Based on lesson plan to be tested from make.wordpress.org/training, and presented at Pittsburgh WordPress Designers and Developers Meetup group

1. Anatomy of a
WordPress Theme
Pittsburgh WordPress Anonymous Group

2. 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.

3. Prerequisites
 Basic knowledge of installing and activating
WordPress themes
 Basic knowledge of HTML, CSS, and PHP

4. 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?

5. 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

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

8. 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

9. Other files in themes
 /css/
 /js/
 /img/
 /language/

10. 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 first
category-tutorial.php, tag-dogs.php
then basic archive template – category.php or
tag.php, and falls back to archive.php
 wpheirarchy.com

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