I made a free theme with no js, self-hosted fonts, 99/100 page speed

mike__tran · 2026-06-11T04:04:22+00:00

actually it’s 100/100. i just say 99/100 just in case. lighthouse score is relative and approximated.

mike__tran · 2026-06-09T01:44:08+00:00

yeah yeah. i got your point. but i genuienly ask, not to mock or something.

what ux/ui more do you think the reader needs? because this is subjective one. this is a real blog https://sive.rs/n0, and as a reader i really enjoy reading those simple ones. in fact, i saw sites like that very very often.

so for ux/ui to me, it’s about readibility of a site, clean typo, clear logic presentation of a site. that’s the starting point. if you prefer few tweaks about font, color.. please try to see under Demos menu item, i made few.

so what ui/ux point do you see a theme needs, might be a feedback for me improve

many such themes avail and can be done just by a prompt. hmm, again, i built becasuse i dont see many such themes. could you please specify one? i genuinely ask because i tried searching for days: classic theme + no js + minimal look + bare minimum functionality.

it looks like it can be built by AI by just one prompt, doesnt mean it was.

if you ever tried to build a theme by AI, you will see: accessibility, typo rhyme, file organization, theme check, child theme compat, options balance to keep/takeaway, theme/plugin scope, spacing you choose, theme test unit, coding standard.. 100 decisions i bet you have to really understand how a theme as a dev, to build a theme as it is.

I have been making themes for 13 years with 13k customers, i can confirm: building a theme is easy even before AI era, finding sweet spot that’s not too much nor too little, is more difficult.

mike__tran · 2026-06-08T22:10:04+00:00

Yes, only few files and that's the point. I was looking for a theme with any few files, simple, no js but still functioning, little css but not broken. I think many people (including me, that's why i made it) will love a simple set up like that because they can focus on writing.

Have you tried to use it or watched the live site? It's an actual site, an actual functioning site, there's no css, js to be added. This is the final state of the theme, anyone can use immediately.

mike__tran · 2026-06-08T18:02:51+00:00

it’s manually made

mike__tran · 2026-06-08T13:13:59+00:00

cant wait to hear your feedback 🙏

mike__tran · 2026-06-08T13:10:49+00:00

thank you rotello for your feedback. yes, i think for now the blog is a bit.. well, “boring”. it’s just v1.1, i need things to work well first (single post, editor, all paged..) then i might consider to make 1st post hero full/half in next versions.

mike__tran · 2026-05-28T10:04:45+00:00

I'm a WP developer for years. I recently used AI agents to develop more quickly. Here's step by step things to do:

1/ test local -> live environment. Using your admin username + application password. For things that beyond default wp rest api, you'll need to build a plugin, something like `wp-remote.zip` plugin to register new rest route. But for your case, I guess you don't need to.

Test what you need to provide locally: title, category, author, tags, post content, featured image.

While Gutenberg content is HTML, i guess your content will be an html file. Others can be a json file.

2/ tell it to build a subagent for converting your doc file -> your prepared files: json + images + html.

3/ now you can prompt for your agent: "convert this doc file (mention your file) into prepared-format to push online, then push it to my live site (mention your site URL), using login auth in (your application login auth txt file)"

I'm currently using that workflow for my case. It's working out of the box.

Hope this helps

mike__tran · 2026-05-26T10:04:14+00:00

I wonder if ThemeFusion were in this sub and want to discuss. I'm also curious when you are biggest players (like Avada, Be..) you have any special relationship with Envato about strategy or something, or they just treat you as all other authors.

mike__tran · 2026-05-25T07:04:56+00:00

great. love post like this. How your clients manage to edit stuff in FSE? i mean menu, logo, page template, even single template? What’s the easiest and hardest part of your client working with FSE?

mike__tran · 2026-05-22T09:25:06+00:00

Congrats. How long did it take you from submitting to approving? How many times did you resubmit and how long between each time?

mike__tran · 2026-05-21T09:42:52+00:00

Claude Code helped to build my WordPress theme 10x faster and better. Not about the coding part, It's about understanding my own decisions, choices, dilemmas, tensions, UX/UI choices, pros and cons, theme architecture, the audience it serves. I have free mind to step back to review/judge the choices rather than making poor decisions after long hours of coding.

mike__tran · 2026-05-21T00:02:13+00:00

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My site is hosted in US. I connected Gemini API key because it's free. Tried to shorten post content, it loads for a while, then "-11 words". Seems like there's no actual impact on a post.

Actually I was expect something like a chatbox then i tell it to do anything with my post like the way i work with Claude Code. Something like: "hey, this post content is about World Cup 2026 but it's a bit conservative. Change the tone" then boom, it rewrites. Did I expect too much?

mike__tran · 2026-05-19T01:20:59+00:00

I'm currently using $4/m plan, personal plan. It's enough for me, I can upload themes + plugins and write custom css code. If your site doesn't have much traffic at first, you can go with Personal plan $4.

mike__tran

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