Do you want to become a WordPress developer, want to create powerful websites with WordPress yourself or want to customize WordPress themes, In this series, We are going to share best resources, tutorials, and tools to become a WordPress developer.

Recommended Reading

• WordPress Development Tools Series Main Page
• Download 15 Free Books To Master HTML, CSS, JavaScript, jQuery, Bootstrap And WordPress
• 38 Free Video Courses To Learn HTML, CSS, PHP, JQuery, JavaScript, Git And More

How to become a WordPress Theme Developer

If you want to create and customize WordPress themes, You should learn HTML and CSS.

Recommended Reading: 38 Free video courses to Learn HTML, CSS, PHP, JQuery, JavaScript, Git and More

With the good understanding of HTML and CSS, You can customize styles of different sections of WordPress themes. Chrome Developers tools are one of the best tools available to easily edit web pages.

You also need to learn basics of PHP. WordPress is a PHP based Content Management System. You will have to add PHP tags to your theme files, so WordPress can display content.

For example, to display post title you will have to use following PHP tag in your theme.

<?php the_title(); ?>

There are so many template tags available for WordPress. You can see a list of available Template Tags at WordPress codex.

With HTML and CSS, You can create and style web pages, after creating HTML pages, you can replace static HTML content with WordPress template tags to display dynamic content.

Local Development Environment

To create and test WordPress websites, plugin, and themes, you need an active WordPress installation. You don’t need to buy web hosting or domain name to set a WordPress website. There are many free software available to set up WordPress websites locally.

XAMPP, WAMP, MAMP and Bitnami WordPress installers are free tools to easily install WordPress locally on your Windows or MAC. You can read this tutorials to learn How To Install WordPress using WAMP Server on your Windows PC.

Local development servers make your development and testing workflow much faster and simpler. You don’t always need an internet connection to test your themes or plugins.

WordPress Theme Development Courses

Here are the list free video courses available online to learn theme development.

1. YouTube WordPress 101 for Beginner Developers 22 videos by Alessandro Castellani
2. YouTube Customizing WordPress 15 videos
3. YouTube WordPress Theme Tutorial 60 videos
4. YouTube Video Series How to Create WordPress Theme Development with Bootstrap A-Z 28 videos by Ezer Sanbe
5. YouTube Video Series WordPress Theme Development By LearnWebCode 1. 17 videos
6. YouTube Make a WordPress theme with Bootstrap 3 6 videos by Coder’s Guide
7. YouTube Create a Premium WordPress Theme 36 videos by Alessandro Castellani
8. YouTube How to Use WordPress Term Meta 3 videos by Develop With WP
9. YouTube WordPress Shorts 9 videos by Develop With WP
10. YouTube WooCommerce Theming 2 videos by Watch and Learn
11. YouTube Video Series Responsive WordPress Theme Tutorial Series by AwfulMedia 1. 26 videos
12. YouTube WordPress Custom Query 8 videos by Watch and Learn
13. YouTube WordPress Custom Post Types And Fields 5 videos by Watch and Learn
14. YouTube Modern WordPress Development Workflow 3videos by Watch and Learn
15. YouTube Responsive WordPress Theme Tutorial : The Basics 26 videos by GeekyBrackets
16. YouTube PSD to WordPress theme 6 videos Aharon Williams
17. YouTube Theming with WP REST API 6 videos by Watch and Learn
18. YouTube How to Create WP_CLI Commands 3 videos by Develop With WP
19. YouTube WordPress Theme Customization API Tutorials 4 videos by GameGrind

What’s next

We are going to publish more tutorials and articles about WordPress Development tools, don’t forget to join our WordPress Newsletter to receive latest articles and tutorials directly in your inbox.

Note: This post was originally published at createwptheme.com. We have republished it here with permission.