General
- Official WordPress Theme Developer Handbook. wordpress.org.
- Rachel McCollin.
- Carlo Daniele. Introduction to the Twenty Nineteen Theme (Theming for Gutenberg). kinsta, 2019.
- B.J. Keeton. How to Make Sure Your WordPress Theme Meets Official Standards. elegant themes, 2018.
- Nick Schaferhoff. How to Make Any WordPress Theme Responsive. Torque, 2016.
- Nick Schaferhoff. Best Practices for WordPress Theme Development. Torque, 2014.
- Siobhan McKeown. How To Improve and Refine Your WordPress Theme Development Process. Smashing Magazine, 2013.
- Joost de Valk. WordPress Theme – The Anatomy, an Infographic. Yoast, 2011.
- Tom Rank. 4 Features Your WordPress Starter Theme Needs to Have. torque, 2020.
- John Hughes. The Beginner’s Guide to Creating a Theme with Underscores. torque, 2017.
- Rajeesh PK. A Guide to Customizing WordPress Themes. torque, 2018.
- Sufyan bin Uzayr. Three Ways to Create Your Own WordPress Theme. sitepoint, 2018.
Tutorials
- Steve Polito. Modern WordPress Theme Development in 2019. 2019.
- Tonino Jankov. How to Build a WordPress Theme From Scratch. 2018.
- 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.
- Rachel McCollin. Creating a WordPress Theme From Static HTML Series. envatotuts, 2013-2014.
- Preparing the Markup
- Creating Template Files
- Uploading Your Theme to WordPress
- Adding a Loop
- Setting Up the Header
- Adding Featured Images.
- Releasing Your Theme.
- Brandon Yanofsky. I Built a WordPress Theme From Scratch (and you can too). Torque, 2015.
- 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. Writing Maintainable WordPress Themes Series. tutsplus, 2014.
- Part 1: Directories.
- Part 2: Naming Conventions.
- Part 3: Tools.
Cheat Sheets
- WordPress V5.0+ Template Tag Reference Guide as of 5.2. DBS Interactive.
- Default WordPress Generated CSS Cheat Sheet for Beginners. BeginnerWP, 2015.
- Visualize the WordPress Template Hierarchy.
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.
- There is also the non-extended guide.
- 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.
- Fred Meyer. WordPress Child Themes: A Complete Guide to the Core Concepts. wpshout, 2016.
- Rachel McCollin. A Guide to Overriding Parent Theme Functions in Your Child Theme. tutsplus, 2015.
- David Hayes. Always Use a Child Theme! wpshout, 2013.
- David Hayes. Child Themes, the Template Hierarchy, and One Great Little Hack. wpshout, 2015.
Bootstrap
- Understrap – Bootstrap 4 theme.