I’m sure if you are a WordPress theme developer, or work a lot around WordPress, you’ll have your own set of framework, a personalised framework, and only you understand it. Well, I do, in fact I have a few. Just so I can consistantly work around what needed and what not. The year end is near, have to spear time out for checking and paying term life insurance again. Also the time I check with my framework, lots of work, without pay

I always tried to make the framework work easier for me. This is my way:

Theme Options

Something just static, like adding Google Analytics code. It has become a numb in website. Even a web newbie knows that too, I don’t know why. So creating a theme options helps remove the time to copy-paste the code. You can find some tutorial around the net.

Shorten the name

Make sure it is easy to implement what you have on your theme options. Shorten the name, create another my_functions.php files and place all the reusable options there instead. So you can easily add when needed in any project.

Have as much as possible

Yes, built what needed and what don’t needed first. I have ALL WordPress core hooks ready in my functions.php. You can get a lot of custom functions from Digging into WordPress blog. I have a copy too

Keep backward compatibility ready

Though it is always recommended to upgrade WordPress when new version is out, but not everyone is comfortable with it. Some even still have 2.8 with them (how we missed the old layout). I always have 3 version of WordPress ready and make sure all developed themes work well with all 3 version, and yes, from time to time, I will forgot about browser compatibility.

Time to check with the upgrades

Working with WordPress is great, but it will be much greater if one can have it all files and folders organised nicely. I don’t always expect a returning client, so I always make sure what I’ve made is easy for the next guy. So organising my WordPress theme files and folders are what I always do.

Folder it

Make it clear what the folder is about and where to find it. Since I work a lot with responsive nowadays, so another styles/ folder is created. Everything in includes/ folder will be the extra functions and taxanomies.

Name all the functions

This is very important for myself, I get to forget them from time to time. But it is always good to have them named, so we can better understand what it does. I find a lot of premium theme (though was named as “Developer” package) doesn’t name them.

Hide the not needed link

There are lots of useless thing in WordPress admin panel. When was your last time using the “Links”? Or “Media”? I hide them when working on a project. Just so they don’t go “What is Links do?” and I will have to explain something that is never going to be used.

There you go. That is just my way of working around WordPress. Yeap, was rushing a work on a premium WordPress theme and didn’t take much time for rest, smoke frequent increased, caffeine added a lot more. Gosh, I need a rapid opiate detox soon if this keep going.