably say that about the 13 currently available. The Showcase template would never make sense to be added to the base theme. It would only be purposeful for a handful of child themes.
My number one reason for not liking the direction the Options theme was going. This was also a reason for discontinuing the theme.
I’ve really liked digging into making custom WordPress themes in the last few months and I can see how frameworks can give you a big head-start on a new theme project. So I’ve decided to try out a framework for my next WordPress project.
I looked at Sandbox and that was the first time I saw the concept of “child themes”. The WordPress codex has very little information about them. There are only a couple of out-of-date paragraphs on this page:
http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development
Demetris’ page http://op111.net/p53 has a link to a blog http://extralogical.net/2008/08/theme-inheritance/ that says child themes can now (in WordPress 2.7) add new php files or override any of the template php files which sounds great for someone like me that doesn’t want to have to muck around with functions.php. I don’t see any mention of this feature at all in the version 2.7 update notes though– http://codex.wordpress.org/Version_2.7
Now, my question is which theme framework should I use? I’ve already spent a good amount of time looking at the added css and features of Sandbox. So what’s better or different about Hybrid or Thematic? I suppose it’s similar to asking whether you should use jQuery, Dojo, or Mootools, etc… but I’d really like to get started on my work (since I’m running behind as always) without spending several days learning all the ins and outs and advantages of each theme framework. I really do love learning everything I can about themes and WordPress coding but unfortunately I don’t always have the time.
looking at the way you have replied to these comments, I see something new being added to themes
correct ?
and …. I am using hybrid lab version now …. no issues so far ..
Nick — First, you can override templates in the parent theme with the child theme in WordPress 2.7. The 2.7 page on the Codex doesn’t highlight every new feature of WordPress. I do recommend finding a
functions.phpsolution before template overriding though. It’s mostly a personal preference.I would recommend using Hybrid, but I am a little biased. Honestly, it depends on what your needs are. I can’t seriously answer the question without knowing what it is that you want to do because each base theme has a different purpose, at least in some ways. Even still, I’d recommend Hybrid for just about any project.
dinu — No, there’s nothing new being added to comments. I’m not exactly sure what you’re talking about.
wishing you an advance happy new year Justin and feel sad to know you cut your fingers.how’s your finger now ?
I am eagerly waiting for all the new themes and plugins(if any) that you are going to release the coming year.
Arun — My finger is healing up quite nicely. I took the bandage completely off today.
There’ll be plenty of new themes and plugins in the new year, so you’ll have something to look forward to.
Great to know that your fingers are healing up and also plenty of themes coming up on the next year.since you are discontinuing options, structure and visionary, what about the new themes coming up?
1.Are all the themes will be child themes of hybrid ?
2. if you are going to release individual themes other than the hybrid child themes ,then, can you tell me which we can expect more?
3. Do you have any other idea of creating another framework or another base theme such as hybrid ?
Arun — I don’t like to talk about future themes that much. I just like to see where things take me naturally. I can say that most of the themes will be child themes for Hybrid.
The ideas we’re currently tossing around at Theme Hybrid are a magazine-style child theme, a store (Amazon-like) theme, a lifestream-type theme, and a photoblog theme. Outside of that, I’ll just see where it goes and announce things in due time.
[...] parent WordPress Theme framework is critical for WordPress Theme development, as described in Why I Created a WordPress Theme Framework by Justin Tadlock. With a solid framework in the parent Theme, the child Theme will integrate [...]
@Small Potato: Update braintied.com dammit!
I’m a big fan of the work of several of the people in this discussion – and paid-up member of the Stewart and Tadlock posses. You guys are amazing – I’ve said to and about Ian that at times he channels Edward Tufte for clarity.
I’d now like to embarass myself – but perhaps represent a segment of the combined/overlapping communities – and say that even with these briliant frameworks (and I think I prefer Alister’s “base” or Ian’s “parent”) – they’re not always easy – even for those of us who RTFM.
An hypothesis: if we (you guys) keep producing brilliant frameworks – capable of increasingly amazing things – the instructional/explanatory infrastructure has to keep up with it.
And perhaps beta-test features with relatively unskilled users – I’m eminently qualified as an UNqualified user – I’d volunteer.
[I've omitted examples because I don't have any interest in hurting anyone's feelings - and the fact is that ALL of you produce beautiful, functional work. ]
That said – I’ve got customization to get back to.
Best to all
Jon
P.S. The prize for reading to the end is – reading the whole thing.
[...] link. There are a ton of resources listed here about Wordpress themes, but the most interresting is here. It is about Justin Tadlock, and how he created a “base” theme for you to use. Using [...]
jonathan soroko — One of the problems I think we’ve all been trying to solve is how to make things easier for the end user. My attraction to child themes was really sparked by having to help users upgrade their beta versions of my themes to a version released months later. I wanted to make upgrading easier. Child themes allow us to overcome that hurdle.
Some other issues need to be addressed as well.
One of the biggest problems I run into is novice users trying to do advanced things. It’s questions like, “How do I add a features gallery to this theme?” that frustrate me at times. The reason I get frustrated with it is that there’s no simple way for me to answer the question. There’s no manual for me to point them to either. No way for me to help sometimes.
That’s probably not what you meant when you said “they’re not always easy,” but the thought came to mind.
