- Official WordPress Theme Developer Handbook. wordpress.org.
- Rachel McCollin. The Ultimate Guide to Theme Template Files in WordPress. wpmudev, 2018.
- Joost de Valk. WordPress Theme – The Anatomy, an Infographic. Yoast, 2011.
- Tonino Jankov. How to Build a WordPress Theme From Scratch. 2018.
- Steve Polito. Modern WordPress Theme Development in 2019. 2019.
- Andy Crofford. The Ultimate WordPress CheatSheet. Techking, 2011.
- WordPress V4.0+ Template Tag Reference Guide as of 4.2. DBS Interactive.
- Default WordPress Generated CSS Cheat Sheet for Beginners. BeginnerWP, 2015.
- Hookr – The WordPress Hook/API Index.
- The WordPress Template Hierarchy.
- Adam R. Brown. WordPress Hooks Database.
- Nick Schaferhoff. Best Practices for WordPress Theme Development. Torque, 2014.
- Rachel McCollin. Creating a WordPress Theme From Static HTML Series. envatotuts, 2013.
- Preparing the Markup
- Creating Template Files
- Uploading Your Theme to WordPress
- Adding a Loop
- Setting Up the Header
- Nick Schaferhoff. How to Make Any WordPress Theme Responsive. Torque, 2016.
- Brandon Yanofsky. I Built a WordPress Theme From Scratch (and you can too). Torque, 2015.
- Siobhan McKeown. How To Improve and Refine Your WordPress Theme Development Process. Smashing Magazine, 2013.
- Baris Unver. Making the Perfect WordPress Theme. envatotuts, 2013.
- Introduction.
- The Very Basics.
- How to Code Well.
- Bad Practices.
- Maintenance, Compatibility & Support.
- Wrapping Everything Up.
- Tom McFarlin. WordPress Templates for Beginners Series. 2017.
- Overall this series was a bit underwhelming, but may be helpful to beginners.
- Part 1: How It Is
- Brief introduction to how templates are generally built.
- Part 2: HTML Calling PHP
- Discusses the advantages/disadvantages/balance of calling PHP from HTML vs creating HTML from PHP.
- Part 3: What’s Templating, Anyway?
- Provides a basic definition of templating, notes a couple different options that can be used with WP.
- Part 4: Timber
- Really basic getting started guide for Timber templating.
Page Templates
- Rachel McCollin. The Ultimate Guide to WordPress Page Templates. wpmudev, 2018.
- Daniel Pataki. Creating Custom Page Templates in WordPress. wpmudev, 2018.
- Baris Unver. Using Page Templates in Your WordPress Theme. envatotuts, 2015.
- Nick Schaferhoff. A Detailed Guide To Custom WordPress Page Templates. Smashing Magazine, 2015.
- Fred Meyer. Building Client Reports with WordPress Custom Page Templates. wpshout, 2015.
- David Hayes. What You Need to Know About WordPress Custom Page Templates. wpshout, 2014.
Child Themes
- Daniel Pataki. How to Create a WordPress Child Theme. wpmudev, 2018.
- Rachel McCollin. How to Create a Child Theme in WordPress (Extended Guide). kinsta, 2019.
- Jon Penland. How to Automatically Create Child Themes in WordPress. wpmudev, 2016.
- Nick Schaferhoff. How to Create and Customize a WordPress Child Theme. Smashing Magazine, 2016.