barba-2026 — the lorenabarba.com WordPress theme

Custom WordPress theme and content-model plugin powering lorenabarba.com, the research group website of Prof. Lorena A. Barba (George Washington University). Built July 2026 to replace a 2012 agency theme; see HISTORY.md for that story and DESIGN.md for the design system it implements.

What's in the box

barba-2026/           The theme: templates, design-token CSS, self-hosted fonts,
                      inline SVG icons, masonry feed + reveal animation (grid.js),
                      archive filters + scrollspy (archive.js)
mu-plugins/           barba-core.php — the content model, kept OUT of the theme so
                      it survives any future theme change:
                        · `publication` post type + [pub] shortcode + citation builder
                        · `event` post type (timeline entries)
                        · `tweet` post type (archived-tweet cards)
                        · Figshare API v2 module with stale-tolerant transient cache
                        · legacy-URL 301 redirects
fields/               Field-group definitions (JSON) for the publications database —
                      import via Secure Custom Fields → Tools
tools/                build-import-packages.py — converts legacy exports (tweet cache
                      CSV, X personal archive, old events pages) into WordPress
                      import files (WXR)
docs/                 The rebuild plan that guided the 2026 migration

Features

• Masonry home feed of news, blog posts, Figshare artifact cards (live views and download counts), and archived tweets that surface as visitors page into the past. CSS grid + ~150 lines of dependency-free JS; plain-grid fallback without JS; "load more" instead of infinite scroll.
• Publications archive: one page generated from the database, grouped by year, with type filter chips (derived from the data, never hardcoded), keyword filter, and a sticky year rail with scrollspy.
• Events timeline: continuous, grouped by year, with milestone and canceled/postponed badges.
• Archived comments: the site's 2011–2019 comment history (407 comments, rescued from Disqus) rendered read-only, with no third-party requests.
• Two-color design system (see DESIGN.md): Barba Red #CE2406 and warm ink on paper; Merriweather + Source Sans 3, self-hosted, SIL OFL; hairline cards, square corners, no shadows.
• No third-party assets: no CDN fonts, no icon fonts, no analytics beacons. Optional KaTeX (math rendering) loads from CDN only on posts containing math, and switches to a self-hosted copy automatically if a katex/ folder is present in the theme.

Requirements

• WordPress 6.x+, PHP 8.1+
• Secure Custom Fields (free; provides the repeater fields the publications database uses)
• Optional: Relevanssi for better search (index post and publication)

Install

1. Upload barba-2026/ to wp-content/themes/ and activate.
2. Copy mu-plugins/barba-core.php to wp-content/mu-plugins/ (create the folder if absent). Verify "Barba Core" appears under Plugins → Must-Use.
3. Install Secure Custom Fields; import fields/*.json via SCF → Tools.
4. Settings → Permalinks → save (flushes rewrite rules for the custom post types).
5. Optional: drop a KaTeX release into barba-2026/katex/ to self-host math rendering.

Publications are entered under the Publications menu (title + structured fields); events under Events (event_date, date_display, and optional badge meta: milestone / canceled / postponed). Figshare cards are ordinary posts in a figshare category with a doi field.

License

Code (theme, plugin, tools): BSD 3-Clause — see LICENSE. Bundled fonts: Merriweather and Source Sans 3, © their authors, under the SIL Open Font License 1.1. Site content at lorenabarba.com: CC BY 4.0 (not part of this repository).