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I'm developing my first WordPress theme. I've sketched out my wireframes and am now looking to put together a prototype using HTML5 Boilerplate and Bootstrap 2.0. I plan on using the Roots theme framework since it incorporates these from the start (http://www.rootstheme.com/).

I'm wondering if people have an opinion on whether it's better to start by building a static prototype using just HTML and CSS, and then integrating that markup and style into a Roots installation when I've got the basic page structures ready for sexifying, or whether people find it's better to start with a fresh theme-framework installation and just hack on the PHP templates and CSS from the beginning.

Given that this is my first WP site, I'm not familiar with the HTML output of WordPress templates — so I don't know if I write my own static HTML for the initial prototype, whether it will be a headache to get the style selectors to match up with WP's markup.

Hope this makes sense...

Anyways, if someone has thoughts to share about this, or general tips for a newbie theme developer, accept my thanks in advance!

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As there is no correct answer to this question, it is not appropriate for this site. – m0r7if3r Feb 2 '12 at 0:30
Agree with @m0r7if3r. – EAMann♦ Feb 2 '12 at 2:12
Apologies. I will be more careful with future questions. – michael k Feb 2 '12 at 5:18

closed as not constructive by EAMann♦ Feb 2 '12 at 2:12

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1 Answer

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It really depends how comfortable you are with your programming skills. Some pre-made themes can be quite complex as they're including tons of features that not necessarily everyone will use and also features that everyone will use, but that's not really the point.

The point is, if you feel more comfortable editing a theme, then go for it. If you think you can handle the task of creating it from scratch, then I urge you to try. Please note that WordPress is VERY well documented (in my opinion, some beg to differ) and since I started with WP, I've never had a problem figuring things out on my own, and when I did hit a brick road, I came here to figure it out.

And since I mentioned coming here to get my questions answered, I should note that you should always make sure your questions show research effort and are relevant to the developer community and not a support question. :)

PS: Learning on my own has had its major ups and downs but it has been worth it! :)

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thanks, this is helpful – michael k Feb 2 '12 at 5:19

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