I used to have my own starter theme, but switched to using _s in 2016.
I've tweaked _s for my workflow and preferences. For example, I set up Customizer fields that I use over and over again, and set up the SASS to automatically generate the editor-style.css and login-style.css files.
- Customizer fields for (see
inc/customizer.phpandinc/template-tags.php):- 404 Page: Headline, subheadline and paragraph text
- Search Results Page (nothing found): Headline, subheadline and paragraph text
- Social Media - set up for Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest. I tweak these as needed for each project.
- WordPress Admin tweaks (see
inc/extras.php):- Set the TinyMCE editor to always show both rows of buttons
- Set up the format dropdown to the TinyMCE editor, includes base setup with styles for a
.buttonselector - Set the
wp-login.phplogo to link to the website's home page - Set the
wp-login.phplogo to use/assets/images/logo.svginstead of the WordPress logo - Set the
image_default_link_typetonone - Enabled support for
excerptonpagespost type - Removed the
<p>tags typically wrapped around images
- Gulp setup via WPGulp by Ahmad Awais:
- It automatically compiles by SASS files and launches BrowserSync for local development
- Gulp generates the main
style.cssfile, andlogin-style.css,admin-style.css,editor-style.css(these files are enqueued ininc/extras.php) - With the SASS maps, regular and minified versions of CSS, there's a lot of CSS files. So, I moved them into
assets/css/.
- CSS Object-fit support via object-fit-images polyfill
- Includes SASS mixin, see:
assets/sass/mixins/_mixins-master.scss - JavaScript polyfill for support of object-fit in IE:
assets/js/object-fit-polyfill.js
- Includes SASS mixin, see:
Some of the functions in inc/extras.php are inspired by my friend Linn's Function Friday series. Thank you Linn!
Hi. I'm a starter theme called _s, or underscores, if you like. I'm a theme meant for hacking so don't use me as a Parent Theme. Instead try turning me into the next, most awesome, WordPress theme out there. That's what I'm here for.
My ultra-minimal CSS might make me look like theme tartare but that means less stuff to get in your way when you're designing your awesome theme. Here are some of the other more interesting things you'll find here:
- A just right amount of lean, well-commented, modern, HTML5 templates.
- A helpful 404 template.
- A custom header implementation in
inc/custom-header.phpjust add the code snippet found in the comments ofinc/custom-header.phpto yourheader.phptemplate. - Custom template tags in
inc/template-tags.phpthat keep your templates clean and neat and prevent code duplication. - Some small tweaks in
inc/extras.phpthat can improve your theming experience. - A script at
js/navigation.jsthat makes your menu a toggled dropdown on small screens (like your phone), ready for CSS artistry. It's enqueued infunctions.php. - 2 sample CSS layouts in
layouts/for a sidebar on either side of your content. - Smartly organized starter CSS in
style.cssthat will help you to quickly get your design off the ground. - Licensed under GPLv2 or later. :) Use it to make something cool.
If you want to keep it simple, head over to http://underscores.me and generate your _s based theme from there. You just input the name of the theme you want to create, click the "Generate" button, and you get your ready-to-awesomize starter theme.
If you want to set things up manually, download _s from GitHub. The first thing you want to do is copy the _s directory and change the name to something else (like, say, megatherium), and then you'll need to do a five-step find and replace on the name in all the templates.
- Search for
'_s'(inside single quotations) to capture the text domain. - Search for
_s_to capture all the function names. - Search for
Text Domain: _sin style.css. - Search for
_s(with a space before it) to capture DocBlocks. - Search for
_s-to capture prefixed handles.
OR
- Search for:
'_s'and replace with:'megatherium' - Search for:
_s_and replace with:megatherium_ - Search for:
Text Domain: _sand replace with:Text Domain: megatheriumin style.css. - Search for:
_sand replace with:Megatherium - Search for:
_s-and replace with:megatherium-
Then, update the stylesheet header in style.css and the links in footer.php with your own information. Next, update or delete this readme.
Now you're ready to go! The next step is easy to say, but harder to do: make an awesome WordPress theme. :)
Good luck!