If you’re a WordPress user and you haven’t heard of Thesis, the innovative theme by DIYthemes, you should definitely check it out. Thesis may not be the most striking theme you’ve ever seen, but Thesis isn’t about design, it’s about creating an innovative framework for others to build upon.
That framework makes modifying and updating a theme easy by localizing all the customizations into two files, a custom functions file and a custom CSS file. Accomplishing this miracle is made possible through the use of hooks, a series of place holders within the framework code. Custom code can then be inserted into the framework using this hooks as points of reference.
All of this results in customizations that are future-proof. When other themes are updated—either to introduce new features or to keep up with new releases of WordPress—all of the files are released. These updates ship with all new files, the same files that you or a designer had spent hours customizing. That means that you must redo all the modifications you made to the header, footer, post index, individual post page, sidebar displays, and any other files touched by your artistic vision.
Thesis avoids all of this duplication of work by making the upgrade process as simple as can be. Just download the new version of Thesis and copy your customization files—all two of them—into the “custom” folder contained within the theme’s folder.
These ease of use means that DIYthemes release updates more frequently than many theme designers, resulting in a very feature-rich experience. For example, basic design changes like the number and size of columns, font properties, ordering of elements, and other such options can all be changed using the options menu, rather than modifying code. This empowers even non-programmers to craft a Thesis-themed WordPress site into something they can really call their own.
To see some great examples of how customization works with Thesis, visit Matt Langford’s post “10 Ways to Customize Thesis and Enhance Your Blog” at MattFlies.com.
Cord is the director of new media at the Mercatus Center at George Mason University. He has been a web developer for over a decade, working with non-profits to rein in their web development costs and grow their online audiences through simple best practices.
