Growth Spark Starter Theme

A starter theme for professional WordPress Development

View Changelog

Custom Admin Features

The /inc/admin/ directory now comes stocked with a variety of functions which customize the WordPress admin interface for better usability:

Enhanced "Recent Drafts" Dashboard Widget

dashboard.recent-drafts.php

Displays an updated version of the "Recent Drafts" dashboard widget that can provide a list drafts for both Pages & Posts, as well as any number of custom post types. Drafts are organized into separate lists according to type.

Desired post types can be set in the $types array of this file.

Theme Styles applied to TinyMCE Editor

tinmyce-editor.php

Visual styling of content in the TinyMCE Editor will reflect theme styles set in style.css, offering users a more realistic preview of what the live page will look like.

Simplified TinyMCE Toolbar

tinmyce-editor.php

Allows customization of the TinyMCE toolbar. Can be tweaked on a per-theme basis to suit clients' needs.

Defaults:

• "Heading 1" removed from the formats menu (each page should only have one h1 tag, typically reserved for the page title)
• Justify, strikethrough, and spell-checker buttons disabled
• Menu condensed to one row instead of two

Admin Branding

admin-branding.php

A collection of functions that adds custom branding to the Admin panels. Can be used to add a custom logo to both the login screen & Dashboard.

Customized Admin Menu Ordering

admin-menu.php

Defaults:

• "Pages" tab is pushed to the top of the menu, just below "Dashboard". Pages are usually the most used feature, plus it's important to have it next to Posts & other CPTs.

Custom User Capabilities

user-capabilities.php

Defaults:

• Users with the "Editor" role have the ability to manage Widgets, Menus, & Theme Options
• The "Tools" menu is hidden for all users below Admin
• The "Plugin Editor" section is disabled for all users

Remove Dashboard Widgets

remove-dashboard-widgets.php

Supports the removal of unneeded dashboard widgets to provide a cleaner, less cluttered interface.

Remove Default Widgets

remove-default-widgets.php

De-clutters the Widgets panel (under Appearance -> Widgets) by removing unneeded sidebar widgets.

Custom Post Type Boilerplate

cpt.sample.php

Updated cpt-sample.php: Improved code organization and added variables to reduce the amount of customization needed to create a new CPT.

Custom Theme Widgets

Now included with the theme are 2 custom widgets:

Feature Box

Simple text widget with an added option for a "Read More" link or button. Eliminates the need for hard-coding buttons & URLs in widgets.

As of 1.3 also supports the option to add an image to the widget.

GS Recent Posts

Enhanced Recent Posts widget which supports:

• Custom Post Types
• Date formatting
• Excerpts
• Thumbnails

Comments Template

Added an updated comments.php which features a clean, compact layout and provided starting styles in style.css.

JavaScript

jQuery Cycle

Minified version of jQuery Cycle now included by default in /js/. Starting settings are in functions.php, with the expectation that they'll be modified or removed.

CSS

And updated version of base.css now contains the following:

1. CSS Normalization
2. Essential WordPress classes
3. Fluid 12-column grid system

Enqueue-ing of theme stylesheets has been moved to functions.php, with the expectation that stylesheets will be customized on a per-theme basis.

Developers should configure their stylesheets in functions.php using wp_register_style and should NOT hard-code them as elements in header.php. This allows us to control the order in which theme stylesheets load in relation to other stylesheets generated by plugins & the WP Core.