The Themes section has been a little quiet lately, so I thought I’d add something concrete to the conversation.
After bringing the UpFront Framework back to life, I’ve now reached the point where I can also show the other half of the project: UpFront Builder.
UpFront Builder is a visual development environment for creating complete UpFront-based themes.
It lets you design layouts, regions, global styles and responsive views directly on the website. You can work with pages, posts, archives, search and 404 layouts, add elements, define typography and colors, and build reusable design structures.
But there is one important difference from a typical page builder:
UpFront Builder creates themes, not just pages.
The result is written into the theme itself. You can save the theme, download it as an installable package and use it on another ClassicPress installation.
So the basic idea is:
Design visually → build the theme → export the theme → install it somewhere else.
There is no requirement for the finished website to keep a page-builder-generated design locked inside the database.
UpFront Builder works together with the UpFront Framework and is specifically designed for UpFront-based themes. It is not intended to be a universal page builder for arbitrary ClassicPress themes.
The project originally came from WPMU DEV. Like the framework itself, it had been abandoned for years. I thought the underlying ideas were still worth preserving, so I’ve spent a considerable amount of time modernizing the code, fixing compatibility and security issues, replacing outdated dependencies and bringing it back to life for modern WordPress and ClassicPress.
The current Builder release is available here:
I’m currently doing the final cleanup and testing. My goal is to bring both UpFront Framework and UpFront Builder to the ClassicPress Directory as soon as possible.
For now, I’m mainly interested in getting it in front of other ClassicPress developers, designers and users.
If you like the idea, give it a try. If you find a bug, have an idea or simply want to discuss the approach, I’d be very happy to hear from you.
UpFront Builder:
GitHub repository
UpFront Framework:
GitHub repository
UpFront project page:
PSOURCE – UpFront Theme Framework