Thesis Hooks – A Simple Explanation

Much has been written about Thesis hooks and why they’re so powerful when it comes to customizing your Thesis theme. Before I sat down to write this post, I questioned whether it’s really necessary to write a post about something that has already been explained on numerous other blog posts about Thesis hooks. Then I considered the learning curve I had to go through in order to really grasp the concept, and I decided to explain it in my own way. Hopefully this will offer up a different perspective on Thesis hooks, and will make the concept easier to grasp for those of you who still don’t fully understand how it all works.

I also want to mention that the goal of this tutorial is not to dive too deeply into the details of Thesis hooks or functions, but rather to offer an explanation of the overall concept of hooks. I feel that once you have an understanding of a concept, then the details make more sense, and almost fall into place for themselves. Also, there’s a bunch of other great blog posts out there that do get into the details, and I’ll include some of them in my Thesis hooks reference list at the end of this post.

Thesis Hooks

So let’s get into it. Thesis hooks are really just placeholders, or anchors located at numerous strategic locations throughout the Thesis theme. They provide us with the ability to attach additional code to any of these hooks, and we’re also able to remove hooks if needed.

To help you visualize this, I created this rough diagram. This represents visually how the hook system works. Click the image to enlarge it.

The location of the hooks in my diagram are not intended to be 100% accurate. I just want you to get the concept. You basically have the strategically placed hooks in the Theme, and then your code is either written in your custom-functins.php file or pasted into the applicable field in your Thesis openhook plugin. And the code is then attached to the specific hook location. Got it?

Hooks are not unique to Thesis. WordPress has it’s own default hooks, and so do certain other theme frameworks. Thesis has an extensive list of available hooks to which you can attach code. Hooks are just as easy to understand as adding code the “non-hook” way. That involves opening up an index.php file for example, finding the spot where we want to add some code, and then pasting the code in that location. When it comes to hooks, the major difference of course is that instead of inserting the code directly into a core theme file, we’re inserting it into the custom-functions.php file, or a field in the openhook plugin. At the very location where we’d have pasted in our code, Thesis has intelligently placed a “hook” in that location, so we can access it, or “hook” some code to it. It’s the smarter way to go.

Thesis Functions

I think the part that most people struggle with may have more to do with creating the functions inside of the custom-functions.php file. The Thesis openhook plugin makes this part really easy. You just paste the code in the applicable hook field of the plugin. If you’re just starting out learning Thesis, this may be the way to go. You don’t have to mess with custom functions, however I’m of the opinion that all your code should reside in the custom-functions.php file. So if you really want to move to the next step with Thesis hooks, it would be best if you could get a handle on how to write these functions.

Here’s the basic structure of a custom function you can include in the custom-functions.php file, along with the action to attach it to a hook. In this example, the thesis_hook_after_post part is simply the name of the hook so the theme knows where to attach your code:

function my_function() {
?>
	<p>Insert your HTML code here...</p>
<?php
}

add_action('thesis_hook_after_post','my_function');

I’d recommend you read the Thesis Hooks. A Complete Newbies Guide post over at thinkdave.com. It gets into more detail on how easy it is to create these functions, and explains each line so you can really get an understanding of the syntax. When I finally got it, I wondered why I didn’t get it before. It’s not that difficult a concept to grasp.

HTML, CSS, PHP & WordPress

The reality is that to really know how to customize Thesis, you need an understanding of HTML, CSS, PHP and WordPress. Once you get how Thesis hooks work, you still have to write the necessary code, style it and make it function how you want, so it’s important to also learn about these other parts of the formula.

Of course, there’s nothing wrong with finding some code that has already been written and made freely available for you to paste into your files. That can also be one of the best ways to learn. Look at what someone else has created; who may be further along in the process, and learn from it.

Thesis Hooks Reference List:

• DIY Themes Thesis hooks reference list
• DIY Themes official Thesis hook tutorial
• DIY Themes default Thesis hook usage
• Thesis hooks visual reference
• Interesting origin of the Thesis hook visual reference
• Sugarrae’s Thesis hooks for dummies post
• Thinkdave’s Thesis hooks guide for newbies
• The Art of Blog post on Thesis hooks
• A smarter way of writing multiple hooks
• The openhook plugin

Tagged as: Thesis Hooks, thesis tips