Complete WordPress Theme Developer Course With Bootstrap

Build fully functioning modern WordPress themes including page builders, responsive and the WordPress REST API.

Created byRob Percival, Bruce Chamoff, Codestars • over 2.5 million students worldwide!

Last updated 12/2025

English

What you'll learn

How to sell your themes to other webmasters
Develop a complete theme from scratch using concepts presented in this course
Know how to set up the exact development environment perfect for theme development.
Learn how to identify their theme to the WordPress system
Build important theme features including the header, footer and sidebar
Add important information to blog posts including permalinks, author information and publish date
Develop custom templates which include multi-column templates with sidebars and full page templates
Create a search form and search results page
Create dedicated categories & tags page and to recognize the difference between both
Create a tag cloud
Add theme support for featured images, HTML5, menus and more
Create menus and theme locations for those menus
Distribute custom post types
Work with the WordPress customizer
Build customizer sections, controls, panels and settings
Include page builders with the TGM Activation plugin
Recognize coding best practices and how to use the Theme Check plugin to inspect a theme before submitting to the WP review team
Build child themes
Use version control and know the importance of it
Create special templates
Use the WP REST API to quickly display posts without loading the web browser.

Course content

22 sections • 169 lectures • 26h 20m total length

Introduction: 2 Different Themes: Which one should YOU develop first?3:02
From here you can start your journey to becoming an amazing WordPress theme developer and I present you with as many concepts and programming tools to work with today's modern WordPress theme.

THERE ARE TWO THEMES WE DEVELOP IN THIS COURSE. WHICH ONE WILL YOU START WITH?

The Plain Vanilla theme? Start in Section 2. Yes, we build a plain vanilla theme that is free of any efforts of HTML and CSS. Why? I want you to learn how to build very modern functional themes with ANY HTML and CSS.

OR

The Professional-Looking Spore theme? Start at Section 18 - We build a professional looking theme by taking static HTML and CSS and put in all the WordPress code to turn it into a fully functional WordPress theme. However, you may not learn all of the bells and whistles that you would with the plain vanilla theme.
What is MY recommendation? I suggest you start with the plain vanilla theme. Yes, it is ugly, but you learn everything you need about WordPress theme development.

This lecture is the start of your journey toward becoming the best WordPress theme developer by today's standards and trends. Please start here and watch each video in sequence and you will be on your way to becoming ana amazing theme developer.

Tools9:09
This lecture shows what tools are needed to use develop themes.
Downloading and Installing WordPress Onto Our Local Server13:12
Setting up our PHP Environment7:57
Since PHP is the open-source web development language behind WordPress, we show how to set it up for any development environment.,
Creating a blank MySQL database7:55
All WordPress websites store data in their MySQL tables, so this lecture shows you how to set up and configure your database.
Getting Dummy Content To Shape Our Theme6:15
Developing a website and theme with no data is a challenge. This video shows you how to get temporary content for your posts and pages using the Shortcode Ultimate plugin.
Project: Create 3 posts and pages with Dummy Content5:53
If you have installed the Shortcodes Ultimate plugin from the last video, this project provides more practice adding temporary content to your posts and pages.
One Additional Plugin for Dummy Content5:12
One of the best plugins out there in the WordPress plugin repository for populating your website with fake content and images which includes options for taxonomies and users.

Creating a Name and Description9:54
We want to create a theme that WordPress users can easily find and use in their theme selection screens. Make your theme stand out with the advice from this lecture.
Creating Our Theme Folder4:45
This lecture shows where to place our theme files in the WordPress file structure.
Creating our First Theme File8:41
The style.css file is the heart of your theme. Without it, WordPress would not display your theme in users.
Creating Our Theme's Screenshot9:47
Your theme's screenshot is important when identifying it to users. This lecture shows you everything from sizing your screenshot to naming it. Attached is a resource for your theme's screenshot. Open it in Adobe Photoshop and use measure its width and height as explained in the lecture.
Review of the Category Hierarchy Structure5:39
Learn the hierarchy of the category system.
Identifying Your Theme To WordPress

