Hello everyone, first time posting here.
Let’s say I am creating a website for a technical company. The website needs a storefront, and it does not have to be lavish, just functional. The website I was handed to work with originally was somewhat of a bloated mess of Elementor. I do not like the level of control Elementor offers; I would prefer to work with the “bare metal” of PHP/HTML and CSS/SASS. Let’s just say I would prefer to edit this website in a text editor and with the command line rather than in a user interface.
My overall goals: to gain a more low-level understanding of building a WordPress website outside the confines of the WP GUI and Elementor GUI, to avoid using Elementor altogether, to be able to edit the database entries such as body text/paragraphs and where/how they feed into the PHP templates, and, finally, to create a lightweight and bloat-free website that just gets the job done. Overall, I’m trying to learn the tools of the trade without the creature comforts/abstractions. I’m not so concerned about the storefront right now, unless someone suggests that I should be worried about it.
Current knowledge: I have decent experience with HTML and CSS. I have some experience with Bootstrap and making minor changes to PHP templates in WordPress. I have no JS experience, but I do have some abstract programming knowledge. I have a tiny bit of knowledge of MySQL but I have refrained from touching the WordPress database out of fear of messing everything up (even though I am currently experimenting on an XAMPP server, so there is no concern of messing up any live website to begin with; I’m just feeling squeamish about editing the database without knowing what I’m doing).
What I’ve tried so far: I have tried using Understrap to create a theme, and that seems to work pretty nicely. It seems to be finicky with the version of Node.js that you use, but I was able to figure it out and compile the SASS. However, my current issue is my reliance on the WP GUI. I can edit the templates and style sheets without relying on the GUI just fine, but I can’t seem to get away from changing things like body text, the site icon, the site info, which page is the home page, content, etc. without the GUI. I would appreciate if anyone could point me towards a way to do my WP editing in a “headless” way, e.g. tutorials, documentation, articles, research topics, personal experience, etc.
Furthermore, is there any sort of WP “minimal” install that provides the database, theme folder, and inner workings but without the web-based GUI?
I would appreciate it if we could avoid the topic of why I’m doing this in the first place with so little experience.
I know this post is a bit all over the place, so I am very happy to clarify or refine my goals. Thanks!
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