Shopify is a platform for businesses of all sizes to create an online store. It offers users a customizable platform, an easy-to-use checkout process, and a wide range of features. For developers, it offers the ability to create custom themes and apps.
In this article, we’ll focus on how to develop Shopify themes locally. We’ll cover the following topics:
1. Setting up a local development environment
2. Creating a new theme
3. Working with existing themes
4. UsingShopify’s theme assets
5. Previewing and publishing your theme
Local development is the process of developing a website or application on your own computer, rather than on a live server. This is beneficial for a number of reasons: it’s faster, it’s more secure, and you can test changes without affecting live users.
Shopify themes are created using the Liquid templating language and the Sass CSS preprocessor. If you’re not familiar with these technologies, don’t worry – we’ll give you all the information you need to get started.
1. Setting up a local development environment
The first thing you’ll need to do is set up a local development environment on your computer. This involves installing some software that will allow you to run Shopify on your own machine.
The first step is to download and install VirtualBox. This is a program that allows you to run virtual machines on your computer.
Once VirtualBox is installed, download and install Vagrant. Vagrant is a tool that allows you to manage virtual machines easily.
Next, clone the Shopify-dev-theme repository from GitHub using the following command:
git clone git@github.com:Shopify/shopify-dev-theme.git
This will create a new folder called Shopify-dev-theme on your computer that contains all the files you need to set up your virtual machine. Open this folder in your terminal and run the following command:
vagrant up
This will take some time as Vagrant sets up everything for you automatically. Once it's finished, you should be able to visit http://localhost:4000/ in your web browser and see the default Shopify theme running locally on your machine!
2. Creating a new theme To create a new theme, you first need to create a new folder in the Shopify-dev-theme directory called 'themes'. Inside this folder, create another folder with the name of your theme - for example, 'my-new-theme'. Inside this folder, create two files:
my-new-theme .liquid and styles .scss.
The first file ( my-new-theme .liquid ) is where you'll write the code for your theme using the Liquid templating language. The second file ( styles .scss ) is where you'll write your CSS using the Sass preprocessor syntax. In order for Sass to work properly, you need to tell Vagrant to compile it into CSS by adding the following line of code to the my-new-theme .liquid file:
{
% stylesheet 'styles' %
}
This line of code tells Shopify to look for a file called 'styles .scss ' in your theme's directory and compile it into CSS when someone visits your storefront in their web browser. Now that we have our basic structure set up, let's start coding! Open the my -new -theme .liquid file in your text editor and add the following code:
<h1>{{ "Hello world!" }}</h1>
This is my first Shopify theme!
Firstly, if you are not familiar with Shopify's theme development process, you could potentially end up causing serious damage to your store. Secondly, if you are developing on a live site, any changes you make could potentially go live immediately, without being tested first. This could lead to customer dissatisfaction and lost sales.
Therefore, it is important to be aware of the risks involved before proceeding. Only develop Shopify themes locally if you are confident in your ability to do so safely.
Save your file and visit http://localhost:4000/ in your web browser - you should see something like this:
3. Working with existing themes If you want to use an existing Shopify theme as a starting point for your own customizations, that's easy to do too! Just copy an existing theme into your themes directory (for example, duplicating shoptimized ).
Then open styles .scss in your text editor and change @import 'timber'to @import 'shoptimized' . Save your file and refresh http://localhost :4000/ in your web browser - now you're running an identical copy of an existing Shopimate theme locally on y our machine!
4. Using Shopifys Theme Assets In addition to Liquid and Sass , Shopifys platform also provides access t o a number of different "assets" that can be used in themes , including fonts , images , and JavaScript files . These assets are stored in what's called th e " asset pipeline " , which is designed to help improve performance by compressing an d optimizing files before they're served to visitors . To use an asset from th e asset pipeline in one of your themes , simply use th e following code :
{
{ 'filename' | asset_url }
}
For example , if we wanted t o use th e logo image from the asset pipeline , we could add the following code to our my-new-theme.liquid file :
<img src="{{ 'logo' | asset_url }}" alt="My Store">
