A WordPress starter theme is a great way to build your own themes. Starter themes are, as the name implies, meant to serve as the code foundation upon which you build your theme.
With a good starter theme, you have a 1000-hour headstart.
This is because on its own the starter theme will typically deliver lots of functionality, but very little styling.
This means that you can concentrate on building the most beautiful theme possible.
And, of course, the functionality itself is also modifiable if you know PHP (or have a sense of adventure and a willingness to learn).
One distinction: a child theme piggybacks on the functioning of another theme. Both themes must exist in the /themes directory.
In contrast, a starter theme is self-sufficient: it does not require another theme to function.
Probably the most famous starter theme is underscores (or _s).
I’ve recorded a series of Loom videos to demonstrate how to use underscores to create your own WordPress theme.
The videos will show you how to generate, install, and edit the theme you will generate at the underscores website.
To follow along with the videos, please download this Duplicator zip archive. When you unpack the ZIP file, you will find a Duplicator installer and archive combination, and a single screenshot file.
Rename the folder holding the installer and archive to hotpinkrubberchicken and put it in your MAMP htdocs folder.
Then start up MAMP and make a new database called hotpinkrubberchicken.
Go to the root level of your local server (localhost:8888 on Mac, localhost on Windows), click the hotpinkrubberchicken folder and then run the Duplicator installer.
As part of the installation process (step two or three), create a new ]account with your name as the user and password.
Video 2 will show you how to install that theme inside the duplicated site.
Your Task
Please go through all the videos in the order implied by the numbers in their titles. Code along with them.
When you are done, go to your theme. The path will be htdocs/hotpinkrubberchicken/wp-content/themes/hprc.
Right-click that theme and choose copy and then paste it onto the Desktop.
Then rename the theme to hprc-yourname, zip it and hand it in to BrightSpace (Langara) or Moodle (Emily Carr).