Starting our WordPress theme with Simple HTML5 and Starting Index.html File10:58
In order to start our journey to coding a theme, we need to build its skeleton which will make the complete structure of our theme and what people see when they visit any WordPress website using your theme. All themes start with HTML5 and CSS, so we will start with this technology and work PHP into our theme as we progress through each lecture.
Also available in the Resources section is the complete theme after all the following lectures are completed so you can check your work against the code entered into the videos.
Introducing Bloginfo()8:40
bloginfo() is the most powerful WordPress function. It allows developers to immediately pull up information including the directory of your theme, your site/blog title and more. In this lecture, I will explore the most important parameters that are accepted by bloginfo() and what is returned that has great value to themes and theme developers.
Creating Our Header5:55
WordPress themes have a header that contains your HTML prolog section and can store anything from <HEAD> to <TITLE> to various HTML5 tags.
Creating Our Footer7:27
Your footer is the feet of your theme. Seriously, it contains valuable information needed for WordPress to perform certain functions as well as display the usual footer information like the copyright messages.
Creating Our Sidebar3:17
The sidebar is famous in WordPress for its collection of widgets that users can add from the back end. Although most people recognize the sidebar as a simple column of HTML elements, sidebars can be added to any part of your theme.
Creating Custom Template Tags8:27
All WordPress themes use template tags and adding them to YOUR theme is essential. I explain where to add them and which ones to use. There are hundreds of template tags provided that allow theme developers to display necessary information from blog posts, pages, authors, etc.
Review of the Sections That Help Build Our Theme5:18
We show a quick review of all the sections mentioned in this section and how to put them all together.
Building Our Theme

Displaying Posts9:34
Posts are the building blocks of any blog. They are simple articles and are the first thing that bloggers see when they write on their blogs from the WordPress back end, so coding the necessary pages is important.
Displaying Pages6:11
Pages are like the brother of posts. They are similar to posts except they serve a different purpose. Pages act like web pages whereas posts are used to serve as articles written by bloggers.
Two Options On Creating A Custom Post Type For The Next Video5:58
In the last video, we left off where I was going to show you how to create a custom post type, which is necessary for the NEXT video. In the next video, we have a custom post type called "countries" for different countries.
Now, here in this special video, I give you 2 options on creating a custom post type:
You can install the plugin that is demonstrated in this video where I show you in a very simple way how to create the countries custom post type.
You can watch the detailed videos in section 11 of this course.
The details are in this 6-minute video.
Adding Permalinks and Publish Dates6:55
Displaying the permalink is important for SEO and links to any page or post. Since blog posts are dated, displaying the published date is a normal feature of blogs. In this lecture, we learn how to display both.
Display Random Posts4:52
To vary our blog, sometimes a blogger wants to display a random post. We learn how to do that in this lecture.
Review Plus Ordering Posts in Ascending and Descending Order5:08
Let's review how to display pages and posts and their different features. Also, I add a section to this review where we order the posts in ascending and descending order.
Coding Quiz: Pages and Posts

Developing Our Posts Template (Part 1 of 3)6:12
This is the first part in a 3 part lecture where we teach single.php: We start working with the inner page template that displays posts and learn how to display various types of data along with those posts.
Developing Our Posts Template (Part 2 of 3)4:34
Part 2: We start working with the inner page template that displays posts and learn how to display various types of data along with those posts.
Alternative Way Of Displaying Post Content4:04
Theme developers have options when displaying post data and pages. In this lecture, we present an alternative.
Developing Our Posts Template (Part 3 of 3)10:30
We conclude our 3-part lecture in displaying WordPress posts.
Developing Our Default Page Template8:58
If your theme includes WordPress pages, this lecture teaches how to format and display pages.
Developing Variant Page Templates8:00
Page templates can be formatted in various ways including, but not limited to:
half-page with a right sidebar
half-page with a left sidebar
full page with no sidebar.
We teach you how to create those types of pages and how to display them in the templates menu.
Developing Our Comments Template5:36
Blog posts would not be complete without the ability for readers and subscribers to comment. We teach you how to add a comment template to your post pages.
Review5:39
Let's review how to display posts and pages with this quick Powerpoint presentation.

Displaying WordPress' Default Search Form7:04
Search results are the cornerstone of any website with lots of data. Instead of the usual HTML form, we tap into the WordPress-way of displaying a search form. We teach the default and simple way of creating a search form that can be added anywhere in your theme.
Customizing Our Search Form14:11
From the last lecture where we taught how to add a search form, this lecture picks up where it left off and shows you how to customize the search form to create an endless combination of forms.
Starting Our Search Results Template5:09
Search forms do not have use without search results. In this lecture, we start our template that allows us to display search results.
Adding Our Search Results Loop12:37
In this lecture, we teach you how to add search results with any keyword entered into the search form using the famous have_posts() loop.
Add Featured Images To Search Results11:21
Since the featured image makes any WordPress post come alive and allows us to bread the post, we apply this trick to search results.
Adding Authors To Search Results5:26
For WordPress websites with multiple authors, this lecture shows how to add the author's name to search results.

