Shopify is a well-known online storefront software that lets users create online shops. The platform comes with various pre-made themes that may be customized to fit a company’s specific needs. However, you’ll need to have a firm knowledge of web development and design if your company wants to develop its own Shopify theme. Let’s proceed to the definitive guide to creating a Shopify theme and building a ShoWhat Exactly Is a Shopify Theme?
In essence, the navigation, features, and content structuring of your Shopify store are determined by your theme. There are 73 paid and 15 free themes available in the theme library, and countless more websites also sell Shopify themes. But, of course, it is better to create an original product that does not yet exist in stores, and any Shopify theme development company can help you with this.
Finding the ideal Shopify theme for your store is more than simply picking one that looks beautiful; it also involves providing your consumers with the greatest possible shopping experience with the capabilities offered by each theme. Your website’s theme is its core and will decide how it looks and feels overall, how users interact with it, and how it feels inside your store.
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The sheer number of things Shopify themes impact, from the features you can use and how quickly the store loads to the customization options and other tools or applications you might need to add to your store, often catches novice Shopify store owners off guard.
When choosing a theme for your store, you should consider all of your alternatives carefully especially given the variety you do have.
Table of Contents
Create a Theme
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Set up the Shopify CLI
A command-line tool called Shopify CLI aids in the creation of Shopify themes. While developing locally, it enables you to preview, test, and share changes to themes. On macOS, Windows, or Linux, install Shopify CLI by following the steps listed below.
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Start a Fresh Theme with Dawn
Make a local copy of the Dawn Git repository on your computer by using the Shopify theme init. Dawn, the default theme for Shopify, was created for usability, performance, and adaptability. Dawn can serve as the foundation for creating a theme.
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Launch Your Personal Development Server
Once your theme has been initialized, you may use Shopify Theme Developer to work with it in a web browser. The theme is uploaded to the store via Shopify CLI as a developer theme.
By using the command’s return URL, which instantly reloads local CSS and section modifications, you may check for changes in real-time using the store’s data. Only Google Chrome allows you to view this preview.
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Add Your Theme to a Retailer
You must push your theme code to Shopify using the theme push command if you wish to offer a permanent link to your theme, alter the code of an existing theme, or get ready for your theme to be published.
You might want to add the theme to your theme library as a fresh, unpublished theme the first time you push your theme code.
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Make Your Theme Public
You can publish your theme using the theme publish command if you want to make it live on your store. Make sure you’ve used the theme push command to send all of your local changes to Shopify before executing this command.
About Liquid
Shopify, which was established in Ottawa, Canada, in 2006, has grown into a major participant in the global e-commerce software market, holding about 10% of the market. The coding language used by Shopify to create its templates is called Liquid. It was created in Ruby and serves as the foundation for Shopify themes. However, Shopify themes also use a combination of HTML, CSS, and Javascript.
You’ll need to become familiar with Liquid and, of course, have a solid understanding of Ruby if you want to create a Shopify theme from scratch. Therefore, if you are familiar with both, it should be relatively simple for you. A ton of documentation and cheat sheets are also available in case you run into problems.
Having said that, Shopify has sorted out most of the e-commerce capabilities. Customizing the layout, and flow, and making minor adjustments will be your main emphasis as you work to create a truly unique theme.
To return to the prerequisites, you must become comfortable with Shopify’s CLI. Similar to the command line on your computer, Shopify’s CLI enables you to tell the platform what steps to follow while creating your theme.
Conclusion
You will immediately understand how Liquid operates and how to use it if you are familiar with any templating language. However, it will take a lot of time to create a theme from scratch. In addition, if you don’t take care when updating the code, you could unintentionally break how your website functions.
The technical side of the project is therefore better left to agencies if you are unsure of what programming language to employ for the store or how to use a command-line interface.