Experimental WordPress starter theme (or theme framework) using Phel (Lisp) and Timber. Currently only front-page and single article templates with basic layout are implemented.

Deviates somewhat from following vanilla WordPress PHP templating facilities by using Phel's Clojure Hiccup style HTML templating and Timber as a "WordPress OOP framework" without utilizing it's Twig templating.

Also taking inspiration from some Clojure web libraries and popular backend web frameworks such as Python Flask, hopefully sharing some familiar web development patterns where possible.

Project forked from Phel WP plugin which includes more in depth documentation on using Phel in conjunction with WordPress.

This project is more of a hobby experiment but maybe used for a cool demo site or two sometime. I intend to keep this opinionated with tools I use for work also (building web stores at netura.fi).

-- Jarkko Saltiola

Development container

For quick and simple local dev installation docker-compose.yml file is included which uses Bitnami WordPress image. This can be especially useful also for providing re-producible bug reports.

git clone [email protected]:jasalt/phel-wp-theme.git
# sudo chmod -R 777 phel-wp-theme  # probably required on Linux
cd phel-wp-theme
docker compose up  # or podman-compose up

Following success message, access the site at http://localhost:8082. Try edit src/index.phel and see changes after page refresh etc. Admin credentials are user: "admin" password: "password" if those are needed.

Quick way to drop into Phel REPL:

docker compose exec -w /opt/bitnami/wordpress/wp-content/plugins/phel-wp-plugin wordpress vendor/bin/phel repl
(php/require_once "/opt/bitnami/wordpress/wp-load.php")
(php/get_bloginfo "name")

Learn more about the setup in Phel WP plugin documentation.

Existing WordPress instance

Phel requires minimum PHP version 8.2 and Composer. Composer is not required if vendor directory is included with the plugin distribution.

Generally plugin can be installed as follows on a live WordPress site or on development server such as VVV Vagrant or LocalWP:

1. Clone this repository into existing WP installation path wp-content/themes/phel-wp-theme.
2. Install Composer dependencies with cd phel-wp-theme && composer install.
3. Activate theme wp theme activate phel-wp-plugin and open the site at http://localhost:8082/.