Under the hood of Twenty Sixteen

Twenty Sixteen is the new default theme for WordPress 4.4. This year the process has been done differently, with an exciting exploration of how default themes are created. The theme has been developed on GitHubGitHub GitHub is a website that offers online implementation of git repositories that can easily be shared, copied and modified by other developers. Public repositories are free to host, private repositories require a paid subscription. GitHub introduced the concept of the ‘pull request’ where code changes done in branches by contributors can be reviewed and discussed before being merged be the repository owner. https://github.com/ and you can follow along here. The theme has also been synced every night with the WordPress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ theme repository. This has meant more people have been able to use them theme earlier than previous default themes.

As Beta 1 is now out, it’s a great time to explore a little more about what Twenty Sixteen contains and how the contributions have shaped this default theme so far.

Features of Twenty Sixteen

This theme is designed to be a fresh take on the traditional blogging format. It includes:

  • Multiple menu positions and a social menu.
  • Optional sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme..
  • Custom color options and beautiful default color schemes.
  • Harmonious fluid grid using mobile-first approach.
  • Custom background and headerHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes..
  • Overflow displaying large images.
  • Ability to add intro to post using custom excerptExcerpt An excerpt is the description of the blog post or page that will by default show on the blog archive page, in search results (SERPs), and on social media. With an SEO plugin, the excerpt may also be in that plugin’s metabox..

Contributions to Twenty Sixteen

During development, there have been some amazing contributions along the way. These include:

  • Lots of accessibilityAccessibility Accessibility (commonly shortened to a11y) refers to the design of products, devices, services, or environments for people with disabilities. The concept of accessible design ensures both “direct access” (i.e. unassisted) and “indirect access” meaning compatibility with a person’s assistive technology (for example, computer screen readers). (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessibility) improvements. The Accessibility team have done amazing work reviewing and ensuring Twenty Sixteen is better than any other default theme for accessibility.
  • Improved js handling and tidying in files. Thanks to contributions, the theme js and that of other default themes has been reviewed and optimised.
  • Numerous design enhancements including sub menus.
  • Travis testing integrated with the repo.
  • Device and browser testing. Everyone really helped put this theme through it’s paces.
  • The addition of singular.php.
  • Responsive image support (on the way).
  • Prefixing cleaning up to focus on browsers using.
  • Sanitisation and escaping.
  • Adding of coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. comments navigation.
  • Hyphenated post titles for better language support.
  • Numerous bugbug A bug is an error or unexpected result. Performance improvements, code optimization, and are considered enhancements, not defects. After feature freeze, only bugs are dealt with, with regressions (adverse changes from the previous version) being the highest priority. fixes, code tidying and countless tiny improvements.

A big thank you to everyone that has helped make Twenty Sixteen the theme it is. It’s been incredible to see everyone so engaged and active over on GitHub.

With Twenty Sixteen on GitHub, if you have a bug you’d like to report you can do so using GitHub right here.

#4-4, #dev-notes