WordPress Starter Theme

Version: 3.2

Contributors:

Matt Banks ( @mattbanks / kernelcreativemedia.com / mattbanks.me )

Summary

WordPress Starter Theme for use as a starting template for building custom themes. Uses Compass/SCSS, HTML5 Boilerplate 4 with Modernizr and Normalize.css, and Grunt for all tasks. Tested with WordPress 3.5.1.

Usage

The theme is setup to use Grunt to compile Compass/SCSS, lint, concatenate and minify JavaScript (with source maps), optimize images, and LiveReload the browser (with extension), with flexibility to add any additional tasks via the Gruntfile. Alternatively, you can use CodeKit or whatever else you prefer to compile the SCSS and manage the JavaScript.

Rename folder to your theme name, change the assets/scss/style.scss intro block to your theme information. Open the theme directory in terminal and run npm install to pull in all Grunt dependencies. Run grunt to execute tasks. Code as you will. If you have the LiveReload browser extension, it will reload after any SCSS or JS changes. To optimize images, run grunt imagemin.

• Compile assets/scss/style.scss to style.css (all paths defined in config.rb for Compass)
• Compile assets/scss/editor-style.scss to editor-style.css
• Concatenate and minify all plugins in assets/js/vender and assets/js/source/plugins.js to assets/js/plugins.min.js
• Minify assets/js/source/main.js to assets/js/main.min.js
• ??
• Profit

Deployment

The theme includes deployments via grunt-rsync. The Gruntfile includes setups for staging and production - edit your paths and host, then run grunt rsync:staging or grunt rsync:production to deploy your files via rsync.

Features

1. Normalized stylesheet for cross-browser compatibility using Normalize.css version 2 (IE8+ only)
2. Easy to customize
3. Flexible grid from Chris Coyier
4. Media Queries for mobile and tablets ready to populate
5. Removed comments from pages
6. Compass & SCSS with plenty of mixins ready to go
7. Much much more

Suggested Plugins

• Use Google Libraries
• WordPress SEO by Yoast
• Google Analytics for WordPress by Yoast
• W3 Total Cache
• Gravity Forms

Changelog

Version 3.2

• tweak Gruntfile.js to fix LiveReload issues and generate source maps for both main.js and plugins.js
• update to normalize v2.1.2
• optimizations and tweaks here and there

Version 3.1

• create templates folder and include example portfolio page template
• create templates/partials and move all template parts there for cleaner directory structure, update all get_template_part() calls to use new path

Version 3.0

• reorganize code in assets folder for fonts, images, js and scss
• setup Gruntfile to use Grunt for all compiling, concatenation and minification
• add deployments via rsync
• update to normalize v2.1.0
• refactor theme functions in lib folder
• general code cleanup

Version 2.6.7

• Fix remove_menu_page to trigger on admin_menu instead of admin_init

Version 2.6.6

• Add grid column sizes I typically use, general code cleanup

Version 2.6.5

• Fix calls for favicon and apple-touch-icon in header
• Remove older IE conditional comments since I don't support IE7 and below
• Change chromeframe call to include IE7

Version 2.6.4

• Clean up footer dynamic_sidebar() call
• Add comment blocks for template parts
• Add functions to remove dashboard widgets, remove admin menu pages, reorder admin menu
• Include add_image_size if needed in init

Version 2.6.3

• Fix text selection bg and color not pulling from variables

Version 2.6.2

• Move border-box from _grid.scss to _global.scss
• Add border-box support for pseudo elements, because it makes the world a better place

Version 2.6.1

• Fix broken call in sidebar.php
• Properly translate widget titles

Version 2.6

• Break functions out into their own included files
• Register style before enqueue
• Redo comments template based on Underscores Theme
• Added required classes to _posts.scss to remember to style them
• Broke register_sidebar() out of loop
• Add support for custom-header, custom-background, editor-style.css, content_width
• Add GPL license info to style.scss
• Add function to remove query strings from static resources
• Remove shortlink from wp_head
• Ran theme through Theme Check plugin to verify things were in order

Version 2.5

• remove jQuery loading from Google CDN. Use Google Libraries plugin is a better option while using version of jQuery in WordPress Core
• cleaned up functions.php and made it more robust
• Moved index, single and page displays out to template parts
• Properly enqueue stylesheet in functions.php instead of manually in header.php
• Updated social network buttons to latest code
• Renamed jquery.functions.js to main.js
• Add flexible grid SCSS
• Updated to HTML5 Boilerplate 4
• Updated to Normalize.css 2
• Updated to Modernizr 2.6.2
• Include @media bubbling mixins, via Chris Coyier
• Other bug fixes and changes

Version 2.1

• added compass with config.rb
• removed mixins covered by compass

Version 2.0

• added SCSS as preprocessor files
• upgraded modernizr to 2.5.2
• upgraded jQuery to 1.7.2
• renamed script.js to jquery.functions.js
• functions.php points to minified versions of plugins.js and jquery.functions.js
• removed unneeded code in functions.php
• cleaned up header.php and footer.php
• added google +1 button to social buttons

Version 1.0

• initial version

Credits

Without these projects, this WordPress Starter Theme wouldn't be where it is today.

• HTML5 Boilerplate
• Normalize.css
• SASS / SCSS
• Compass
• Don't Overthink It Grids
• Underscores Theme
• Grunt