Anatomy of a WordPress Theme

Pittsburgh WordPress Anonymous Group

Objective In this module you’ll learn about the different

files that make up a theme and how they work together to display your website.

Prerequisites Basic knowledge of installing and activating

WordPress themes Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and PHP

So… Are you familiar with installing and activating

themes via the WordPress Dashboard? Will you have a locally or remotely hosted

sandbox WordPress site to use during class? Do you have a text editor to view PHP, HTML,

CSS, and other files?

What is a theme? Design skin for WordPress website Controls the layout, colors, fonts, etc. for the

WordPress site Built on “blocks” or chunks of code for

different areas of the site Common setup is header.php, index.php,

sidebar.php, and footer.php

Sample index.php[php]<?phpget_header();get_sidebar();if ( have_posts() ) : while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();the_content();endwhile;endif;get_footer(); ?>[/php]

What’s in a theme?

Index.php Style.css Header.php Footer.php Sidebar.php Functions.php Screenshot.png

Single.php Page.php Archive.php Category.php Tag.php Comments.php 404.php Search.php Front-page.php

Other files in themes /css/ /js/ /img/ /language/

Template Heirarchy

WP will always look for post type template first – page.php, single.php. If none, fallback is index.php

For archives – category, tag, all posts, etc., WP looks for specific template firstcategory-tutorial.php, tag-dogs.phpthen basic archive template – category.php or tag.php, and falls back to archive.php

wpheirarchy.com

What is a Child Theme? Child themes us all files from parent theme except those files contained in the child theme folder.