Load a different theme for IE less than 9

Drop this inside a plugin: add_filter(‘template’, function($template){ // could be IE if(preg_match(‘/MSIE [1-9]/i’, $_SERVER[‘HTTP_USER_AGENT’])) return ‘your_ie_theme_name’; // other return $template; }); Just so you know, browser detection trough PHP is not really that accurate. There’s a get_browser() function available PHP, not sure if it’s any better though.

What’s the order of loading wordpress elements?

WordPress load is complicated process and hard to grasp in full. The very basic overview would be like this. What you should do for starters – think in specifics. A lot of common tasks (adding scripts, using hooks, etc) are standardized technically or conventionally. So go by task – decide what you want to do … Read more

Should a child theme share the same theme options row as the parent, or should it have it’s own options row?

Neither. Theme options should be stored as theme mods, using get_theme_mod and set_theme_mod. Internally these map on to options, but it is the official way to store theme specific options, that way when you change themes you don’t get clashes, and your settings are preserved for if you ever change back. It’s the classic adage … Read more

Free themes for commercial use

The Pinboard theme is in the WordPress theme repository and released under the GPL license, this means that you are free to use and redistribute the theme code. The GPL license gives you…. the freedom to use the software for any purpose, the freedom to change the software to suit your needs, the freedom to … Read more

Calling widget via function in themes files (hard code)

Using the_widget() is the correct way to “hard code” an arbitrary Widget in a template file: <?php the_widget( ‘foobar_widget’, $instance, $args ); ?> Since the_widget() simply returns if ‘foobar_widget’ is not a registered Widget, it is functionally equivalent to using an if ( function_exists( $function ) ) conditional. You could look in core to see … Read more

variables in translatable text

The translation strings not only get parsed during rendering (output on screen/in browser), but also by the GNU gettext parser. This one is not a PHP parser, so it can’t fetch variables. This is the only part of a Theme or a Plugin, where you need to repeat yourself and add the plain string to … Read more

How does a Child Theme works?

You are correct, that WordPress will load the style.css file from your parent theme first, and then the style.css from your child theme. These means because of how CSS itself works, you have to specifically override any rule you wish to override. What this means is that you would need to modify the CSS within … Read more