“Design is not just what it looks like and feels like. Design is how it works.” –Steve Jobs
This was my second day on the project. So as I mentioned in my earlier post about getting little scared about the process of working in WordPress, But the very second-day that sacredness was somehow transformed into too much enthusiasm. I was hungry and ready to eat that whole project on my own. My fingers were hurting they want to code I was waiting for the green signal…to run..to win.
Till now as prescribed by Tech lead I have dissected my whole project into modules and it did help me a lot to understand my task more clear and vivid. So after that, I move forward towards my first goal that was to install the WP in my local. The process was long….scary…a bit confusing but thanks to his documentation it went smoothly.
The first goal achieved!!
Now I am ready to code. So the second goal was to convert the existing HTML Event Management website into a custom WordPress theme. Theme development in WP can take quite a bit of work when you’re starting everything from scratch. You have to add a few PHP codes in so many different files just activate your custom blank theme. I was little scared while doing that because I do remember when Vaibhav told me that everything I’ll do in WordPress will be in the wp-content folder; everything else is core code of WP, and I will put my self in a big trouble if I mess with that and I don’t want to put my self into trouble so I was being very careful while doing that, going lot through the internet, from that point on the WordPress Codex and StackOverflow have become my best friends.
Finally I setup everything, without breaking anything. My custom blank theme got activated. Now finally I can feed my hunger of coding.
So For now, I just have to code the design of the front page that will be containing the detail of the current event that is going to happen. And the details must contain the name, theme, date, and venue of the event that organizer has created.
It was easy! Just a design! don’t have to use my brain! I started coding keeping this thought in my mind. In WP the theme is generally divided into three sections
- Header
- Content
- footer
So I begin with the footer first, the easiest one, it will be same for the every page that I am going add in my theme just a few lines of code and it’s ready. Now the header, while designing the header I observe a weird thing the existing HTML event management website is only applicable for one event if the organizer adds a new event it will somehow overwrite the existing event because there was no section which says upcoming events.
So I stopped but then I thought it’s just a design, not the work flow no need to stop but what if its need to be done in future? plus it completely makes sense to have that Upcoming Section in the header but that will change the current workflow and also for that I have to redesign the workflow instead of coding.
It was not easy to stop. But I take out my notepad and sketch the rough new workflow for the new section. It took a couple of hours and lots of brainstorming to do that. After that, I told WP developer , about the problem. He listens to me and told that even Tech lead and he realize that problem too and they are also working on the new workflow that is similar to mine and then asks me to stop coding for a while at least till the new workflow is not decided.
He also appreciated me for the efforts and told he is happy to see that what I have done and also ask me to think more about it and come up with new ideas.
I went back to my table put my laptop aside with a thought “it’s better to think more than to code more.”