Levelling up your WordPress development workflow

with @daraskolnick

By the way...

I'm taking the info from this talk, expanding on it, and turning it into a course, launching spring-summer 2019.

Interested? Sign up for more info!

This talk is aimed at:

WordPress theme developers who create custom (parent) themes

Suggestions can apply to either solo devs or teams.

So, why is having a good workflow so important?

1. You can automate lots of non-fun tasks

Who loves compressing images, linting code, and creating sprites?

Anyone?

2. A good workflow saves you time.

Time = $$

But more importantly...

Time = freedom

WordPress dev is great, of course...

but having the time to pursue other things in life is also pretty great.

3. You can apply the best, sexiest front-end dev practices to WordPress theming

If you've ever wondered...

If you've ever wondered...

Then this talk is for you!

First Disclaimer

There's no right way to do front-end development — this is just one way.

Devs have a lot of opinions/feels about the "right" way to do things

Don't be intimidated by needing to use the "right" tools — see what works best for you.

Second Disclaimer

Most of the not-so-good dev practices I'll talk about come from first hand experience.

Workflow improvement #1

Developing locally

Why develop locally?

• No White Screen of Death™ on a client's live site
• Local sites load more quickly
• No embarrassment if when you eff things up
• Allows you to use version control
  You're using version control, right? Right?
• You can use task runners, CSS preprocessors, etc.

What MAMP does

• the "AMP" in MAMP/XAMPP/AMPPS stands for Apache, MySQL and PHP
• MySQL and PHP are required to run WP and Apache is highly recommended.
• Replicates setup of common web hosts on your computer
• Free MAMP gives you a local server located at http://localhost:8888
• MAMP Pro lets you assign custom domain names to each local site (e.g. http://sitename.dev)

Setting up your first local WordPress site

Installing WordPress with MAMP is as easy as...

1. Downloading WordPress and putting it in the folder that MAMP is watching
2. Setting up a new database in phpMyAdmin (also conveniently bundled with MAMP)
3. Editing wp-config.php to point at the database you just created
4. Congrats, friend! You now have a WordPress site running on your computer.

For more detailed instructions, CSS Tricks has a great screencast on this very topic.

Workflow improvement #2

Using a starter theme

Time-wasting ways to start custom themes include:

• Coding your theme from scratch
• Using an old theme of yours as a starter theme
• Using a default theme (like twentyfourteen) as a starter theme

Time waster #1:
Coding your theme from scratch

• Extremely repetitive
• Extremely time consuming
• Too much time on gruntwork and less on interesting work

Time wasters #2 + 3:
Using a finished theme (yours or WP's) as your starter theme

• Lots of time spent undoing old work (either yours or someone else's)
• Easy to make poor coding decisions based on laziness/what's already there
• Often end up with a lot of code bloat when stuff from the old theme that's irrelevant to yours sticks around

The better way:
Use a real starter theme!

A starter theme is a barebones theme that acts as a foundation for your custom theme.

A few popular starter themes

• Underscores (made by Automattic)
• Roots
• Bones

Starter themes FTW!

The tedious stuff is done for you and there's little to no styling to undo.

What if I told you we could take that one step further?

The best starter theme...

My starter theme is based on Underscores and contains:

• A customized functions.php file with all my commonly used functions
• A starter script.js file with a few starter functions that most themes use
• All my Sass partials set up as I like them with some useful variables and mixins
• My latest gulpfile.js and package.json (more on that in a minute)

2 example functions in my custom starter theme's functions.php file

/**
 * Media - set default image link location to 'None' 
 */

update_option('image_default_link_type','none');

/**
 * Always Show Kitchen Sink in WYSIWYG Editor
 */

function unhide_kitchensink( $args ) {
	$args['wordpress_adv_hidden'] = false;
	return $args;
}

add_filter( 'tiny_mce_before_init', 'unhide_kitchensink' );
						

Another custom starter bonus

You can bake in more accessibility feature than you'll find in standard starters.

Where do I keep my starter theme?

There's no better place to store your starter theme than GitHub or Bitbucket.

Now, starting a new WordPress project is as easy as:

1. Downloading WordPress and setting it up in MAMP/XAMPP/AMPPS/thing that contains 'AMP'
2. Cloning your starter theme (or a fork of it) into /wp-content/themes/
3. Logging into your new site's dashboard and activating your starter theme
4. Git coding! Git it? Version control jokes are super cool.

