_jb

Hi. I'm a starter theme called _jb, or underscore_jb, if you like. I'm a theme meant for hacking so don't use me as a Parent Theme. Instead try turning me into the next, most awesome, WordPress theme out there. That's what I'm here for. I'm based on Automattic's _s (underscores).

My ultra-minimal CSS might make me look like theme tartare but that means less stuff to get in your way when you're designing your awesome theme. Here are some of the other more interesting things you'll find here:

• Grunt tasks to process & minimize Sass & Javascript, and to run Browsersync.
• A just right amount of lean, well-commented, modern, HTML5 templates.
• A helpful 404 template.
• A custom header implementation in inc/custom-header.php just add the code snippet found in the comments of inc/custom-header.php to your header.php template.
• Custom template tags in inc/template-tags.php that keep your templates clean and neat and prevent code duplication.
• Some small tweaks in inc/template-functions.php that can improve your theming experience.
• A script at js/navigation.js that makes your menu a toggled dropdown on small screens (like your phone), ready for CSS artistry. It's enqueued in functions.php.
• 2 sample CSS layouts in layouts/ for a sidebar on either side of your content.
• Smartly organized starter CSS in style.css that will help you to quickly get your design off the ground.
• Licensed under GPLv2 or later. :) Use it to make something cool.

Getting Started

_jb doesn't have a fancy website like underscores.me that will download a customized, renamed, version for you, but it does have a cool Grunt task to rename the theme from johnbeales to whatever your project is actually called.

After you clone or download _jb from GitHub. The first thing you want to do is copy the _jb directory and change the name to something else (like, say, john-is-awesome), and then you'll want to fire up your favourite terminal and get run the Grunt setup-project task:

1. cd into your new john-is-awesome directory
2. Run npm install to install Grunt & any dependencies, (this assumes you have Node installed already).
3. Run grunt setup-project --project-name=john-is-awesome

Finally, update the stylesheet header in style.css and the links in footer.php with your own information. Next, update or delete this readme.

Auto-Building Sass and Javascript as you work

The Gruntfile has a default task that watches your Sass, Javascript, and PHP files to compile and minify the Sass and Javascript when they're changed, (don't worry - there are sourcemaps!), and update the browser with Browsersync when Sass, Javascript, or PHP gets changed.

The Browsersync task expects your project to be hosted on the local domain http://name-you-set-in-setup-above.dev, (it defaults to http://_jb.dev), so you might want to update your hosts file to point to whatever IP your development webserver lives on.

Go Build Something Great

Now you're ready to go! The next step is easy to say, but harder to do: make an awesome WordPress theme. :)

Good luck!