How to Setup WordPress Theme Development Environment

In this Blog Post , i will show you the steps of setting up a WordPress Theme Development Environment on your Computer.

This post is for WordPress Theme Developer , Web Developer , Webmaster etc.

Step 1

You will need a local server with WordPress installed on your Computer

Step 2

Download a WordPress Starter Theme Online

You can check out a list of Starter Theme Here

Some Prerequisite before Starting to develop WordPress Theme , you will need to know some HTML / PHP / CSS / Javascript / Jquery / etc.

Finally a lot of sweat and Perseverance just don’t give up 🙂

In this Example i will use UnderScore

Step 3

Download and Unzipped the Starter theme

Download Here

Step 4

Check out and understands whats inside your Starter Theme

Before developing WordPress Theme , you should have a clear understanding on WordPress Template Hierarchy .

(1) How to Link Resources

(2) How to Enque Resources

(3) What are the function of the different Individual PHP files

(4) WordPress Developed PHP Functions

(5) How and where to Modify the code

You can study the WordPress Template Hierarchy over here

Step 5

Move the Starter Theme folder into your root Folder

root:\………\wordpress\wp-content\themes\Your Starter Theme Folder

Step 6

Navigate to your Theme Folder and edit style.css

root:\………\wordpress\wp-content\themes\Your Starter Theme Folder\style.css

Introduce your Theme by inputting

(1) Theme Name

(2) Author

(3) Version

(4) License / Tags / etc

Step 7

Check out your Theme

(1) Start Up your Local Server

(2) Enter WordPress Login Credential to enter word press Dash Board

(3) Goto Appearance -> Theme -> Activate your Theme

(4) Click Theme Details

(5) You will see the Theme Details you alter in the style.css file

Step 8

Create a Theme Thumbnail for your WordPress Theme

(1) Navigate to your theme root folder