3.0 compatible

Starkers: The completely naked theme for WordPress

Starkers is a bare-bones WordPress theme created to act as a starting point for the theme designer.

Free of all style, presentational elements, and non-semantic markup, Starkers is the perfect ‘blank slate’ for your projects, as it’s a stripped-back version of the ‘Twenty Ten’ theme that ships with WordPress.

Best of all: it’s free and fully GPL-licensed, so you can use it for whatever you like  —  even your commercial projects.

Features

All non-semantic, presentational class names (e.g: class=“center”, class=“alignleft”) have been removed; all non-semantic, presentational HTML elements (e.g: <hr />, <br />) have been removed; all unnecessary elements have been removed (e.g: <div class=“entry”> disappears entirely and <h3 class=“comments”> simply becomes <h3>).

Elements have been converted where necessary (e.g: <small> becomes <p>) and some IDs have been kept intact (such as <h3 id=“respond”>) to preserve functionality.

Browser defaults have been reset in the stylesheet (based on the YUI Reset) to provide a true “clean slate”.

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Installation

Just like any other WordPress theme, simply download the latest version, unzip the file, upload it to your ‘themes’ directory, and then activate it through your WP admin.

Although slightly controversial, all styleheets and images have been contained in their respective directories inside a master ‘style’ directory. You don’t need to keep this intact, but I find it to be the most organised way of working, and it’s a better way of separating content from presentation.

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Changelog / legacy versions

You can view the changelog file here but it’s hardly Shakespeare. For a bit more of a background on the changes, please read the related blog posts:

Legacy versions are available here: 2.8.5 | 2.8.4 | 2.8.1 | 2.6.2

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FAQ

In the demo, your stylesheets aren’t loading

Yes they are. It’s meant to look like that (that’s the whole point).

Why would I use Starkers instead of a super-powerful framework like Thematic?

Thematic is awesome. If you want the power of dynamic class names, microformats, and some existing markup / style, use Thematic. But if you want something super-simple to start out with, stripped down to the bare minimum of markup, use Starkers.

Why have you taken most code out but left some in?

A few things have been preserved for functionality. Initially this included IDs like ‘respond’ so that the comment form could be jumped to, but now it includes some stuff like the built-in support for a dynamic body / post class.

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Support

As the theme is offered for free, it’s also offered without support. If you really really need help, you can ask me nicely and I’ll do my best. Don’t ask me silly, generic questions about WordPress, CSS, PHP, or web design, though. Starkers-related stuff only, please.

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Report a bug

Bugs? Here?!? If you spot such a thing, please report it and I’ll fix it as soon as possible.

Please note: there is not an error loading the stylesheets in the demo: it’s meant to look like that (that’s the whole point).

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Brought to you by Elliot Jay Stocks