Here is an approach I use to accommodate version-specific changes:<br><ol><li>I post an article on my site whenever there is a new version of the theme, complete with the change log, potential impacts etc.</li><li>I have a "Version checker" function built in the theme. There are multiple ways to do this:</li>
<ol><li>You can use the native calls that WP uses on its theme administration pages. There is a function called theme_update_available, which uses a call to get_site_transient('update_themes') and then determines if there is an update. You can use the same call (without the printf statements in that function) to check if there is a new version.</li>
<li>Alternatively you can directly query your site's feed for a post tagged with the new version (or with the new version number included in the title). This you can do either by hardcoding the link to your feed (it is in the admin panel and not a public-facing link, so that is allowed), or use the much smarter approach suggested by Justin <a href="http://devpress.com/blog/customizing-plugin-and-theme-file-headers/">here</a>.<br>
</li></ol><li>You can hook the version checker to the admin pages and don't make it display anything if no new version is found. That way if a particular version has no specific release notes then it will not display a link.<br>
</li><li>When your version checker determines that a new version is available, it automatically displays the link by saying, "There is a new version available. Please see the <link>release notes</link>"</li>
</ol>In your post with the release notes you can include any special warnings such as putting changes in child themes, or making changes to certain options or files etc. <br><br>Till such a time as a "Readme" parser is implemented this approach will work to direct users to your change log.<br>
<br>Sayontan.<br><br><div class="gmail_quote">On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 9:14 PM, Emil Uzelac <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:emil@themeid.com">emil@themeid.com</a>></span> wrote:<br><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex;">
<font color="#333333"><font size="2"><font face="arial,helvetica,sans-serif">Child Themes should be the answer to all this and if I were you I would make that your number one priority and letting know your users that in the order to keep their "edits" Child Themes are the only way to preserve that. Take a look at <a href="http://chrishajer.com/wordpress/upgrade-plugin.png" target="_blank">http://chrishajer.com/wordpress/upgrade-plugin.png</a> and see what they have done with this, maybe you can do something similar.<br clear="all">
</font></font></font><div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Cheers,</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Emil</font></div>
<div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><br></font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">----</font></div><div><font face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif"><b>Emil Uzelac</b> | ThemeID | T: <a href="tel:224-444-0006" value="+12244440006" target="_blank">224-444-0006</a> | Twitter: @EmilUzelac | E: <a href="mailto:emil@themeid.com" target="_blank">emil@themeid.com</a> | <a href="http://themeid.com/" target="_blank">http://themeid.com</a></font></div>
<div><font color="#999999" face="arial, helvetica, sans-serif">Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein</font></div><br>
<br><br><div class="gmail_quote"><div><div></div><div class="h5">On Fri, Jul 15, 2011 at 10:44 PM, Daniel Fenn <span dir="ltr"><<a href="mailto:danielx386@gmail.com" target="_blank">danielx386@gmail.com</a>></span> wrote:<br>
</div></div><blockquote class="gmail_quote" style="margin:0 0 0 .8ex;border-left:1px #ccc solid;padding-left:1ex"><div><div></div><div class="h5">
Hello all,<br><br>I just submitted an update for my theme for approval and I'm worried about people upgrading and losing any file edits that they may have made.<br><br>Is there a way to warn people in the wordpress dashboard that they should make a note of any changes that they made and that they will need to put the changes back in after the upgrade?<br>
<br>I've made a post on my blog and forum about it, but not everyone go over there.<br><br clear="all"><div style="font-family:georgia,serif">Regards,<br>Daniel Fenn<br></div>
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<br></blockquote></div><br><br clear="all"><br>-- <br>Sayontan Sinha<br><a href="http://mynethome.net" target="_blank">http://mynethome.net</a> | <a href="http://mynethome.net/blog" target="_blank">http://mynethome.net/blog</a><br>
--<br>Beating Australia in Cricket is like killing a celebrity. The death gets more coverage than the crime.<br><br>