The challenge of creating a WordPress theme is to not only make it look good on the frontend, but also to provide users with features in the backend that allow them to easily customize their website without having to touch the code.

WordPress makes it easy for us, web developers, to extend the admin to the particular needs of the theme we are creating: Since WordPress 2.7, the Settings API lets us code our own setting pages while since WordPress 3.4 the Theme Customization API lets us add controls under the “Appearance/Customize” page.

Over the past two weeks I have been looking at both APIs. After some readings and a few tutorials I came up with a #IAMSocial setting page that allows my users to upload their own logo and main image, change the fonts and colors that the theme uses, create featured contents for the homepage and set up their socials icons for the top navigation bar and the footer.

I am still trying to figure out many of the possibilities of these two APIs and how to apply them to my #IAMSocial WordPress theme. So this dashboard might still change. But the main functionalities are here, and more importantly, I understand how to implement them.

Regarding the frontend, so far it looks like this.

But depending on how the user sets up all the options I talked about above, it will look different!

Also, following my professor’s recommendations, I might change this design. Particularly the three featured areas of content below the main image which, regarding to him, are too common of WordPress themes already out there. Actually, I came up last night with a new idea which will probably be the topic of my next post on his project. To be continued…