Do any of you make Wordpress themes?
I usually create my own theme for my main sites. Nothing fancy. I always start with Underscores, then add functionalities to it.
Would you say that's the recommended way to make your own themes or is it OK to start with the default Wordpress Team themes?
If you have never create a WP theme before, I recommend you start with the default WP theme. This way you learn how theme works. My problem with default WP theme is that it has a lot of functionalities I don't need, and I don't want to spend the time to clean it up. When you have more experience working with WP theme, then start with Underscores, it is a starter template for WP theme, very clean. Right now I am looking at https://roots.io/, it is like a complete modern package to develop WP theme
I've always used the default wordpress themes as a base but I've been wondering if I've been doing it all wrong. I'm self-taught so I wasn't sure what other professional wordpress developers did. Let me know what you think about it once you start using it and if you'd recommend it over Underscores.
Will do, super busy with work lately, didn't get a chance to play around with it. I am not a professional WP theme developer. I'm self-taught too.
I also made my own theme for my site. You run into a few headaches, but fortunately, there is enough information out there about WordPress that it's fairly straightforward. I find it a lot easier to work with WordPress than XenForo, for example. Like Jay, I also used and recommend Underscores. It's built by Automattic themselves, which I really like. I had not heard of roots.io, but looking at their "Bedrock" theme, it makes some pretty radical changes to the file structure of WordPress: https://roots.io/bedrock-vs-regular-wordpress-install/ Although I do prefer Bedrock's structure, that looks like a nightmare when it comes time to maintain and troubleshoot. I don't exactly understand how it's able to do that, and I guess it's reliable, but... One thing I've learned in 20 years of web development is that the more you customize and stray from the original design/intention of any piece of software, the more likely you are to run into errors and weird edge cases down the line.
I get all of mine on themeforest.net. With the selection of themes and page builders, it doesn't make cost sense for me to build themes for anything unless it's super custom. There are so many themes available for WordPress it's not even funny. Unless someone has the time and wants to learn how to build a WordPress theme, which is good, then that's totally different. In this day and age everything has become user friendly and automated and for me it's just a waste of time when I can spend $40 to $60 and get a full theme, tested for bugs, and with support if needed.
i got a few themes from them. For my main sites I develop my own so they don't look like rest of the WP sites running similar themes.
I bought two Wordpress themes in the past but what put me off is that I've found other people using one of the themes I used. That's why I make my own now.