Never used Git before? No worries!

I'll be talking more about it a little later and will give you some good starter resources.

Workflow improvement #3

Getting a task runner to do the boring stuff

Some of my favourite development tasks include:

• Remembering which browser prefixes to use in CSS
• Compressing my images
• Linting and minifying JS files
• Creating sprites
• Constantly refreshing my browser

The solution

What are Grunt and Gulp?

Built on

$ Run on the command line

Use plugins to run tasks

Grunt or Gulp?

Devs love to argue

I personally use Gulp.

you have my blessing to use either one.

Gulp performs tasks that you configure in your gulpfile.js.

Your package.json file contains a list of your project's dependencies (aka Gulp plugins).

Gulp should run in your theme directory, not in the root directory of your WP installation.

My starter theme's files

A few example Gulp tasks

CSS tasks

gulp.task('sass', function() {
    return gulp.src('style/style.scss')
      .pipe(sass())
      .pipe(autoprefixer('last 2 version', 'safari 5', 'ie 8', 'ie 9', 'opera 12.1', 'ios 6', 'android 4'))
      .pipe(minifycss())
      .pipe(gulp.dest(''))
});

In plain English

• Gulp takes our Sass file...
• Turns it in to regular CSS
• Runs it through Autoprefixer...
• Minifies the CSS...
• And, finally, saves the CSS file.
• (All in a matter of milliseconds.)

CSS tasks

gulp.task('sass', function() {
    return gulp.src('style/style.scss')
      .pipe(sass())
      .pipe(autoprefixer('last 2 version', 'safari 5', 'ie 8', 'ie 9', 'opera 12.1', 'ios 6', 'android 4'))
      .pipe(minifycss())
      .pipe(gulp.dest(''))
});
				

Autoprefixer

Takes this CSS...

.thing-with-columns {
	column-count: 3;
	column-gap: 40px;
}

...checks caniuse.com for browser support...

And gives you this:

.thing-with-columns {
	-webkit-column-count: 3;
	-moz-column-count: 3;
	column-count: 3;
	-webkit-column-gap: 40px;
	-moz-column-gap: 40px;
	column-gap: 40px
}

:D

How to run gulp tasks

Type gulp [taskname] in your Terminal window.

JavaScript linting

gulp.task('lint', function() {
    return gulp.src('js/script.js')
       .pipe(jshint())
       .pipe(jshint.reporter('default'));
});
					

JS concatenation + minification

gulp.task('scripts', function() {
    return gulp.src(['js/plugins.js', 'js/script.js'])
        .pipe(concat('script.min.js'))
        .pipe(uglify())
        .pipe(gulp.dest('js'));
});
					

Image compression

gulp.task('images', function() {
    var imgSrc = 'img/source/*';
    var imgDest = 'img';

  return gulp.src(imgSrc)
    .pipe(newer(imgDest))
    .pipe(imagemin())
    .pipe(gulp.dest(imgDest));

  });
					

But I saved the best task for last

Typing gulp sass, gulp lint, gulp scripts, and gulp images over and over would sure get annoying, right?

My BFF, the Watch task

    gulp.task('watch', function() {
	 
      // Listen on port 35729
      server.listen(35729, function (err) {
          if (err) {
              return console.log(err)
          };

          // Watch .js files
          gulp.watch('js/*.js', ['lint', 'scripts']);

          // Watch .scss files
          gulp.watch('**/*.scss', ['sass']);

          // Watch image files
          gulp.watch('img/source/*', ['images']);
	 
      });
	 
    });

Watches for your changes...

...runs the appropriate tasks...

... and uses LiveReload to automatically refresh your browser.

But... what if I'm scared of the command line?

