Comments about SitePoint Build Your Own Wicked Wordpress Themes:

I purchased this book having never touched Wordpress before, and when I got to page 87 which stated we'd be using the Thematic Framework for the remainder of the book, I immediately regretted purchasing it. I wanted a book that would teach me how to build my own theme FROM SCRATCH. You know, "build your own" and all. I think this book would have been more helpful if it was titled "Build Your Own Thematic Child Themes". I did not want to go through an existing theme and try to tweak it to fit my needs. And that's basically what this book gets you to do. Except using the Thematic theme really just means you're going through THOUSANDS and THOUSANDS of lines a code no matter how simple a change you wish to make. Which is HORRIBLE if you're just starting to learn.

And as if that wasn't bad enough for a first-timer, let's throw in the fact the book is pretty outdated. One of the starter concepts is completely wrong, and it took quite awhile for me to catch on to what was going on. And a lot of Googling. I think I've learned more from reading random things online than I did from this book. In fact, I stopped bothering at chapter 6. Because apparently up until then I should be able to do most of what I want, which is laughable. I'm still struggling through my first theme, and the online community of both Wordpress and Thematic have provided absolutely zero help to date.
And unfortunately I haven't found anything better :(

If I ever get to the point of being able to understand any of this, I'll write my own better book.

However, if you're already pretty familiar with Wordpress and theme development, then this would be a good book to get you familiar with Theme Frameworks. But considering it's outdated I'd suggest you just look online for better tutorials and explanations. That's what I ended up doing.

I see and understand the potential of the tool this book forces you to use, but this book fails to educate you on properly understanding it.
Maybe I had an incorrect assumption of what this book was supposed to teach. I wanted to be able to make my own Theme from scratch, rather than constantly trying to modify existing ones. And this book does not teach you how to make your own theme. It just tries to teach you how to modify an existing theme - except this theme is WAY more complicated and this book is extremely undetailed and outdated.

Comments about SitePoint Build Your Own Wicked Wordpress Themes:

This book definitely took my thoughts on Wordpress theme design to new levels Wicked Wordpress Themeswhile simplifying the entire process. The book is made to teach you how to design, build and sell your own themes. But, it is just as informative for someone wanting to extend themes into your own creations for your Wordpress blog.

A brief few pages are placed at the beginning to introduce Wordpress and what a theme means inside the system. Chapter 2 starts the process of planning your theme and stresses the importance research of existing themes before building your site. Wireframe design is explained for the entire site and page layouts.

Theme design in Chapter 3 gives great example screenshots and explanations of color selection. The remainder of the chapter is a core port of the book breaking down each individual component of a Wordpress theme. I learned incredible amounts in these 30 pages of content.

Theme frameworks are an excellent starting point where you use existing themes and build child themes that refer to them. Chapter 4 gives examples to investigate and start the child theme build. Once we entered Chapter 5 for advanced theme construction I took away a lot of tips as someone that runs multiple Wordpress sites, but is not a developer. The simple way they show code usage, inserts and placement made it easy to understand. The authors then start bringing your child theme and customizations together.

Later chapters get into Wordpress widget placement, design and even building your own. They close the building process in Chapter 7 with theme options. This runs through creating extra options and controls panels, variants in color and more for someone interested in selling their new creation. it streamlines how a buyer would use and implement your new theme.

The last portion in Chapter 8 surprised me it was in the book as I would not have thought of including it, but it was definitely needed. Chapter 8 covers the licensing, GPL, around your theme and what it means. The authors make you think about support, proper documentation and even tutorials. Some tips at the end help you sell the theme by including options and where to best list it to be sold.

Overall, I am very impressed. Look for a bunch of changes coming to my Wordpress based sites very soon. With this book and some basic Wordpress knowledge, you can easily create or customize any Wordpress theme you can get your hands on.