# A Note from the Author

## ❤️ A Labour of Love

PressGang is a labour of love more than fifteen years in the making.

It grew out of a simple goal: to make WordPress development more enjoyable, more maintainable, and faster to build and prototype with — without fighting the platform itself.

What started as a personal toolkit to consolidate reusable patterns across client projects gradually evolved into something more formal. Much of that work happened in delivery-focused agency environments, where clarity, consistency, and clean handover genuinely matter.

From early on, PressGang stood on the shoulders of giants — particularly [Timber](https://timber.github.io/docs/v2/) + [Twig](https://twig.symfony.com/doc/3.x/) 🌲 — whose separation of PHP logic from presentation fundamentally reshaped how I think WordPress themes should be structured.

In parallel, [Laravel](https://laravel.com/) strongly influenced my preference for explicit structure and convention over configuration.

## 🧠 Influences & Approach

PressGang doesn't try to turn WordPress into Laravel, nor does it attempt to reshape WordPress into something it isn't.

Instead, it borrows what translates well:

* Namespaced, PSR-4 autoloaded PHP
* Explicit configuration
* Clear architectural boundaries

All while working entirely within WordPress's native theme and runtime model, not around it ⚙️.

There's no attempt to hide WordPress, replace it, or abstract it beyond recognition — the goal is to work *with* WordPress, but in a way that feels modern, explicit, and maintainable.

## 🏗️ Where It Is Today

Today, PressGang is a modern WordPress parent theme framework designed for bespoke, long-lived professional websites.

At its core:

* Composer-based foundations
* Controller-driven context passed cleanly to Twig via Timber
* Clear extension points intended for child themes

It's deliberately opinionated but lightweight, avoiding heavy abstraction and hidden "magic" in favour of clarity and developer control.

## 🌍 Real-World Use

PressGang has been shaped almost entirely by real production work.

It's been used across hundreds of projects at several agencies I've worked with — many of whom adopted it and continued using it long after I'd moved on.

It has powered themes for:

* Global organisations
* Large brands
* Ecommerce stores
* SMEs
* Grassroots projects — including my local cyclocross league 🚴‍♂️

That long-term, real-world usage has been its strongest form of validation.

## 🔗 Links

* [PressGang on GitHub](https://github.com/pressgang-wp/pressgang)
* [Read the docs](https://docs.pressgang.dev/)


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