Arte Corporate

01 Overview

ARTE Corporate sits at the core of the arte.tv WordPress multisite — one of Europe’s larger public broadcasting platforms. When the redesign landed, we built a series of editorial modules on an extended Shortcake base, retiring the legacy module plugin and covering every requested block.

The work was done shoulder-to-shoulder with the editorial team. Their feedback shaped continuous usability improvements — and drove the accessibility programme that brought the platform in line with WCAG guidelines.

Working closely with the editors wasn’t a step in the process. It was the process.— Studio note, Strasbourg time zone

02 The work

Architecture first. Every module was built in PHP on a modular architecture designed to make the next module cheaper than the last: an abstract base class, functionality divided into traits, dependencies managed by Composer under PSR-4 namespaces.

Then the experience. jQuery extended the modules where it mattered — video playback and modals — while an extensive Grunt pipeline handled development files and translation exports, with npm managing the dependency tree. ARTE Styleguide components were integrated directly into the module system, keeping the platform visually coherent by construction.

Performance as a budget, not a wish. Tight constraints on every module’s CSS and JS footprint, assets served in parallel over HTTP/2. And the honest understanding that a budget is constant work — never finished, always kept.

03 Beyond the code

Large codebase, growing team, real technical debt. We pushed for coding standards, automated testing, cleaner deployment workflows and a strict git branching strategy — and production became noticeably more stable. Then it stayed that way.

The monolith was broken into modules so modern frameworks could enter gradually, each update compartmentalised and testable. Documentation followed: technical reality translated into documents every stakeholder could actually digest.

• Phase I

  The monolith

  A large codebase with debt, and a team in growth. Standards, testing and branching discipline come first.

• Phase II

  The module system

  Shortcake extended, legacy plugin replaced, ARTE Styleguide woven into every block.

• Phase III

  The discipline

  Automated testing, cleaner deployments, strict git branching — and a wp-cli tool that brought ownership scrutiny to every plugin in the infrastructure.

• Phase IV

  The opening

  Monolith to modules; modern frameworks adopted gradually; performance budgets enforced over HTTP/2.

• Phase V

  The ripple

  Open-source plugins, community involvement, and a WordCamp Porto 2024 talk on git branch strategies — change management, logging, traceability.

04 Outcomes

• Production stability, measurably improved and sustained across releases.
• Monolith to modules — modern frameworks adopted without a big-bang rewrite.
• Plugin inventory audited; installed and activated plugins sharply reduced.
• Editorial support kept the ticket list short while the developer team grew.
• WordCamp Porto 2024 — the branching-strategy talk, and open-source contributions behind it.