Wordpress Theme Developer "Workspace"

Question

I am a Wordpress Theme Developer (Freelancer) and I make somewhere between 1-2 Themes / Week so I need a Quick way to make this happen.

Examples:

• I use twentyten every time, delete the functions that I don't need, the CSS, images etc. I kinda let it "naked". (Not a quick way, maybe a personal framework?)
• I search for Wordpress functions (since I can't remember all of them), on Wordpress Codex and again, not a quick way. So, do you guys think that a personal Function DB would be ok for me?
• And more other stuff that I can't remember right now.

How do you guys organize your workspace?

Answer 1

If the themes you make are fairly similar, you might want to create that "naked" version and keep that as your base for future work.

I've created a handful of themes myself and I followed the same approach. I take that base theme and create new versions of the particular files that need to be customized.

However, if your themes vary quite a bit in form and function (being a freelancer, I'm certain they do), you may still want to create a library of functions and stylesheets rather than re-implementing everything for each project. Even if it means creating functions that call single Wordpress functions with default values, if it streamlines your workflow then it is well worth the minor overhead.

Answer 2

I think it's really a matter of personal preference, what works for you, what's easy to remember, what makes sense to you, etc. If you like starting with a stripped TwentyTen theme, then take that theme as a whole, strip it of everything you don't want, and then use that as your starting point for each theme you build. Certain functions that you find yourself using over and over, you could simply place in the functions.php file, in the theme folder. Then, which ever functions you end up needing for that specific theme are there, and the rest of them you can delete once you've built the theme.

Answer 3

First, it would be useful to develop your own theme as a starting point. Ripping stuff out of twentyten is really inefficient. If you develop one that has everything you need, you can do the second step:

Use child themes. A child theme will keep the parent untouched and you only have to change the things that you need to be different and add a new stylesheet. A big benefit is that it only consists of the stuff that is specific to that particular site. The generic stuff stays in the parent theme. Also you have the benefit of updating the parent easily and adding upgrades across multiple sites quickly.

A good starting point might be to try one of the frameworks like Thematic.

Also take a look at Automattic's toolbox theme. Twentyten is kind of messy and bulky. Toolbox is actually meant to be used more like you are using Twentyten.