Theme frameworks have risen in popularity over the past year, as the desire to create more powerful themes has also increased. There are now many different variations between each theme framework and each has its own benefits.
First off, you have to know what a theme framework is. A traditional theme takes a long time to code, especially if it is your first one and you have never explored coding and designing a theme completely from scratch. Theme frameworks have everything required to use the theme out of the box, but there are more built-in hooks, which allow you to take advantage of additional features that the original designer (or yourself) integrated into the theme.
The hooks can be used by additional plugins or services that makes it less necessary to add other functions to your theme, especially when you utilize plugins the theme doesn’t natively support.
While I don’t want to bore you with the smaller details about theme frameworks, you have to realize that there is a ton of potential behind them, and can serve as the foundation for parent themes on your blog. I’ll probably cover additional links and resources to help you get started in an upcoming article.
WP Framework
A theme framework created by Ptah Dunbar, with several key features. The main idea behind the theme is to raise the standard for all WordPress Themes and dramatically improve efficiency in creating new themes from scratch. The framework is web standards-compliant, with valid, clean semantic XHTML/CC, dynamic CSS classes based on context, and provides organization and structure.
On the developer side, it contains well-commented and forward-compatible code, allows any default behavior to be overwritten or extended, provides convention over configuration, and can serve as the basis for any WordPress theme project.
Additional features and notes (as of the initial versions) include: microformat support, continually search engine optimized code, modular CSS includes (such as reset.css, base.css, and screen.css), Gravatar support, Favicon and iPhone webclip placeholder images, jQuery enabled+screen.js, as well as basic print.css stylesheet support for printing web documents.
Thematic
Designed by Ian Stewart, the Thematic Theme Framework excels in a number of areas, although it is a relatively newcomer to the “market.” A number of outside theme developers have already made use of the framework and its potential.
For basics, it is free, open-source, highly extensible, search-engine optimized, featuring thirteen widget-ready areas, grid-based layout samples, and styling for popular plugins. Support isn’t matched, as there are Forums, a Theme Store for purchasing already-designed themes, and Commercial Support and Customization if you want to take advantage of the framework but don’t have the time or experience.
– Perfect for use as-is or as a blank WordPress theme for development.
– Full search-engine optimized code.
– Extra widget-ready areas, with many more possible than the set included.
– Free and commercially supported themes available for upgrading the theme.
– Sample Child Theme included for rapid development.
– Ready for WordPress plugins.
– Multiple, easy-to-implement, bullet-proof layout options for two or three column desings.
– Modular CSS with pre=packaged rests and basic typography.
– Dynamic post and body classes make it a hyper-canvas for CSS artists and designers.
– Editable footer text, feel free to remove the theme credit without harming the theme.
– Options for multiple-author blogs.
WordPreciousss
This theme framework is still rather new and not as developed as others, but is slated to become a new parent theme/child theme system that also has plugins and other features built into the system.
The Buffet Framework
A theme framework designed not only fro the theme developers who will be using the theme actions and filters to create child themes, but also for the end-users who would like to add and customize the theme to suit their requirements.
It is similar to other theme frameworks in the sense that it utilizes WordPress actions, hooks, and filters, to add additional content without having to extensively edit the theme to do one thing.
Here is a listing of functions that the designer/creator of the theme framework has featured:
– Search engine optimized code, including breadcrumbs, headings, and canonical URLs.
– Support for Microformats, like hAtom, hCard, and XOXO.
– jQuery Powered, with comments form validation, SuperSleight for IE6, Superfish menus, and jBreadcrumb included.
– Packaged with CSS Frameworks, including the 960gs and Blueprint CSS frameworks.
– Action and Filter Hooks, which uses the parent-child theme concept, with inline documentation.
– Theme Options allow end-users to enable or disable particular features using the extensions area/features.
– Compatible with a number of key, useful plugins.
– Theme options have been placed in tabs, with features such as custom RSS feed links and custom footer messages.
– Localization support, ready for translation into any language.
– Free and open-source, placed under the General Public License (GPL) version 3.
– Requires WordPress 2.7 and above as well as PHP5.