I do have a theme coming up that’ll solve (I hope) some of the issues for users that don’t want to tinker much with code, those that just want to blog. It’ll be a framework in a way, but it won’t have anything to do with child themes.
When I was beggining coding my site I met the Sandbox framework. What I learned about it is that it was tailored for an specific style, I mean, main body and sidebar, but anything you wanted to hide had to be either modified on the base theme or set to display none. Plus I found odd the dynamic classes, guess I need more time to get my feet wet on it. In the end I only used the Starkers empty theme by Elliot Jay Stocks (I could’ve easily clean the default theme up but Elliot already did) and created the specific xhtml+css struct that I needed. In my site I need some specific extra divs (for ex, to set main content background footer) that are not offered by Sandbox or other frameworks. SP is right when he points that frameworks are niche-specific but the drawback of this is that all child themes share the same structure unless you tweak the code but we would be right where we started. Frameworks are great, but I don’t think we can rely on them for every solution as Justin and SP already pointed. Frameworks are a tool. And a good one for their task.
I’ve been using your hybrid theme framework as the base for some new themes I’ve been working on. This is the first time I’ve used child themes. I am impressed and am really enjoying this. Thank You.
So .. that’s called framework .. hmm
I am currently working on creating default theme for my future wordpress theme actually. Base on your description, I guess I can call my work a theme framework.
haha … i didn’t think that far though ..
but still, million thx for your great work!
[...] Why I created a WordPress theme framework [...]
hi
If I have a handle on this correctly. A child theme can take advantage of the parent theme but can also have the flexibilty not to have to be identical to the parent (by changing its look) therefore offering a chance to be unique. So although there might be a central framework for projects, each project (if it is viewed as a child) could look and function differently from the parent theme.?
[...] article “Why I created a WordPress theme framework“, provides a good understanding of WordPress theme frameworks. Of the theme frameworks I have [...]
Wouldn’t it make the most sense to use the Wordpress default theme as your “framework” since this is updated every time a new version on Wordpress is released? Just design child themes off it? Why use someone else’s?
I guess what I am asking is, how do you choose your “framework”? What makes the ones you listed above different?
Alex Jeffreys — That’s pretty much it in a nutshell. A framework allows you the ability to reuse code but is flexible enough to look and function differently.
Dan — Yes, you could use the Default theme as your base framework. If you have an hour or two, I could give you many reasons why I wouldn’t use it as a starting point though. I don’t consider it nearly flexible enough to create nearly any layout with. Of course, that’s not its purpose. Its purpose is to show a very basic theme and how it should be constructed.
The Default theme doesn’t conform to that entire bullet list I provided above.
I’m guessing you’re asking what makes them different from one another?
Each of those themes serves a different purpose in some way. Hybrid, Thematic, and WP Framework all share the same roots that began with Sandbox. That one theme has loads of great stuff, but it wasn’t quite flexible enough for any of us.
At this point, WP Framework is very lightweight and meant to be more of a really basic foundation. But, I’m thinking Ptah will be adding more stuff to it in the future.
Thematic is a really great framework by Ian Stewart. It’s actually what got me started with Hybrid. There are many differences in the two. The main difference is I much more prefer my coding style over Ian’s. I think our brains are wired a bit differently in some ways, but we both believe in how powerful frameworks can be.
So, how do you choose? Well, by taking them all for a test drive. There may be features that one has that the others don’t. I prefer Hybrid, but I have to admit, I’m a bit biased.
Thanks for the information, Justin. I have downloaded thematic, hybrid, wpframework, sandbox, carrington, and whiteboard and plan to work with each and evaluate them. My clients are mainly schools who run MU. They have a hard time keeping up with multiple themes every time a new version of Wordpress comes out. I thought the implementation of child themes would be beneficial to them. When updating Wordpress, they could also update the framework and thus have all their themes updated. Now I just need to find the one that seems solid, is well supported, and will be around for a while. I’ll be investing a lot of time sinking my teeth into one.
Any issues with frameworks and child themes in MU that I need to be aware of? I have worked extensively with Wordpress, but not as much with MU. I know users do not have access to the Theme Editor in MU, but beyond that I do not know what other theme limitations there are. I just got MU loaded locally on my Macbook. Time to dig in!
[...] people mentioned theme frameworks, a subject I’m always happy to discuss. Surprisingly, both Jeff Chandler of WP Tavern and I both used the phrase The Year of the Theme [...]
[...] are the thing of the future, while some will say they can get in the way. While I do acknowledge the power of a theme framework, I personally wouldn’t use one. I feel it would slow me down, rather than help me be more [...]
[...] Why I created a WordPress theme framework? [...]
[...] code reuse not only speeds development, but it improves quality and reduces maintenance. I found Justin Tadlock’s blog entry – especially the referenced articles – a very valuable resource in understanding the difference [...]
Can you please elaborate this?
I’m really inspired by what you have accomplished here. I’m going to try and create my own theme framework. Maybe after a year I can release a theme that will be useful to the Wordpress community. Wish me luck.
Raymond Selda — In what way would you like me to elaborate on it? I simply mean that instead of creating a parent theme, I could’ve created a required plugin.
Oh ok. I just didn’t know that you could have taken the plugin approach for Hybrid. Thank you.
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