Faster Deployment w/ Genesis Theme Framework

I’m really looking forward to my talk at Wordcamp Fayetteville this year because it’s totally different than any talk that I’ve ever really done. Typically, I will prepare an outline to work from that will be accompanied by a graphically driven presentation and pray to God continuously for an entire week leading up to the event that my ADHD doesn’t win out and I completely veer off topic and end up talking about Monkeys or something. My presentation this year is going to actually be somewhat “hands on” in that I’m going to deploy a project from start to finish in under 45 minutes w/ Genesis Framework.

Obviously working w/ WordPress on a daily basis I have developed my own Rapid Deployment “skeleton” directory that contains the latest version of WordPress core release w/ a collection of themes / plugins that I use on every project.  During my session this year I’m going to focus primarily on the tools and plugins I use to develop a completely customizable wordpress solution for my clients, and I’m going to demonstrate some time-saving practices that will go along way to helping each of you spend less time “re-inventing the wheel”.

Again, my “skeleton installation” has a lot more tools in it that we won’t discuss during this session. If you work w/ WordPress on a frequent basis, I highly recommend building your own “skeleton installation” for rapid deployment that contains all of the plugins and starter themes that you are already familiar with. This will a) help you develop projects faster and reduce the risk for bugs / plugin conflicts during testing and b) can help you deploy more projects in less time and ultimately hand your client a project that will evolve and grow w/ them as their needs grow.

My wordpress theme development tools consist of the following: frameworks, themes, & plugins:

• Twenty Eleven by The WordPress Team
• Genesis Theme Framework by StudioPress
• Genesis Child Theme (960) modified / tweaked by Cotton Rohrscheib
• Genesis Favicon Uploader by Christopher Cochran
• Genesis Simple Sidebars by Nathan Rice
• Genesis Footer Widgets by Ramoonus
• Genesis Simple Headers by 9seeds, LLC
• Genesis Simple Menus by Ron Rennick
• Genesis Simple Edits by Nathan Rice & Brian Gardner
• Genesis Single Post Navigation by David Decker – DECKERWEB
• Genesis Social Profiles Menu by David Decker – DECKERWEB
• Genesis Toolbar + by Remkus de Vries
• Exec-PHP by Sören Weber
• WP-Cycle by Nathan Rice

I’m real excited about this years talk because it’s going to actually be a hands on project instead of trying to work from an Outline or presentation, this is my current plan:

• Start w/ Base Installation of WP 3.4.1 (latest release)
• Install Genesis Framework
• Install Genesis Child Theme
• Install / Configure Genesis / WordPress Plugins
• Customize Design & Layout for the Project… (Headers, Footers, Backgrounds, Menus)
• Discuss my typical pre-launch tasks (permalinks, testing, sitemaps, permalinks
• Discuss my typical post-launch tasks (client demo, dashboard customization, analytics)
• Also, if there’s enough time remaining, I plan to discuss extending the platform further w/ Genesis Specific Plugins (Hooks)
• Also, at the end of the session I’m going to be giving away some awesome prizes from Studiopress Genesis, stay tuned!!!

Also, if anyone has any questions regarding the Genesis Framework, please feel free to post me a comment below and I’ll do my best to answer all of them for you.