As you might know, I have been diving into WordPress theme development and I’ve learned many tips and tricks along the way. I noticed I was forgetting about some small issues all the time.

That’s why I decided to make a WordPress Theme Development Checklist. Oh, and if I forgot about some things, be sure to let me know!

General

• Stylesheet should start with these codes or your theme will not be recognized as WordPress theme.
  /*      Theme Name:  The Name of your theme
  *        Theme URI: The URL where people can get more information
  *        Description: Description
  *        Version: 1.0
  *        Author: Your Name
  *        Author URI: Designers’ URL
  *        Tags: red, black, widget-ready (etc) */
• Download the Sample Post Collection to have a filled WordPress installation to start with.
• Theme preview image
  • 240 x 180 pixels
  • Name: screenshot.jpg, screenshot.png or screenshot.gif
• Widget ready themes
• Add rules to your Comments form
• Backwards Compatibility (WordPress version 2.5+ is alright I guess)
• CSS sprites for optimizing images
• WordPress PSD framework

Stylesheets

Make sure you have these stylesheets included with your theme:

• General.css
• Print.css
• Reset.css
• Browser specific stylesheet – ie.css
• Compressed Stylesheet?
  

Browser Compatibility

Test your theme in a number of browsers to make sure everyone sees the same theme. Use browsershots.org to get screenshots from your site in the most browsers. The most important browsers are:

• Firefox 2.0/3.0
• Internet Explorer 6
• Internet Explorer 7
• Google Chrome
• Safari
• Opera

Blog Elements

Every theme should have some elements every blog should have:

• Title/Logo
• Navigation of Pages
• Navigation of Categories
• RSS links
• Search Form
• Archives links
• Dates/Timestamps
• Comments
• Copyright message
• Past/Next links
• Advertisiments

Styled Everything?

You never know how bloggers will use your theme and therefore you have to style all HTML elements. Here are some elements you might not have thought of:

• blocknotes
• tables
• captions
• unordered lists
• ordered lists
• img

Pages

The basic pages you need to produce for a good template hierarchy:

• Index.php
  • Header.php
  • Footer.php
  • Sidebar.php
• Single.php
• Archive.php
• Page.php
• Home.php
• Author.php
• Date.php
• Tag.php
• Category.php
• 404.php

Valid HTML/CSS

You can not validate your PHP files, so you have to go to your favorite browser and click the right mouse button > view source. You copy/past everything into the HTML validator.

• Style.css (CSS validator)
• Single.php (HTML validator)
  • Normal
  • With Comment/Without Comments
  • Login Required/Non-required
  • Password protected pages
• All other pages (categories/tags/authors/ etc)

Suggestions?

Remember, this checklist is not finished. Because I learn about WordPress theme development all the time, more things will be added as soon as I think of them. My question for you is:

Do you have suggestions that make this WordPress theme development checklist better?

PDF Version

Soon, I will also come up with a PDF version of this checklist so that you can print it and put it next to your computer when you are developing WordPress Themes.

Keep Updated!

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