Since I released my first public wordpress theme (I have made lots of themes over the years, but have never released any as open-source) I decided I would share the build process for multiloquent theme – just incase anyone wanted to know.

the tools I use:

1) eclipse (zend-php-eclipse)
2) sublime-text
3) mysql workbench
4) github
5) virtualbox
6) centos virtualbox image
7) wordpress with the test database
8) phpci (now that I got a pull request accepted it will email the git committer when you commit)

The build process for multiloquent theme

I use this setup in the following way:
1) do some hacking to the code in eclipse / sublime text
2) commit the code to github (even though I know it doesn’t work yet)
3) phpci runs a cron job every minute.
4) when phpci detects a new commit to github it starts a new build
5) if the build is unsuccessful it runs a local script that just cd’s to the wordpress install directory in the virtual box image and does a ‘git pull’ and then mails me to tell me the mistakes I made.
6) if the build is successful then I get an email with an attached zip file thats ready to upload to wordpress theme submit and it does another ‘git pull’ in the wordpress dev directory.

the tests that phpci does are simple, but better than nothing :D

– phpcodesniffer
– php mess detector
– php copy / paste detector
the setup can be used to run phpunit tests and a whole load more if needed.

in addition to that I use the regular stuff:
firefox w/ firebug
chrome
windows virtualbox image with IE versions [modern.ie]
github app for mac
github plugin for eclipse

I could / might extend this to deploy my successful builds right to jonathansblog (execute a script over ssh with ssh keys) but for now this setup is good enough.

any questions, just drop a comment.