Title: Resources for Building on WordPress Published: March 28, 2023 Last modified: July 7, 2025 --- # Resources for Building on WordPress ## In this article * [General Web Development Education](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#general-web-development-education) * [HTML](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#html) * [CSS](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#css) * [JavaScript](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#javascript) * [PHP](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#php) - [Books](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#books) [ Back to top](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#wp--skip-link--target) As you design your WordPress theme or build a plugin, you will be using a combination of HTML, CSS, PHP, and JavaScript (JS). There are _plenty_ (probably too many) resources online for you to get started with these web languages. It can be overwhelming! With this resource page, we hope to focus on resources and guides that will help you the most to provide clear guidance and instruction on using HTML, CSS, PHP, and JS. This is nowhere near an exhaustive list, only meant to help you get started. We recommend that you save or bookmark this page as a reference for learning while you’re working on your WordPress theme or plugin. See also: – [Theme Developer Handbook](https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/)– [Plugin Developer Handbook](https://developer.wordpress.org/plugins/) – [Block Editor Handbook](https://developer.wordpress.org/block-editor/). ## 󠀁[General Web Development Education](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#general-web-development-education)󠁿 WordPress.org has released [Learn WordPress](https://learn.wordpress.org/) which will guide you through several topics around developing for WordPress. [freeCodeCamp](https://freecodecamp.org/) is a free and open source education platform and is not WordPress-specific. They offer instruction, demo projects, and their own certification that have helped millions learn HTML, CSS and JavaScript. They will teach you the basics of HTML and CSS in their [Responsive Web Design](https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/2022/responsive-web-design/) course. If you’d like to dive deeper with JavaScript, you can do so in their [Front End Development Libraries](https://www.freecodecamp.org/learn/front-end-development-libraries/#bootstrap) course, which will get you started with JavaScript and even React, which will be helpful for you to developer themes, plugins, and especially blocks. Unfortunately, there’s currently no PHP course. Also, since you’ll be writing code, it would be good to familiarize yourself with the [WordPress Coding Standards](https://developer.wordpress.org/coding-standards/) and [Inline Documentation Standards](https://developer.wordpress.org/coding-standards/inline-documentation-standards/). Beyond that, these are some resources you might find helpful for each of the languages. ## 󠀁[HTML](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#html)󠁿 * [W3Schools HTML](https://www.w3schools.com/tags/default.asp) * [Learn How to Make Websites](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/learn) ## 󠀁[CSS](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#css)󠁿 If this is your first time using CSS with WordPress, [this document](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/wordpress/css/) provides a fantastic overview Other than that, these are some solid resources for you to review: * [W3 Schools](https://www.w3schools.com/cssref/default.asp) * [MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/CSS) * [CSS Tricks](https://css-tricks.com/) * [CSS Zen Garden – the art of the possible in CSS](https://www.csszengarden.com/) * [CSS on A List Apart](https://alistapart.com/blog/topic/css/) * [Flexbox Guide](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=css+tricks+flexbox&ia=web) * [CSS Grid Guide](https://duckduckgo.com/?q=css+tricks+grid&ia=web) * [CSS Grid by Example](https://gridbyexample.com/) ## 󠀁[JavaScript](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#javascript)󠁿 * [W3Schools JS](https://www.w3schools.com/js/default.asp) * [MDN](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/javascript) * [JSDoc](https://jsdoc.app/about-getting-started.html) for documenting your code * [ReactJS](https://reactjs.org/) ## 󠀁[PHP](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#php)󠁿 * [PHP Language Reference](https://www.php.net/manual/en/langref.php) * [PHP Function Reference](https://www.php.net/manual/en/funcref.php) * [W3Schools PHP](https://www.w3schools.com/php/default.asp) * [PHP The Right Way](https://phptherightway.com/) is a high level review of modern PHP * [PHPDoc](https://www.phpdoc.org/docs/latest/index.html) for documenting your code * [SitePoint’s PHP resources](https://www.sitepoint.com/php/) ### 󠀁[Books](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/?output_format=md#books)󠁿 * The good folks at WebDev Studios have put out several books on WordPress theming, plugin development, and also how to use WordPress. You can find a list of their books [here](https://webdevstudios.com/books/) * [You Don’t Know JS](https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS) is a book series on modern JS development. This the Github repo for the books, or you can purchase physical copies. * [Eloquent JavaScript](https://eloquentjavascript.net/) * [JavaScript: The Definitive Guide](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/javascript-the-definitive/9781491952016/) * [PHP Cookbook](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/php-cookbook/9781098121310/) * [Programming PHP](https://www.oreilly.com/library/view/programming-php-4th/9781492054122/) First published March 28, 2023 Last updated July 7, 2025 Edit article [ Improve it on GitHub: Resources for Building on WordPress ](https://github.com/WordPress/Advanced-administration-handbook/edit/main/resources/index.md) Changelog [ See list of changes: Resources for Building on WordPress ](https://github.com/WordPress/Advanced-administration-handbook/commits/main/resources/index.md) [ Previous: Version Control](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/debug/version-control/) [ Next: FAQ Troubleshooting](https://developer.wordpress.org/advanced-administration/resources/faq/)