How to Create a WordPress Theme with Tailwind Using Tailpress

In this tutorial, we will create a custom WordPress Theme using Tailpress as a boilerplate. TailPress provides a great starting point for developing a theme with Tailwind CSS framework, speeding up the process of setting up your project and create amazing looking themes.

Introduction
Why Tailwind?
Prerequisites
Step 1: Setting up a Local Development Environment
Step 2: Download and Install TailPress
Step 3: Installing Dependencies
Step 4: Building and Customizing Tailwind
Step 5: WordPress Theme Development
Step 6: Running and Deploying the Theme
Conclusion
Additional Resources

Introduction

In this guide, we’ll build a custom WordPress theme using the power of Tailwind CSS to speed up the styling process. To make things easier, we’ll use TailPress, a boilerplate that integrates Tailwind with WordPress. By the end of this tutorial, you’ll have a fully functional and customizable theme that can be expanded further.

Why Tailwind?

Tailwind CSS Framework accelerates frontend development by providing a utility-first framework with pre-built classes that directly map to CSS properties, eliminating the need to write custom styles. It promotes consistency, reusability, and responsive design through its easy-to-use utilities, reducing the need for media queries and custom CSS. Tailwind’s built-in design tokens and highly customizable configuration file speed up design implementation, while tools like PurgeCSS optimize the final production bundle by removing unused styles. This allows developers to focus on building components and prototypes quickly, staying in the flow without constant context-switching between HTML and CSS.

Prerequisites

Before you start, ensure you have the following installed on your system:

Node.js (version 12 or higher)
Composer
A local WordPress development environment such as Local by Flywheel or XAMPP
Basic understanding of WordPress theme structure and development
Familiarity with Tailwind CSS

Step 1: Setting up a Local Development Environment

To begin, you’ll need a WordPress installation set up on your local machine. If you don’t have a development environment ready, you can set one up using tools like Local by Flywheel or XAMPP. Once installed, create a new site to host your WordPress installation.

Install and launch Local or XAMPP.
Create a new WordPress site and note down the directory where WordPress is installed.

Step 2: Download and Install TailPress

Next, we’ll download the TailPress boilerplate. You can get it directly from the GitHub repository.

Navigate to your WordPress installation’s wp-content/themes directory.

Clone the TailPress repository into the themes directory:

cd wp-content/themes
git clone https://github.com/jeffreyvr/tailpress.git my-tailpress-theme

Rename the folder to your desired theme name (e.g., my-tailpress-theme).
Navigate into the theme folder:
```
cd my-tailpress-theme
```

Step 3: Installing Dependencies

To get started with TailPress, you’ll need to install the necessary dependencies via Node.js.

Install Node.js dependencies:
```
npm install
```
Install PHP dependencies using Composer:
```
composer install
```

Step 4: Building and Customizing Tailwind

Once the dependencies are installed, you can build and customize the Tailwind CSS configuration.

Build Tailwind CSS by running:
```
npm run dev
```
This command will compile your CSS and watch for changes, so it automatically rebuilds the files whenever you make changes.

To customize Tailwind, you can modify the theme.json file. For example, in order to add an color you can add an object to the palette array:

"color": {
  "palette": [
    {
      "name": "Darker Light Blue",
      "slug": "darker-light-blue",
      "color": "#9DB2BF"
    }
]
}

Step 5: WordPress Theme Development

Now, you can begin developing the WordPress theme itself.

Modify the functions.php file to include theme support, register menus, and set up necessary enqueues:

<?php
function my_theme_setup() {
    // Enable support for various WordPress features
    add_theme_support( 'title-tag' );
    add_theme_support( 'post-thumbnails' );// Register navigation menus
register_nav_menus( array(
    'primary' =&gt; __( 'Primary Menu', 'my-tailpress-theme' ),
) );

// Enqueue Tailwind CSS
wp_enqueue_style( 'theme-style', get_template_directory_uri() . '/style.css', array(), wp_get_theme()-&gt;get( 'Version' ) );
}
add_action( 'after_setup_theme', 'my_theme_setup' );

Edit the index.php, header.php, footer.php, and other template files to structure the HTML and use Tailwind CSS classes.

For example, in header.php, you can add:

```html
<header class="bg-customblue text-white p-4">
    <nav>
        <ul>
            <li><a href="/">Home</a></li>
            <li><a href="/about">About</a></li>
            <li><a href="/contact">Contact</a></li>
        </ul>
    </nav>
</header>
```

Customize your theme further by editing the templates as needed and styling elements with Tailwind.

Step 6: Running and Deploying the Theme

To see your current changes, under your theme’s root folder run:
```
npm run watch
```
This command will watch your theme’s files for changes and compile the files everytime it detects a change, so you can test it right away.
To create a production build of your Tailwind CSS, run:
```
npm run build
```
This command will optimize your CSS for production, removing any unused styles and reducing the file size.
Once the build is complete, you can activate the theme from the WordPress admin dashboard under Appearance > Themes.
After testing locally, you can deploy the theme to your live WordPress site.

Conclusion

By following this tutorial, you’ve created a custom WordPress theme using TailPress and Tailwind CSS. This setup gives you a great foundation to continue building and customizing your theme as needed. TailPress makes the integration of Tailwind into WordPress much smoother, allowing you to focus on creating a beautiful and responsive design.

Additional Resources

As an example of a wordpress theme created with Tailpress you can check my WP theme called “Pekebyte One” available here

How to Create a WordPress Theme with Tailwind Using Tailpress as a Boilerplate