Deprogramming WordPress: From Bespoke PHP Themes to Full-Site Editing

This Lunch & Learn session is the fourth in a biweekly spring series for web professionals held at Automattic's Mission office (just minutes from BART). After each talk and discussion, stick around for an afternoon of co-working until 4 pm!

Time: 12:30-1:30 pm, followed by co-working until 4 pm
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WordPress has seen heavy use across corporate marketing departments, news publishers, government and scientific institutions, and other types of organizations that own and maintain large websites. These sites were typically built using bespoke PHP theme frameworks and plugins, such as Advanced Custom fields, that allow for form-based back-end editing that enforce structural and business conventions. The downside to these themes is that they are expensive to maintain and modify, requiring a level of engineering that is sometimes difficult to sustain for non-technical organizations.

With the launch of the Full Site Editor (FSE) in 2022, many sophisticated designs and layouts are now achievable without a complex back-end engineering effort. For owners of sites who are looking to take advantage of the flexibility of FSE, there are some migration paths from the classic publishing process. In this talk, we will present a successful case study and best practices for deprogramming WordPress - that is, migrating sites from a highly technical, custom theme framework to FSE without a huge redesign effort.

Who might be interested in this topic:

• WordPress developers and designers working on converting sites to Full Site Editing
• Site owners who are looking to reduce their engineering-related maintenance costs and improve their organization's agility when it comes to web publishing
• Everyone is welcome!

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Thanks to Automattic for sponsoring the meetup venue and GoDaddy for sponsoring lunch!