[theme-reviewers] add_theme_page()

Mon Jan 24 20:52:03 UTC 2011

I have no idea what code your using to try to accomplish what you're doing, but i'm thinking that there are better methods for implementation that are being overlooked.

  ----- Original Message ----- 
  From: Sayontan Sinha 
  To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org 
  Sent: Monday, January 24, 2011 12:46 PM
  Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] add_theme_page()

    Ideally, it would still have just one Theme Options page under
    appearance, and then use tabs or something else on its own page to
    separate the options out.

  This is much easier said than done. I have been working towards getting tabs in place on one page (multiple calls to add_theme_page makes things look quite ugly), but there are simply too many limitations with the whole API to make this work effectively. Let me try to explain.

  The Scenario:
  My theme has several options. Putting them all on one page causes a lot of issues, like sluggishness of the back-end and interference with PHP-Suhosin protection settings (though Suhosin can be tweaked). I originally had a 2-level tab system, with horizontal tabs at the top for different sections of settings, then vertical tabs within each section (that is similar to the kind of settings that the other folks are talking about). The tabs were all handled by JQuery. This works fine with a small number of options, but with a large number of options, the sluggishness shows up in the back-end. That was when I removed the horizontal tabs at the top level and used add_menu_page and add_submenu_page.

  But with the recent enforcements of new rules and recommendations, I have had to do some major rework. I first rewrote the options framework to use the Settings API, but still with add_menu_page and add_submenu_page. Now I am rewriting again to get rid of the additional menu and roll it back to how the look was earlier, but with a difference: the entire set of options will not be loaded into browser memory in JQuery tabs. Instead, I will try to fetch each page as it is clicked, like the Theme Installation page in WP.

  My attempts:

    1.. I first simply created one options page, then included a set of links at the top. 
    Issue: Getting the links to behave as belonging within WP. E.g. If your admin panel is at http://host.com/wp-admin, your theme options page could be at http://host.com/wp-admin/themes.php?page=my-options. The tabs, however cannot be given links through the admin panel. In other words, to get a URL such as http://host.com/wp-admin/themes.php?page=my-sub-options-1, I HAVE to use add_theme_page. If I don't use add_theme_page, the page isn't added to the whitelist and will not show up. I cannot use other URLs, because then I will have something like this: http://host.com/wp-content/themes/my-theme/my-sub-options-1.php, which is just not done. 
    2.. To get around the above, I decided to bundle AJAX with the options page. So I have one options page accessible through http://host.com/wp-admin/themes.php?page=my-options. In there I have 5 links, each of which invokes AJAX to load the specific options page, while staying in http://host.com/wp-admin/themes.php?page=my-options. This way I only need to whitelist the main page.
    Issue: Getting settings_fields() to generate _wp_http_referer different from admin-ajax.php. This is causing options.php to return admin-ajax.php?updated=true, which is not what I want. This is where I am stuck right now, but hopefully I will get over the hurdle soon.

  I am looking forward to completing this exercise, so that other developers can learn from my (rather harsh) experience here.

  Cheers,
  Sayontan.

  On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 11:08 AM, Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com> wrote:

    On Mon, Jan 24, 2011 at 1:03 PM, Rahul Bansal <rahul286 at gmail.com> wrote:
    > What if theme offers so many options that it need to contains 4-5 subpages?

    Ideally, it would still have just one Theme Options page under
    appearance, and then use tabs or something else on its own page to
    separate the options out.

    Realistically, I'd say a theme with that many options is too complex
    to begin with. Themes should be about the look of the site, not crazy
    functionality. Break the functionality parts out into plugins that go
    along with the theme or something like that.

    -Otto

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  -- 
  Sayontan Sinha
  http://mynethome.net | http://mynethome.net/blog
  --
  Beating Australia in Cricket is like killing a celebrity. The death gets more coverage than the crime.

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