Developing Our Initial Category Template9:12
Known as taxonomy, categories and tags are excellent for organizing posts and pages. In this first lecture for this section, we explain how to set up the initial category template.
Review of the Category Hierarchy Structure15:04
Categories have a hierarchical structure and sometimes, you may need to display several categories and their children (subcategories) at the same time, so we teach you how to display the entire hierarchy here.
Adding The Conditional Category Tag8:36
WordPress has many wonderful conditional tags that themes can take advantage of. We teach you how to add the let WordPress decide if a post has a certain category and how to program for it.
Developing Our Initial Tag Template5:48
Tags are the siblings of categories in the taxonomy family. As theme developers, we show you how to create a template to display them.
Creating a Tag Cloud17:03
A collection of tags is known as a tag cloud. They are a group of hyperlinks formatted by size depending on how many posts use them. We teach you how display the tag cloud.

What Is Theme Support5:50
Theme support is important in helping WordPress admins do everything from:
displaying thumbnails (featured images)
custom fields
menus
and more

In this lecture, we teach you the basics of theme support.
Overview of add_theme_support()5:14
This function is the key to adding theme support and we show you how to use it completely to make your theme versatile.
Tip: The more theme support your theme offers, the more popular it will be.
Adding HTML 5 Markup Support5:07
In today's world of web design, HTML5 is all the rage and WordPress offers HTML5 support with the information presented in this lecture.
Theme Support Only For The Admin7:38
Learn how to add theme support only for the administrator.

What Are Theme Locations?5:17
Theme locations are places in your templates where menus can be added. Learn how to add them in this lecture.
Creating Our First Theme Location6:41
In this video lecture, we create our first theme location.
Displaying Our Menu19:21
Once our theme locations are completed, we can add our first menu.
Adding Our Other Menus16:22
Our themes are not limited to just one menu. In fact, the more, the better.
Menu Placeholders8:53
Menus have placeholders. We teach you in this lecture how to add them.
Submenus and Menu Depth20:20
Menus have the ability to contain submenus and we display them here.

Requirements

Basics of PHP
A basic working knowledge of WordPress
Comfort of working with text editors

Description

If you ever wanted to build a complete WordPress theme, this course is perfect for you. Not only do we provide over 20 hours of instruction building themes; we provide advanced topics that will make your theme more popular that also gets approved faster by the WordPress theme review team including:

Set up your ideal development environment including PHP, MySQL, and more
Build sections, panels, and controls for the WordPress customizer
WordPress coding best practices
Automatically recommend and/or require page builders with your theme
Use version control (the basics) to make sure your theme development is a smooth process
Create a theme that follows coding best practice and standards
Develop a complete theme from a static responsive theme from scratch
Make your theme compatible with WooCommerce
Display posts quickly with the WP REST API
How to earn revenue from your themes, how much to charge for your themes and which websites are the best marketplaces for your themes.
Package page builders and other plugins with your theme from WordPress, Guthub or in a separate director
Version control of your themes using Git and Github

COMING in MAY AND JUNE 2017: BOOTSTRAP-THEME-MANIA!...We will build a Bootstrap theme as part of all of the concepts taught in this course!

You can already see the Static Bootstrap theme in section 22. We are still creating that brand new theme, you can follow along. We upload videos for this new section a little at a time.

Who this course is for:

This course is perfect for PHP developers interested in developing WordPress plugins

Complete WordPress Theme Developer Course With Bootstrap

What you'll learn

Explore related topics

Course content

An Overview of the Entire Course from Start To Finish1 lecture • 3min

Setting Up Our Development Environment7 lectures • 56min

Identifying Our Theme To WordPress5 lectures • 39min

Building Our Theme Including a Zip File Of Our Completed Theme7 lectures • 50min

Displaying Post and Pages6 lectures • 39min

Building Our Theme's Inner Pages8 lectures • 54min

Search Forms and Search Results6 lectures • 56min

Category and Tag Pages5 lectures • 56min

Adding Theme Support4 lectures • 24min

Menus and Theme Locations6 lectures • 1hr 17min

Requirements

Description

Who this course is for: