Reptile 101
Traditionally a theme framework has been considered a really powerful theme that offers you a lot of flexibility and options. The ironic part is they are not really frameworks, but nothing more than advanced (and not so advanced) themes. Reptile is a true WordPress theme framework. To this date I do not know of any other “theme framework” that comes close to the flexibility of Reptile.
How Is Reptile Different?
The base of Reptile is not a theme. It is just a set of PHP classes and functions that helps you to easily build and extend the functionality of a theme. If you loaded Reptile without any skins then you would have a non-functional site. This is why Reptile includes our default skin Plush.
In addition, Reptile adds option pages in the control panel that are commonly included in most advanced and premium themes today. The options in these pages are optional and do not have to be used in a skin, but then why would you need Reptile? :D
What Is A Reptile Skin?
A Reptile skin is a WordPress theme in its most basic form. We call it a skin because Reptile skin sounds really cool. The main difference between a WordPress theme and a Reptile skin is that skins use skin.css and themes use style.css. The other stuff is just to make life easy!
Reptile Functions
A great example of a Reptile function is the doctype() function. This function allows an individual to set the doctype for the skin in Reptile’s Site Settings page. Instead of writing out the doctype in the top of your template you would do the following:
<?php global $reptile; ?> <?php $reptile->doctype(); ?>
Now you can use the pretty dropdown box as shown below:
The Reptile Advantage
The beauty of Reptile is that it uses the exact same template hierarchy as WordPress. With many other theme frameworks you cannot easily take advantage of custom templates. For example, if I wanted to create a custom category template for the News category I could create a file named category-news.php. If you need an example template to follow you could make a copy of our archive.php template, rename it, and then modify.
Sidebars, Widgets, And Footers, Oh My
Can I resize content and sidebar columns in the control panel? No. Why not? Well, The Bandits debated over this option and in the end we decided that many users end up doing their site more harm than good. Our Reptile skins have certain column widths because they work quite well and fit the design structure. We have a plan to build a few themes using the 960 Grid System which will give you some flexibility in your layout without ruining your site.
However, there is an option to choose the number of widgetized sidebars and footer widgets you would like. This feature works quite well, but must be supported by the skin. We built this function in to accommodate a few of our upcoming theme releases.
What The SEO?
The Bandits adhere to basic SEO principles when creating our Reptile skins. Your site should be in fairly good shape with just our skins, but we recommend installing the wonderful All in One SEO Pack for advanced functionality and possibly improved rankings. Since Reptile is fairly new we did not want to try to build the perfect theme in one shot (although we think we came fairly close). There was no need at this time to duplicate a plugin that works very well.
Are We Done Yet?
Not quite, but you should now have a better understanding of Reptile and how it functions. There is so much more to this wonderful theme that I have left out and will cover with additional tutorials over the next few weeks. In the meantime, go pickup a copy of Reptile + Plush and let us know your thoughts.