I’m happy to announce that _s 1.3 is ready for download on both Underscores.me and GitHub. The most notable changes introduced during the last two versions are basic support for Infinite Scroll, theme customizer integration, and additional Post Formats.

There was no blog post published for _s 1.2, so consider the following notes to be a brief overview of fixes and enhancements performed on _s since version 1.1:

Version 1.3:

- Basic support for Infinite Scroll (ref.)
- Add additional Post Formats into functions.php (ref.)
- Provide context for comments title strings (ref.)

The following files changed from Version 1.2 to Version 1.3:

404.php
README.md
comments.php
functions.php
image.php
inc/jetpack.php
inc/template-tags.php
style.css

You can also run the following command in Terminal to see a log of file changes between Version 1.2 and Version 1.3:

git diff --name-only 7b7489 f1e9b4

For a full log, visit the commit history page on GitHub.

Version 1.2:

- Theme customizer integration (ref.)
- Add folder into theme for translations and additional instructions into the readme.md file (ref.)

The following files changed from Version 1.1 to Version 1.2:

404.php
README.md
archive.php
comments.php
content-single.php
content.php
footer.php
functions.php
header.php
image.php
inc/custom-header.php
inc/customizer.php
inc/extras.php
inc/jetpack.php
inc/template-tags.php
inc/theme-options/theme-options.php
inc/tweaks.php
index.php
js/customizer.js
js/html5.js
languages/readme.txt
layouts/content-sidebar-sidebar.css
layouts/content-sidebar.css
layouts/sidebar-content-sidebar.css
layouts/sidebar-content.css
layouts/sidebar-sidebar-content.css
no-results.php
page.php
readme.txt
search.php
searchform.php
single.php
style.css

You can also run the following command in Terminal to see a log of file changes between Version 1.1 and Version 1.2:

git diff --name-only f1e9b4 175ef5

For a full _s commit log, visit the commit history page on GitHub.

There are open issues that we’d like to revisit for _s 1.4, namely post format archive labeling (ref.) and a load of other Open Issues.

Please jump into the ongoing discussions on GitHub and if there’s an issue with _s that has not been raised yet, feel free to open it up.

Back in February we introduced you to _s, or Underscores, the WordPress starter theme we use at Automattic to build the majority of our themes (and even when we’re not building themes from it we’re referring to it). It’s come a long way since then with a steady stream of refinements. But one thing about it has always been … less than refined. To fork _s you’d have to do a, well, OK, kind of annoying search and replace routine that could easily trip people up if they did it wrong. Thanks to the efforts of Hugo Baeta and Konstantin Kovshenin that isn’t the case anymore. And they’ve done away with that problem with incredible style. Themers, check out Underscores.me:

You can now download your own version of _s with your own custom theme name — the search and replace is all done for you. All you have to do is theme. Plus, you can see all the beautiful people who have contributed to your favorite WordPress starter theme. Look at them all! Community theme development, FTW.

So, what are you waiting for? Get over to Underscores.me and start developing that awesome theme. We can’t wait to see it.

There are some simple instructions in the theme readme.txt on how to get started with our new starter theme, _s, but, to be honest, I’m not exactly the most reliable readme reader myself so here are those instructions with a bit more explanation.

The first thing you want to do is copy the _s directory and change the name to something else. Like, say, megatherium.

Then you’ll need to do a three-step find and replace with your favorite text editor on the _s name in all the templates.

Continue reading →