Roots.Io Modern WordPress Development Theme

Modern WordPress Development is hard!

WordPress has been a legacy for decades in the Content Management System. It has been popular since its release in 2003 due to the power and control it gives to the users. The tool helps in putting the website together quickly offering them real intuitive control over the content arranged on the website.

It is due to the popularity that inspired and encouraged WordPress fans to depend on the constant modernization efforts. Roots took the initiative to turn WordPress into a relevantly different application for developers.

About Roots.Io

Roots is a team of developers aiming to create and maintain tools for improving the developmental process of WordPress. Their few projects emphasize standardizing plugin and theme development.

In this blog, we shall explore five Roots Projects that make WordPress workflow easier and more reliable.

Acorn

Acorn is a prominent way to use Laravel components available in WordPress. It brings the elements of the Laravel ecosystems to any WordPress theme or plugin. In simple words, Acorn offers graceful loading of Laravel application containers inside of WordPress. Simultaneously, it respects the WordPress Lifecycle and template hierarchy.

What does it mean?

• As you work with Laravel Components for WordPress, the Laravel artisans use the command: wp acorn
• You may use the Blade for the on-the-flying rendering of Blade Views.
• Have access to third-party packages designed exclusively for Acorn.
• Also, get first-party components like “View Composers” and “Asset Management”.

How To Install Acorn For WordPress?

Installing Acorn as mu-Plugin
Download the recent version of Acorn and extract the file to the mu-plugins directory. Before that, ensure that you have the requisite application ready: bedrock- autoloader.

Installing Acorn as Normal Plugin
Download the recent version of Acorn and extract the file to the plugins directory. Remember to activate the plugin.

Bedrock

Bedrock emphasizes WordPress installation as it simplifies configuration and customization by integrating with the PHP Manager, Composer, completely. Bedrock helps in bringing WordPress closer to the Twelve-factor app methodology. Composer is considered the heart of everything for Bedrock.

What does it mean?

• You get a better folder structure
• The management is dependent on Composer
• WordPress configuration becomes easier with environment-specific files
• Enhanced security
• Has environment variables with Dotenv

How to Install Bedrock with Composer for WordPress?

It is a one step easy installation- just create a new bedrock project with the following command:

$ composer create-project roots/bedrock

Bud

Bud is the most convenient and beautiful way to build JS and CSS. it also offers support for React, Babel, Port CSS, TypeScript, esbuild, ESLint, Sass, Prettier, CSS-in-JS, and much more. This JavaScript works as add-on support!

What does it mean to have Bud?

• Reliable scripts yield consistent and predictable behaviors regardless of specified options.
• Extensible with a fully-featured plugin and supports the packaged modules ecosystem.
• Simple to start and maintain

How to Install Bud for WordPress?

Installing Bud requires a minimum effort for the developers. All you need to do is add the below-mentioned code as a development dependency with your choice of package manner.

@roots/bud

Sage

Sage is a WordPress Starter Theme that harnesses the power of Laravel and other available packages. It depends on Node. JS-based tools for managing dependencies and building assets. The noteworthy point is that “Sage requires Acorn”, but it does not come with Acorn installed. It allows the developers to have the flexibility of including it in a way that works best for the environment.

What does it mean to have Sage for WordPress?

• Sage offers a clean and efficient theme that templates utilizing Laravel Blade
• It provides out of the box support for Tailwind CSS
• It has a lightning-fast front-end development workflow that is powered by Bud

How to Install Sage for WordPress?

Sage using Composer is installed from your WordPress theme directory with the following coding:

# From your WordPress themes directory, run:
$ composer create-project roots/sage your-theme-name

For installing the latest version of Sage, you can simply add the following code at the end of the command:
$ composer create-project roots/sage your-theme-name dev-main

Trellis

A tool that helps create WordPress web servers and even deploy the WordPress sites. With the use of Trellis, you build and manage production-ready servers, optimized for performance, and based on the “best practices” (continuously improved). You benefit from the community and experience of Roots if you do right by the Trellis self-hosting.

What does it mean to have Trellis for WordPress?

• Get a complete WordPress server running across all software needed for configuration as per the best practices that are easily customizable.
• It allows you to have free to use local development tools
• It is easily customizable depending upon your environment
• It is portable and does not need a vendor lock-in
• Trellis makes the management of WP hosting easier and more cost-effective.

How to Install Trellis for WordPress?

Installing Trellis-cli via Homebrew

Use the following code or command for an easy and quick installation of Trellis:
$ brew install roots/tap/trellis-cli

The Final Thoughts

There is no certainty about the “Future of WordPress”, but it is safe to say that it will continue to be popular. With Roots, get methods for easy and better development of WordPress site in the most interesting way. The little constraints with these projects open up a world of opportunities for flexibility and quick customization. All these are taken care of while maintaining and ensuring that the development and management burden is lessened with their integration.

Looking to streamline your WordPress development workflow? Our experts at Roots.io are here to help you implement these powerful tools in no time. Contact us to enhance your next WordPress project.