The WordPress Starter Theme Project
This “starter theme” is a small framework to help you begin creating themes and styling unique layouts. It eliminates the need to hand-code the entire theme or use other users’ themes that may be too complex to customize or are already styled too much to your liking.
Some of the main features include:
– Blank style.css wiht theme name, author, URL, etc. tags at the top.
– Content-ready 404, archive, search, index, single post, and page files.
– Full, working comments.php file.
– Complete header.php set up with links to RSS, a stylesheet, and JS file, as well as a title template.
– Default search form template.
– Blank screenshot.png file and images folder.
Whiteboard
Whiteboard is a free WordPress theme framework that is useful if you find yourself continually repeating the same code over and over.
The package includes clean, noted, and compact (only 76KB in size) PHP tags, files, and everything necessary to create your own WordPress theme, nearly from scratch.
Some additional features beyond the required pages include: categories page template, archives page template, pagination posts, and socialization links.
Carrington CMS Theme Framework
Carrington is a CMS theme framework for WordPress that makes it easy to create unique looks for different categories, posts, and comments just by creating custom templates. A “default” and “textual” style are available, depending on your needs.
What you’ll get when you use the themes:
– A collection of elegant, high-end WordPress themes for end-users.
– A designer and developer-friendly CMS theme framework for WordPress.
– A set of best practices for theme organization.
– A good structure for organizing pages and templates.
– Actions and filters, a core set of functions that enable the override of template hierarchy.
Sandbox Theme Framework
As you can see from the image above, you will find that this is a barebones template that makes it easy to build upon the basics to create a highly organized and fast-loading theme.
It can easily be designed with just CSS, so beginners will feel comfortable not being bothered with PHP code. It is beautiful on the inside, compatible with WordPress 2.0.x through 2.6.x and above, has full widget compatibility, can be the basis for your own GNU GPL-licensed theme, and has valid code.
Hybrid Theme Framework
The Hybrid Theme Framework is more than just a WordPress Theme. It pushes the limits of what WordPress can do. You can build even the smallest of blogs with it, to the largest of CMS-oriented sites.
A short list of some of the features includes:
– Developed with child themes in mind, so you are able to create an unlimited number of customizations without modifying the original set of code.
– Search engine optimized with no need for plugins to handle this.
– Theme options that are all about content and information.
– Templates for everything and all areas of your theme.
– Thirteen plus page templates.
– Actively developed for WordPress 2.7 but is backward compatible to WordPress 2.5.
– Fifteen plus plugins supported within the theme without any immediate customization required.
– Attachment handling like no other theme previously released.
– Advanced breadcrumbs beyond any other theme.
– Ability to run nearly any type of site.
– More than twenty tutorials to help you get started.
Thesis Theme Framework
I won’t get into the features here, but there are more than a hundred reasons why you should be using the Thesis Theme for WordPress. Now, this one is different from the others listed above, because it is commercial only. There is only one version currently available, but new features and updates are continually added, making it one of the most extensive themes available on the market.
Conclusion
With more than ten theme frameworks available, and may of them listed above (again, I highlighted only the most popular and feature-rich), there are plenty of options that you can choose from, especially when choosing a theme framework to use.
In all honestly, you want to choose one that suits your needs and most importantly, has most of the basic WordPress features already integrated. Without these, you’ll be scrambling to lookup the code to basic functionality. Not all frameworks are created equally, and each has a different purpose.
Looking over the above frameworks, which one have you taken advantage of (or any other that might not be included) and how have you integrated it into your project(s)?
May 10th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
When you said that Thematic Theme Framework is a relatively newcomer to the “market”, did you mean to say it was one of the first theme framework, because I think that would be more accurate. Out of the themes you have list, it has to be the second oldest one, if not the first.
May 12th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
Sorry about the wording, that should be applied to another one of the frameworks. It meant to read something along the lines of: “The Thematic Theme Framework has seen some of the biggest growth and use recently.”
I agree with you that it was one of the first, but is now clearly one of the most popular by the number of themes that have been created from it by third-party designers/developers.
July 14th, 2009 at 9:52 am
Every body love cms, not just you guys. Definitely love the themes. In fact I have been building website for years and never use cms theme before until recently. cms Code is really a cool that everybody can have their website now .