Scott and Wes are joined by special guests Trudy MacNabb and Anne Thomas from Design Packs, diving into the nitty-gritty of Shopify design. Tune in as they dissect the pros and cons, challenges, and unveil their daily toolkit for crafting stunning Shopify websites.

Show Notes

• 00:00 Welcome to Syntax!
• 00:59 Who is Anne Thomas?
• 02:30 Who is Trudy MacNabb?
• 04:06 Shopify themes, how does one build a theme?
• 05:34 Do you have enough control with LiquidJS?
• 07:52 Changing components of a liquid template.
• 08:58 LiquidJS improving their dev tools.
• 09:29 LiquidJS email marketing.
• 10:32 Can you make your own LiquidJS methods?
• Too Many Tabs

11:34 How would you create a theme from scratch using modern tools?

13:30 What about local dev and live reload?

Shopify Tools CLI

15:17 Is Shopify improving?

17:13 What do you hate about Shopify themes?

Shopify Tools Theme Kit

18:59 Have you used Hydrogen?

Shopify Hydrogen

20:09 Headless has sacrifices.

22:02 Are people building full websites in Shopify?

23:56 Apps and integrations.

25:56 Are people creating businesses around these integrations?

29:16 What are design packs?

31:26 Do you run your own servers?

31:57 How does billing work with clients?

33:18 Apps being ‘Sherlocked’.

‘Sherlocking’ Explained

35:21 Where is the data stored?

36:35 Can you make a custom UI?

38:40 What are the downsides of building apps on Shopify?

39:17 Are you expected to maintain versions?

40:46 Do you manage all the support independently?

42:01 How do you match with their existing themes?

43:54 What are the most popular blocks?

45:17 Does Shopify provide bundlers or compilers?

46:47 Shopify moving to blocks.

47:38 Living as a digital nomad.

Syntax Episode 586 on Nomad Developing

49:48 A new app Anne and Trudy launched.

51:35 Limited by block size.

54:08 Sick Picks + Shameless Plugs.

Sick Picks

• Trudy: Bar of Shampoo

Anne: Alie Ward Ologies Podcast

Shameless Plugs

• Trudy: 25% off using SYNTAX25 at Design Packs

Hit us up on Socials!

Syntax: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

Wes: X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

Scott:X Instagram Tiktok LinkedIn Threads

Randy: X Instagram YouTube Threads