Theme Development Standards

WordPress Themes should be coded using the following standards:

• Use well-structured, error-free PHP and valid HTML. See WordPress Coding Standards.
• Use clean, valid CSS. See CSS Coding Standards.
• Follow design guidelines in Site Design and Layout.

Anatomy of a Theme

WordPress Themes live in subdirectories of the WordPress themes directory (wp-content/themes/ by default) which can not be directly moved using the wp-config.php file. The Theme’s subdirectory holds all of the Theme’s stylesheet files, template files, and optional functions file (functions.php), JavaScript files, and images. For example, a Theme named “test” would reside in the directory wp-content/themes/test/. Avoid using numbers for the theme name, as this prevents it from being displayed in the available themes list.

WordPress includes a default theme in each new installation. Examine the files in the default theme carefully to get a better idea of how to build your own Theme files.