Save As: A Basic HTML5 WordPress Template
When I start building a WordPress theme, one of the first things I do is “Save As” from a theme I built in the past. WordPress is great and has a lot of neat features—I just don’t need all of them. I like making simple themes that let the content speak for itself. That was one of the goals when building the theme for the PatientsLikeMe Tech Blog.
This past August, Cris and I converted the Tech Blog theme to HTML5. I think it’s useful enough that we decided to take the theme, strip out the PatientsLikeMe-related stuff, and share it for anyone who wants it. Let’s call it Save As.
Again, I’ll stress that it’s a very basic theme—quite intentionally. Here’s what you’ll get from it:
- Markup that is completely free from the CSS. In fact, the theme includes only a few lines of CSS—so you can do it yourself.
- All the HTML5 tags you’d come to expect:
header(withhgroup!) for the blog title and tagline,footerfor the… footer,asidefor the sidebar (though I used anasidewith the ID “sidebar” so that you can use asides in your individual posts, too),timefor proper post time-stamping,sectionfor the main parts of the page (like the main posts area or the comment form),articlefor individual posts, and evenmarkfor highlighting search matches (in titles only, for now) on your search results page. - A fresh start from which to create some awesome.
The theme is available on Github. I’d love it if you’d download it, try it out, and build upon it for your next HTML5 WordPress theme. I know I will!