What Is Amphibian?
The Amphibian Dashboard provides vital information relating to your site including the web server, IP address, and PHP version.
Amphibian is a WordPress theme framework that makes it easier to develop themes. It is modular and lean which allows you to use only the modules that you need to power your site. Why load features that you’re never going to use? Amphibian focuses on the essential.
Additionally, there are no hooks! Hooks are popular among most theme frameworks, but we don’t like them (most of the time). Our belief is that you should directly edit template files and Amphibian makes it easy to do just that with our File Editor module.
Structure
Amphibian has a unique structure and requires that template files are stored in specific directories. We find this structure to be efficient and practical. A theme powered by Amphibian will contain the following folders:
- amphibian - the Amphibian framework
- amphibian\modules – Amphibian modules
- custom – custom.css and custom_functions.php
- custom\images – custom images
- custom\pages – custom page templates
- custom\templates – custom template theme files
- images – theme images
- templates – theme template files
Modules
Modules are similar to WordPress plugins except they are easier for us to build and maintain. They provide an easy way for developers to add functionality to a theme without the complexity of creating a plugin.
Each module contains its own administration panel allowing you easy control over the module’s settings. Provided with each WP Bandit theme are the Content, SEO, and File Editor modules.
The one caveat is that you cannot install modules from the administration panel like plugins. They must be installed and upgraded via FTP. With that being said each theme should include its required modules.
Screenshots
The Amphibian Difference
Unlike other theme frameworks Amphibian is not a theme, it is a framework. The goal is to simplify creating a theme while allowing you to implement advanced features with minimal effort. A good example would be a theme options page. If you have ever created one you realize how time consuming this process can be.
If you’re not a developer or have never created a theme Amphibian is most likely not for you. This is why we create WordPress themes that are powered by Amphibian. We do all the hard work so that you can install the theme and have a fully functioning site. For those willing to learn a little HTML and CSS you can easily customize our themes to your liking.
Conclusion
Amphibian is still a work in progress and should be available shortly after the release of WordPress 3.0. Today our themes are powered by our Reptile framework and use the framework’s custom navigation system. Our system is similar to the one being introduced in WordPress 3.0 and we didn’t feel the need to continue developing our module.