Confidently Build Fast and Modern WordPress Themes
Like a Pro
Online workshop courses to level up your WordPress theme development skills with modern techniques and best practices.
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How to add a gradient text effect to specific words in a block
Gradient text effects are pretty nifty and can add a nice element of visual flair to your posts (if I do say so myself). Adding this effect is pretty easy with CSS, but what if you want to only apply it to certain words inside a paragraph, heading, or similar block? In this post I’ll…
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4 new essential modern CSS features for WordPress Development
CSS has been around for a while, but modern features are being added faster than ever. In this post, I’ll show you 4 essential CSS capabilities: color manipulation, smart selectors, container queries, and aspect-ratio that will save you time and effort on your WordPress projects, with no JavaScript or complex workarounds required.
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How to set up custom fonts in block themes
In this post I’ll show you how you can easily add Google Fonts or your own custom fonts to a block theme and how you can customize the generated @font-face rules if needed.
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How to add multiple block areas to a single block theme template
In this post I’ll show you how you can add multiple post-specific block areas to a single template in a block theme. I’ll explain when you may want to do this as well as the technical reasons why it needs to be done a certain way.
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How to easily parse and alter HTML markup with WP_HTML_Tag_Processor
When you’re building with WordPress you will almost definitely need to modify HTML output at some point or other. This type of thing is pretty easy to do with JavaScript (which is pre-built with tools for manipulating the DOM) but historically it’s been much more challenging when using PHP. In this post I’ll show you…
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How to use Dependency Extraction in webpack to make your scripts smaller
WordPress makes it really easy to reduce the size of your scripts when you’re using common packages. In this post, I’ll show you how Dependency Extraction works and how you can use it even if you’re not using @wordpress/scripts.
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Setting up a child theme for hybrid or block themes
If you’ve been building with WordPress in the past, you may have used or heard of a “child theme” before. In this post I explain how child themes work and why you may (or may not) need one for your project.
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4 new habits for adding stylesheets and scripts to WordPress
WordPress has some great new features and development patterns to help you get the most out of the stylesheets and scripts you’re adding to your pages. In this post I’ll show you 4 new habits to simplify enqueueing styles and scripts on your WordPress site.
Learning how to develop WordPress themes can be daunting.
Getting started can be simple, but if you’ve never built your own theme before it feel hard to know where to start. So much content is out of date or no longer relevant. Reading the Codex provides information, but not as much context.
Making things to work is one thing, but building something durable that scales can feel elusive. There’s so many different ways to do things and it can be overwhelming trying to determine what is best to focus on.
This material will show you modern techniques that will allow you to comfortably develop your own dynamic themes, improve your understanding of WordPress, and gain job-ready skills.
Meet Your Instructor
Hi! I’m Ian. I’ve been developing with WordPress for over 10 years. During that time I’ve worked at several agencies (most recently 10up) and have built hundreds of custom WordPress sites. This course represents a collection of all of the knowledge, best practices, and approaches I’ve put together during my career and I’m really excited to share it with you!
You’ll learn all the skills you’ll need to succeed as a WordPress theme developer as well as valuable tactics to create reusable block components and dynamic pages without having to using a commercial page builder.
Topics covered in this course will include things like:
Building Your Own Themes
Custom Post Types and Taxonomies
WP Query
Using the REST API
Extending the Block Editor
Hooks (Actions & Filters)
Templates and Partials
Building Custom Blocks
Optimizing Performance
Building Theme Assets
All course packages will include all code samples and audio transcriptions are planned for all course videos.
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