WindPress: Tailwind CSS for WP - In Chat with the Founder

As someone who loves using WordPress, I’m always on the lookout for ways to streamline my workflow, especially when it comes to customizing the look and feel of a site. That’s why I was excited to come across WindPress, a plugin that brings the power of Tailwind CSS directly into WordPress.

I recently had the opportunity to speak with Joshua, the founder of WindPress, and I was curious to hear more about what inspired him to create this plugin and how it can help WordPress users like you and me. Here’s what he had to say – and why WindPress might just be the tool we’ve been waiting for.

Why WindPress?

Joshua’s idea for WindPress came from his own experience working with Tailwind CSS on non-WordPress projects. He loved how Tailwind streamlined his workflow but found it difficult to integrate into WordPress. He wanted something that wasn’t tied to a specific theme, worked with popular visual builders, and would “let Tailwind be an addition (a utility) to a design” rather than taking over completely.

“I didn’t find a good solution that wasn’t bundled with a theme. It needed to be flexible and work with existing themes.”

This is where WindPress comes in – giving you the flexibility to add Tailwind’s utility-first approach to your favorite WordPress theme without making it overly complicated.

What Makes Tailwind Perfect for WordPress?

If you’re familiar with Tailwind, you’ll know it’s a utility-first CSS framework, which means you can quickly style elements using simple classes without writing much custom CSS. Joshua points out that one of the best things about Tailwind is that it doesn’t dictate how your site should look – it’s there to complement your design, not take over.

He also tackled a common misconception about Tailwind being hard to learn.

“People claim Tailwind has a steep learning curve, but if you’ve used vanilla CSS, Tailwind will be a piece of cake. It only takes an hour to master.”

Basically, if you’ve dabbled with regular CSS, you’re already halfway there. Tailwind’s class names are intuitive, and once you get the hang of it, it’s incredibly easy to use.

How WindPress Simplifies Development

With WindPress, you can use Tailwind’s utility classes directly within WordPress templates, making the development process smoother and faster. No need to dig through stylesheets or figure out custom CSS – just add the classes directly where you need them.

For example, Joshua shared that creating a responsive card component can be done in just a few lines, without needing to jump back and forth between your stylesheets and editor.

“It speeds up development and reduces the need for context switching.”

That’s a big win for anyone who’s ever gotten bogged down by switching between design and code like I was a lot 🙂

Screenshot from the WindPress Website

Challenges Joshua Faced

Building WindPress wasn’t without its challenges. One big hurdle was making sure the plugin works well in a WordPress environment, where most hosting setups rely on PHP, while Tailwind requires Node.js.

Another challenge was ensuring WindPress could integrate smoothly with popular visual builders like Elementor and Bricks while still keeping performance in check.

“We wanted to make sure that WindPress worked well with visual builders and didn’t slow down sites.”

Joshua and his team focused on making the plugin lightweight, so it wouldn’t negatively impact your site’s speed or performance. And from the looks of it, they’ve succeeded.

What’s Next for WindPress?

Joshua sees WindPress as a growing tool in the WordPress world, especially as Tailwind continues to gain popularity. He’s committed to making WindPress the go-to solution for Tailwind integration, with plans to bring even more customization features and smoother integration with other popular plugins and themes.

“As Tailwind introduces new features, we aim to integrate those seamlessly.”

So if you’re thinking of diving deeper into the world of Tailwind, WindPress will continue to evolve right alongside it.

The Favorite Features

One of the things Joshua is most excited about is WindPress’s autocomplete feature, which makes it super easy to write Tailwind class names quickly and without errors. And if you’re using the Bricks builder, you’ll love the HTML-to-native-elements feature, which saves a ton of time when building out components.

Plus, the cache system is lightning-fast. With one click, you can generate an optimized CSS file, ensuring your visitors load the CSS once, even if they browse a thousand pages.

“Save the earth with low carbon footprint.”

Getting Started

If you’re new to Tailwind or still on the fence, Joshua’s advice is to take some time to play around with it. There’s a wealth of free Tailwind components out there, so you can easily explore and experiment.

And for those of us already familiar with CSS, Tailwind and WindPress can speed up your workflow dramatically.

WindPress makes it easy to add Tailwind’s flexibility to any WordPress site, without slowing things down or complicating the process. If you’re looking for a way to build faster, cleaner, and more responsive designs in WordPress, I’d definitely recommend giving WindPress a try. Try WindPress

P.S: While writing this post I didn’t wanted to forget to tell you that you may still be able to get a nice discount of 30% when buying a license before end of September by using the code “JOSBD” 🙂

Bonus: Try out this nice tool to create Tailwind components with the help of ChatGPT

And read my other WordPress related blog posts