CodeKit (Mac only)

Prepros
(Mac, Windows, Linux)

GUIs can be a great place to start

Like Gulp/Grunt, CodeKit/Prepros also watches your theme directory

Gulp resources

• Getting started with gulp
• An Introduction to Gulp.js
• Using Gulp for WordPress Theme Development
• WordPress theme development with Gulp, Bower, and Sass

Workflow improvement #4

CSS Preprocessing

Variables

Plain ol' CSS

	.container {
	    max-width: 980px;
	}

	a {
	    color: #b4c43d;
	    font-family: 'Gotham A', 'Gotham B', sans-serif;
	}

Variables

Sass

	// Fonts
	$gotham: 'Gotham A', 'Gotham B', sans-serif;

	// Global information
	$pageWidth: 980px;
	$fontSize: 16px;

	// Colours
	$green: #b4c43d;
	$teal: #73c6ba;
	$brown: #563016;

Variables

Sass

	.container {
	    max-width: $pageWidth;
	}

	a {
	    color: $green;
	    font-family: $gotham;
	}

Nesting

Plain ol' CSS

	.main-navigation {
	    display: block;
	}

	.main-navigation ul {
	    list-style: none;
	}
	    
	.main-navigation li {
	    float: left;
	}
	    
	.main-navigation a {
	    color: #b4c43d;
	}

	.main-navigation a:hover {
	    color: #73c6ba;
	}

Nesting

Sass

	.main-navigation {
	    display: block;
	    ul {
	        list-style: none;
	    }
	    li {
	        float: left;
	    }
	    a {
	        color: $green;
	        &:hover {
	            color: $teal;
	        }
	    }
	}

Partials

Divide your styles into logical sections

Partials

/*!
Theme Name: Super Awesome Theme
Theme URI: http://fakeyfake.fake
Author: Dara Skolnick
Author URI: http://daraskolnick.com
Description: The fakest theme in all the land
*/

@import "partials/reset";

@import "partials/variables";

@import "partials/global";

@import "partials/forms";

@import "partials/nav";

@import "partials/pages";

@import "partials/posts";

@import "partials/widgets";	

Math

Plain ol' CSS

	.sidebar {
	    width: 36.734693878%; /* 360px / 980px */
	    font-size: 1.3125em; /* 21px / 16px */
	}

Math

Sass

	.sidebar {
	    width: 360px / 980px * 100%;
	    font-size: 21px / 16px * 1em;
	}

Math

Sass

	.sidebar {
	    width: 360px / $pageWidth * 100%;
	    font-size: 20px / $fontSize * 1em;
	}

Using Sass in your WordPress theme

style.scss → style.css

Workflow improvement #5

Deploying with Git

Before Git...

...deploying sites and making changes via FTP was a big pain.

Hey! what's wrong with FTP?

So glad you asked!

• Sooooo slow
• Easy to forget which files need updating
• Tempting to make changes directly on the server
• Therefore easy to get your local + remote copies out of sync

Deploying with Git

  $ git add -A // adds all your changed files
  $ git commit -m "A message describing the changes you made"
  $ git push remote-name master // pushes your files to GitHub/Bitbucket/your site

Most projects of mine have three remotes: origin (Bitbucket), staging (my dev server) and live (client's server).

This is awesome because:

• Really easy (well, once you're used to it)
• Much faster uploads
• Never have to remember which files you changed
• Super easy to keep all copies in sync

Okay, so how do I set it up?

A few options

1. Choose a host with Git support built in (e.g. WP Engine)
2. If you're using a more usual shared host, use a service like Deploy or Beanstalk that FTPs changed files for you when you push to Git
3. If your web host allows SSH access (e.g. Hostgator, Bluehost), set it up yourself via command line

But I have no idea how to use Git - how do I start?

Resources for beginners:

• Learn Version Control with Git
• git - the simple guide
• tryGit

WordPress-specific Git resources

• Version Controlling WordPress
• A WordPress & Git Workflow
• WordPress Development and Deployment With MAMP, Git and Dropbox

If GUIs are more your style

• GitHub for Mac / GitHub for Windows (free, and can be used with non-GitHub remotes)
• Tower ($, Mac only)

If deploying with Git seems too complex for now...

Consider storing your client projects in private repositories to start.

Builds good habits and makes it easier to collaborate with other developers.

My Bitbucket account - public view

My Bitbucket account - logged in

You might be feeling like this right now

Feeling overwhelmed?

• Don't worry about doing everything at once
• Even the smallest workflow tweaks will save time

Thanks!

If you enjoyed this...

I'm taking the info from this talk, expanding on it, and turning it into a course, launching spring-summer 2019!

Interested? Sign up for more info!

Keep in touch!

@daraskolnick

daraskolnick.com

Slides:
daraskolnick.github.io/WCTO-dev-workflow