Phase One of the Theme Experiment

I talked about the WordPress Theme Development experiment I was planning to do weeks ago. Well, it’s finally time to kick things off; even if I don’t start making changes for a week or two.

If you’re not reading this through RSS you can tell the theme has changed and it’s a stripped down version of Carrington Text.

Why Carrington Text?Carrington

I made the decision last week to scrap my old theme framework for all Sprout Venture WordPress theme development and build a new framework utilizing Carrington. I’m really digging the core, it may be overkill for many sites ( this included ) but it’s going to be a pleasure to work with.

Well why Text?

I actually built two base theme frameworks for future dev.; one is based on text and the other is based off JAM. I decided to go with Text for this project ( this blog ) because of some of the AJAX capabilities[1] already built in and to test whether having two base frameworks is better than just having one.

Next…

  • Probably some posts about how I modified Carrington to fit my needs. Specifically overriding the admin page without modifying the Carrington Core.
  • Wireframing which I’ll share.
  • Functionality scoping.
  • Layout changes for the homepage, with short posts proceeding.

As you can tell, I haven’t really put much thought made any decisions as to what I really want the site to look like. Some concepts would be: Minimal; Boxy; Non-trendy; Dull.

[1] Specifically how thearchives work.

About the Author, Dan Cameron:

I'm the owner and solution engineer at Sprout Venture, a web solutions company that specializes in web development including WordPress.

I started my first blog in 2003 and transitioned to WordPress in 2004. Since moving to WordPress I've written a few plugins and themes for public consumption. Lately I'm busy engineering/building/coding and have only been able to share a few code snippets.

If you're in need of some web development, web design or custom WordPress plugins and/or themes contact me, I'll be happy to discuss it with you.

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  • I really like the idea of doing a theme experiment and making it public! I've toyed with new themes before, but I hate having sites look messed up, so I don't take the time to explore the features once it's live.
    http://www.ophelielechat.com
  • Phase one of the great WordPress Theme experiment is live. This is going to be fun.
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