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

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