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<div class="moz-text-flowed" style="font-family: -moz-fixed;
font-size: 12px;" lang="x-western">GRANDFATHERING EXISTING THEMES
- NEW POINT
<br>
<br>
One more important argument for grandfathering themes, pointed out
to me by one of
<br>
my thousands of users:
<br>
<br>
For the many many thousands of users of existing themes, it is
critical to allow them to
<br>
be updated. One of the most important things for users is the
theme they use. Being
<br>
forced to change themes because it is not being updated is one of
the most
<br>
traumatic experiences a typical WordPress user can face.
<br>
<br>
It is beyond doubt that the new, very restrictive submission rules
will prevent a large
<br>
number of existing theme authors from updating their themes. Thus,
strictly from
<br>
the end user's stand point, it is unfair, even devastating to
prevent long existing themes
<br>
from submitting updates or to be forced into extensive re-writes
to meet the newest
<br>
requirements. And unless I totally misunderstand the point of
WordPress coders,
<br>
plugin authors, and theme authors, the reason we are all here is
to provide a great
<br>
free web building tool for people all over the world.
<br>
<br>
So, I repeat my suggestion that there be a fairly liberal update
policy for previously
<br>
approved themes - perhaps requiring only support for the most
important new features
<br>
of new versions of WP (such as the 3.0 custom menus), or provably
severe security
<br>
issues (such as nonce). Otherwise, thousands upon thousands of WP
users are likely
<br>
to be negatively affected as more and more theme authors are
unable to modify
<br>
their themes to meet the latest requirements of the month. The
fact that many of
<br>
the newest requirements have only been enforced since March likely
indicates the
<br>
fact that I'm having such difficulties updating my previously
approved theme is only
<br>
the leading edge of a big issue.
<br>
<br>
Bruce Wampler
<br>
<br>
<br>
<div class="moz-txt-sig"><span class="moz-txt-tag">-- <br>
</span>-----------
<br>
Bruce Wampler, Ph.D.
<br>
<br>
Software developer
<br>
Creator of first spelling checker for a PC
<br>
Creator of Grammatik(tm), first true grammar checker
<br>
e-mail: bw at brucewampler.com
<br>
blog: brucewampler.wordpress.com
<br>
<br>
</div>
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<pre class="moz-signature" cols="72">--
-----------
Bruce Wampler, Ph.D.
Software developer
Creator of first spelling checker for a PC
Creator of Grammatik(tm), first true grammar checker
e-mail: bw at brucewampler.com
blog: brucewampler.wordpress.com
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