How and why I built Willow ~ A logic-less Template Engine for WordPress

Published Nov 06, 2020Last updated Nov 11, 2020

About me

WordPress Shaper, 25 years into a journey of creating rich and interactive digital experiences - moving from a background in the Arts, deeply into technology and surfacing in the UX bubble - attempting to bridge the creative and logical worlds into a happy medium.

The problem I wanted to solve

Having working in integrated project design / development teams for 20 years - with an emphasis on both front-end and back-end - I knew the challenge posed to UI developers when presented with templates full of a complex mix of backend logic and presentational layer.

Willow is a logic-less - meaning that there are very few tags allowed within the templates, which enforces a true separation of logical and presentational layers - freeing the UI / UX developers to focus on their important job, without the distraction of needing to tread carefully around without potentially breaking template functionality.

What is Willow ~ A logic-less Template Engine for WordPress?

Willow is a Logic~less Template Engine built for WordPress. Willow plays nicely with ACF, is quick to learn and developer-focused.

Tech stack

Pure PHP, built as a WordPress plugin, with Advanced Custom Fields as a dependency ( free or pro versions ).

The process of building Willow ~ A logic-less Template Engine for WordPress

The motivation was to remove logical controllers from front-end templates and provide a flexible, portable and quick to learn front-end markup for UI / UX developers.

The technical plan was not too complex, but the realisation took several months, as more an more complex data sets were tested and edge-cases highlighted and resolved.

Challenges I faced

Like any large project, the challenges are to maintain focus, motivation and to find time to keep momentum going.

The project now needs greater exposure, testing and to be extended to meet larger and more complex requirements.

Key learnings

The project was the first solo release I had made in several years - and the challenges of validating your own logical decisions as well as the actual code produced are large.

Tips and advice

Tips - look around, learn from similar ideas, check them out - what works, what does not - is your idea still valid and do you really understand the scope or what you are taking on - do you have time and resources ( motivation ) to not only start, but also to finish?

Final thoughts and next steps

Next steps are simple - try to find other people who like the idea, want to get involved ( either contributing code or testing ) and see if the idea has validity and genuine worth beyond my own self congratulatory self