When designing WordPress themes, I always add a common set of custom functions to the theme’s functions.php file. This speeds up development time because I don’t have to hunt for and individually copy the same slew of functions for every theme. I just drop in a copy of my functions.php template and build up from there. This takes care of all those little things that always need to be done:

• Include jQuery
• Enable threaded comments
• Add feed links to the header
• Disable unused widget areas
• Adding Google Analytics to the footer
• Stop the “Read More” link from jumping to the middle of the next page ;)

One of the things that I like about these functions is that they’re all so concise, simple, and effective. The functions.php template file currently contains 15 different functions and is a continual work in progress. Not everyone is going to need or use everything in the file, but the idea is to modify this template into something that works for you. It’s a starting point with some really useful functions.

In this DiW article, we first provide an explanation of each of the 15 functions and then bring them all together into the working functions.php template. Just copy and paste the template code at the end of this article or grab a copy of the zipped functions.php file and enjoy a custom collection of functions that will help you optimize your development process while enhancing WordPress with essential functionality.

http://digwp.com/2010/03/wordpress-functions-php-template-custom-functions/