wordpress theme reviewers team
DESCRIPTION
My slides for the WordPress Theme Reviewers Team, presented at WordSesh 1TRANSCRIPT
WordPress.org Themes Directory – Behind the Scenes
Mario Peshev @no_fear_inc
WordPress Engineer DevWP.eu
Contents
• About WPORG themes directory
• About WPTRT
• The Process
• How does it Work
What is the Themes Directory? • The directory hosting all themes on WPORG
• http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/
• All free, all GPL
Some Numbers
• 1700+ themes
• 67,700,000+ downloads
• Most popular themes:
• http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/responsive/ – 550,000+ downloads
• http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/twentyten/ – 1,252,000+ downloads
• http://wordpress.org/extend/themes/twentyeleven/ – 1,179,000+ downloads
• * April, 2013
WordPress Theme Review Team (WPTRT)
Who are they?
• Team of WordPress community members
– all volunteers
• Mostly self-directing, under the WPORG
umbrella
• Varying degrees of WordPress
experience/expertise
WordPress Theme Review Team (WPTRT) (2)
What is their purpose?
• Review and approve Theme tickets as quickly and as completely as possible
• Provide an educational resource for the WordPress Theme Developer community
• Encourage and establish community standards for Theme quality and best practices
Anyone can get involved!
Can I get in with my theme?
Sure, you can!
However, you need to be aware of the Guidelines
http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review
Theme Reviews
• http://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/11250
Template Hierarchy
• http://codex.wordpress.org/images/1/18/Template_Hierarchy.png
Theme Unit Test
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Unit_Test/
Theme Development
WordPress Themes:
• files that work together to create the
design and functionality of a WordPress
site
• each Theme may be different and offering
many choices for site owners
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Develo
pment
Theme Queues • Trac provides a list with several priority queues
• Reviews are conducted based on a specific
order
Purpose of these guidelines?
• Outlining best practices for theme
development
• Less conflicts
• Improved compatibility
What’s the best way of building my theme?
Follow the flow from Theme Development
page
• Build a theme with valid markup and
styling
• Enable WP_DEBUG during development
• Test with the Theme Unit Test data
• Support all core features
• Don’t forget the edge cases!
Cheats
display errors
error_log ( from my wp-config.php )
Plugins
• Theme Check
• Debug Bar
• Log Deprecated Notices
• Debogger
• Theme Mentor
• Monster Widget
• Developer
• Regenerate Thumbnails
• WordPress Beta Tester
Theme Check • “A simple and easy way to test your theme
for all the latest WordPress standards and
practices. A great theme development tool!
Log Deprecated Notices • “Logs the usage of deprecated files, functions,
and function arguments, and identifies where the deprecated functionality is being used.”
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/log-deprecated-notices/
Debogger
• “A simple tool for debugging themes.”
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/debogger/
Theme Mentor • Cousin of the Theme Check
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/theme-mentor/
Developer • “A plugin, which helps WordPress developers
develop.”
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/developer/
WordPress Beta Tester • “Allows you to easily upgrade to Beta releases.”
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/wordpress-beta-tester/
Can I join the team?
First you need to do:
• Learn the guidelines
• Setup the right enviroment
• Do several test reviews
Guidelines • Learn the guidelines thoroughly
• Apply in the make/themes group
http://make.wordpress.org/themes/about/how-to-join-wptrt/
Discussions • Not everything set in stone
Chime in Mailing lists
• Subscribe
Make site
• Make Themes site
IRC
• #WordPress-Themes (not actively used)
Arguable topics
• Removing Default Widgets
• Replacing Widgets with customized ones
• Theme vs. Plugin territory
• Using shortcodes
• Post-content shortcodes are Plugin
territory
• http://lists.wordpress.org/pipermail/theme-
reviewers/2013-March/012114.html
Arguable topics (2)
• front-page.php and home.php behaviour
• PHP version for Themes
• Browser compatability
• Should we support 100% IE?
• Custom Support Forums
Make Themes org • Home for official resources to help people
developing WordPress themes
http://make.wordpress.org/themes/
Licensing
• “The license under which the WordPress
software is released is the GPLv2 (or later)
from the Free Software Foundation. A
copy of the license is included with every
copy of WordPress, but you can also
read the text of the license here.”
• http://wordpress.org/about/license/
3rd party scripts
• Be careful with images licenses
• Beware of additional item licenses
• It’s important 3rd party items to be GPL
compatible
On Quality
Quality
“The goal of the theme directory is not
to list every theme in the world, it’s to list the
best ones. We want a reasonable number of
themes we can point to that embody the
best and brightest of WordPress
development, and that users can choose
without compromise.” – Matt Mullenweg
Child Themes
• Theme that inherits the functionality of
other theme.
• Recommended to use for making theme
changes
• Easy to use
• Great opportunity for expanding the
business
• http://codex.wordpress.org/Child_Themes
Child Themes Structure
• site_root (www) wp-content themes *your-theme *your-theme-child style.css – required functions.php – optional template files – optional other files – optional
style.css
Template is your link to the parent theme
Shortcodes
• Shortcodes should be carefully added (if at
all) to your themes
• Content changed by shortcodes is useless
when a theme is switched
• Themes should be used for presentation
layer only and not adding functionality
• Custom Post Types and Taxonomies could
be a stopper if embedded in themes
Questions?
Tweets as @no_fear_inc
Mario Peshev on LinkedIn
nofearinc on WordPress.org
GitHubering via mpeshev
DevWP.eu - blog