Makes developing WordPress plugins and themes infinitely more easy
If you have ever written a WordPress theme or plugin you probably noticed that a lot of the code seems repetitive and alike. Of course, you can copy-paste stuff from the standard themes, but is that really the right way to write a theme?
Haybase provides an easy interface to many features of WordPress. Writing very simple, nice object-orientated PHP5, you can add stuff like post thumbnails, Facebook Open Graph data, minified javascripts, theme options pages or a list of recent comments.
Think of it like jQuery is to Javascript: an indispensable library for development.
Easily…
- Resize post thumbnails (or any other image)
- Add CSS/JS scripts with automatic minifying (makes your site a lot faster)
- Add Facebook Open Graph metadata to your page for better sharing
- Add theme option pages
- Get arrays with your recent posts or comments
- Access common variables in your theme (such as the theme directory)
- Get the page type
- Do templating, using the magic of mustache
Other things:
- Utility functions for commonly used stuff
- Open source, GPL licensed. Just like WordPress itself.
- Clean, object-orientated, PHP5 code with classes instead of endlessly_long_function_names_with_lots_of_underscores_and_prefixes
- No ads or hidden spyware
- PHP 5.2 or higher
- WordPress 3.0 or higher. Might work on versions as low as 2.7 but that's not tested
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Check out the latest version using git
git clone git@github.com:hay/haybase.git
Or download the latest version as a zipfile
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Copy the 'src' directory to a directory named 'haybase' in your plugins directory
cp src ~/path/to/your/wordpress/install/wp-content/plugins/haybase
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Activate in the plugins screen
Learn more about Haybase: http://www.haykranen.nl/projects/haybase
Fork it on github: http://www.github.com/hay/haybase
Mail me: hay@bykr.org
What's this $T i see everywhere in the code?
$T is the global variable that has the instance of the current theme class.
You use this to access all the public methods and variables of Haybase and your
derived theme class. Read the docs for an overview of all available
options.
Why can't i use kubrick, twentyten or (insert other theme here) as a starting point for my own theme?
I did that for years, but all themes include lots of stuff you don't need and many things you do need, but not in the way you want it. The best way to start a new theme is to start from scratch. However, many lower-level functions are very common amongs themes, and Haybase provides a nice interface and starting point for those functions.
Why bother with WordPress at all? Why not use a proper coded CMS such as (insert name here)?
Many people know WordPress, and the ui is pretty nice. There are thousands of plugins available, and it runs on virtually any web host.
What's wrong with the current way of using the WordPress API? PHP5 provides plenty of ways to write clean object-orientated code. Unfortunately 99% of all WordPress themes and plugins (including the core itself) is not OO at all, in fact, it's a mess. Mixing of code and HTML, using endless functions instead of classes, repetition of large blocks of code. Does this sound familiar to you? It makes developing a clean theme a lot of work, because there is no good foundation.
Are there any examples of (free) themes using Haybase i can download, study and use?
If you have build a theme using Haybase that is free, please let me know so i can add it to a list in this file and on the website!
I build a theme using Haybase, what do you think of it?
See previous question :)
Cool stuff in the near feature (fork on Github and contribute if you want!)
- Support for Haybase addons / extensions
- Let Haybase make coffee and do your dishes (nah, not really ;)
Haybase includes code from: