[theme-reviewers] Thesis WP Theme

[Hilary J Holz]

I just want to say thank you thank you thank you! This discussion (themes AND plugins) has provided so much clarity. As an established developer migrating into WP, I just wanted to know what the community standards were and had not come across anything anywhere near as clean or clear.

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Hilary J Holz, PhD
Toolsmith / Evangelist
Director, Laboratory for Adaptive Hypermedia and Assistive Technologies
Cal State, East Bay
http://design.hholz.com/, http://linkedin.com/in/hilaryholz, http://gplus.to/hilz

On Jul 23, 2011, at 8:29 , Otto wrote:

> On Fri, Jul 22, 2011 at 6:31 PM, Darren Slatten <darrenslatten at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Can someone tell me what criteria is used to determine whether a given
>> feature/functionality should be handled by a Theme or a Plugin (or a Child
>> Theme)?
> 
> Everybody has differing opinions, obviously. However, here's how I see it:
> 
> Theme - Displays the site. Has options pages that let me change
> specific bits of this.
> 
> Child theme - Lets me customize how I display the site on a more
> detailed level. Alternatively, is a modification to the parent theme
> which is more of a "base" for it.
> 
> Plugin - Modifies how the core functionality works in some way, or
> adds new features to the operation of the site. Generally does not
> modify the overall display of the site except to create new output or
> new types of output.
> 
> Obviously, this is very generalized, but that's the gist of it I think.
> 
> Of course, there are special cases. That theme which turns the site
> into a ticket management system is quite clever. It's certainly
> possible for a theme to implement plugin type functionality, but
> that's usually overkill for a general purpose theme. Users should be
> able to choose themes based on their looks, and not have functionality
> they want tying them to a specific look/feel of a theme. That's why we
> have plugins. Plugins can implement functionality without regard to
> the display of the site, and themes can implement display without
> regard to the actual underlying functionality of the site.
> 
> -Otto
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