[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #38114: Make it easier to visualize where to put your content in a given theme (aka "dummy content")

[WordPress Trac]

#38114: Make it easier to visualize where to put your content in a given theme (aka
"dummy content")
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 Reporter:  helen           |       Owner:  helen
     Type:  task (blessed)  |      Status:  assigned
 Priority:  normal          |   Milestone:  4.7
Component:  Themes          |     Version:
 Severity:  normal          |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                  |     Focuses:
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Comment (by helen):

 Replying to [comment:26 westonruter]:
 > So you're thinking that themes would fetch the dummy/initial content
 from WordPress.org rather than bundling the dummy/initial content inside
 the themes themselves?

 > I guess I'm having a hard time understanding the scope of what
 dummy/initial content is suppose to include. Is it just theme mods and any
 associated sideloaded images? Or is it also options, posts/pages, widgets,
 and nav menus? If only the former, then there's not the concern about
 overriding existing data: the injection of the dummy/initial content could
 be skipped if the theme mods not empty (meaning it was activated before).
 But to me it seems that limiting the initial/dummy content would be quite
 limiting in terms of providing users with a fully-configured initial site
 setup that they can then extend?
 >
 > So if a theme does work best with a static front page and this static
 front page is also designed to have 3 widget areas, then I should think
 that when previewing this theme, these should be all configured and ready
 to go live if the user hits Save & Activate.

 I'm thinking that core has a default set of content built right in to
 select from - therefore translatable, usable in other contexts if that
 proves to make sense, etc. I am not married to any technical
 implementation ideas around this, but let's say there's an array somewhere
 of various blobs of content - a widget with a type and various fields
 defined (e.g. a text widget with a title of "Find Us" and content
 containing address and email), common theme mods with certain values set,
 some images to choose from that can be sideloaded from somewhere (how
 sizing is handled, I don't know), some nav menu items (social ones, not
 sure if you'd actually provide page-based ones or if we could get smart
 with putting some in there), pages, and so on. As to whether this is
 limiting - I'd like to get an initial run of "how does this even work"
 with a couple of examples first and then go from there. I don't want to
 get stuck in a guessing game, and even if I have to drop this from 4.7, I
 want it sooner rather than later.

 As far as existing data - if this is a fresh site, presumably there isn't
 much data there to scaffold with, so the local live preview should then
 reflect whatever ideal state (and if we do this right, the same state as
 the .org preview). I do agree that that something like a static page on
 front is a big part of that ideal state, I am just not sure we can tackle
 that in 4.7 when taking existing sites into account. Maybe we prioritize
 new sites and have the way existing sites do this work well enough for now
 (i.e. don't replace any content, show some starter content in areas that
 are new for a given theme), and keep working on that in the future.

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Ticket URL: <https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/38114#comment:27>
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