Basey: WordPress Boilerplate Theme

Among the numerous technologies we use here at Blue Ion, WordPress has proven to be flexible enough for everything from simple blogs to advanced applications. Coupled with the amazing plugin ecosystem, theming is just as enjoyable; and extensible.

Basey is a pet-project of mine that started about one-and-a-half years ago and has become our go-to for theme development here. The primary goal of Basey was to be all inclusive, without becoming bloated like a lot of the “all-in-one” themes you’ll see out there are; focused yet still wide-open.

If you look inside index.php, you’ll notice there’s not a lot of markup going on:

locate_template( 'templates/header.php', true, true );

    get_template_part('templates/page', 'header');

    echo '<h1 class="entry-title">';
        basey_title();
    echo '</h1>';

    // start loop
    while ( have_posts() ) : the_post();

        // determine if template is available
        $template_available = locate_template( 'templates/teaser/' . get_post_type() . '.php' ) ? get_post_type() : false;

        switch( get_post_type() ) {

            case $template_available :
                locate_template( 'templates/teaser/' . get_post_type() . '.php', true, false );
                break;

            default:
                locate_template( 'templates/teaser/default.php', true, false );
                break;
        }

    endwhile;

    // display navigation to next/previous pages when applicable
    basey_pagination();

    // if no posts
    if ( ( !have_posts() ) || ( get_search_query() == ' ' ) ) {
        basey_no_results();
    }

locate_template( 'templates/footer.php', true, true );

In fact, take a look at a few more files and you’ll notice that Basey’s core template logic is based-off of pluggable areas; using WordPress’s do_action function. Too many themes I’ve worked on in the past have the same markup duplicated throughout several files – and while developing, can become a real pain in the ass. While you certainly could muddle up each file as needed, Basey has an output.php file where I typically store all of my output (example output included by default). It’s easier to read for me — and just feels right. I focused on creating organized, versatile modules that can be used across different types of setups.

While we typically use it as a base theme, Basey is also fully compatible with child themes. So, if you’re using it across a multi-site setup, or want to use Github Updater to stay-up-to-date across releases, it should fit nicely into your workflow.

All assets are compiled via Grunt and it uses Foundation as it’s core frontend framework; but the minimal output really lends to the idea that you could use whatever you’d like.

I’m always looking for ways to improve Basey, so please open up an issue if you see anything you’d improve.