[theme-reviewers] Thesis WP Theme

[Chip Bennett]

Theme developers wouldn't *have* to do anything. I'm just talking about an
approach to take if they *choose* to do so - for example, if a Theme's users
indicate a strong demand for built-in support for a given Plugin.

Why would you say that it's "hackish" to check for a given Plugin, and
supporting that Plugin while providing a graceful fallback - or even a
*better* implementation, but deferring to the user's choice? Personally, I
do this for two Plugins: Yoast Breadcrumbs and WP PageNavi.

As for a "feature sniffing" approach: that's exactly what if (
function_exists() ) is, and does, quite efficiently. :)

Chip

On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 7:37 PM, Darren Slatten <darrenslatten at gmail.com>wrote:

> Chip,
>
> I'm actually kind of surprised at this suggestion. Doesn't this imply that
> Theme developers would have to research the plugin repo and determine which
> plugins' "toes" their Theme needs to avoid stepping on? This doesn't seem
> practical. Personally, when I see Themes checking for Plugins by name...it
> seems kind of hack-ish to me. I'm wondering if there's any way we could use
> a "feature sniffing" approach instead? Or possibly some type of "order of
> operations" convention.
>
> It seems like a related issue here is the hook priority system. Maybe the
> current number system is too arbitrary; maybe we should segment the number
> line into specific uses or something.
>
>
>
>
> On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 6:08 PM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net>wrote:
>
>> Navigation isn't "functionality"; it is UX. Baking breadcrumb navigation
>> into a Theme falls on the correct side of the Theme-Plugin differentiation,
>> AFAIK.
>>
>> If you want to build in support for breadcrumb plugins, you could use
>> function_exists() conditionals. e.g.
>>
>> if ( function_exists( 'yoast_breadcrumbs' ) {
>>     yoast_breadcrumbs();
>> } else {
>>      mytheme_breadcrumbs();
>> }
>>
>>
>> That way, if the user enables Yoast Breadcrumbs, the Theme uses that;
>> otherwise, it falls back to your own breadcrumb navigation.
>>
>> Chip
>>
>>
>> On Sat, Jul 23, 2011 at 5:57 PM, Daniel Fenn <danielx386 at gmail.com>wrote:
>>
>>> Hello all,
>>>
>>> After reading this I'm starting to think that I may be heading off-track
>>> with my wordpress theme.
>>>
>>> Otto, are you saying that my breadcrum code that I put in is a doing it
>>> wrong all because I just given people no choice in what plugin they use?
>>>
>>> Would adding the option in my next version to turn it off make it a doing
>>> it right? Isn't the idea to make a wordpress theme that has some decent
>>> features without needing to use plugins? Is it not true that the more
>>> plugins that you got installed the slower wordpress will get?
>>>  Regards,
>>> Daniel Fenn
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sun, Jul 24, 2011 at 6:51 AM, Tony Crockford <tonyc at boldfish.co.uk>wrote:
>>>
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> Sent from my mobile, so please excuse brevity and / or formatting
>>>> errors.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> On 23 Jul 2011, at 21:19, Hilary J Holz <holz.hilary at gmail.com> wrote:
>>>>
>>>> >> It's certainly
>>>> >> possible for a theme to implement plugin type functionality, but
>>>> >> that's usually overkill for a general purpose theme.
>>>>
>>>> I think this is an interesting point.  It seems to me that there are
>>>> themes and "themes" where we might need to have a new name for a theme that
>>>> provides a distinct off-shoot of functionality to WordPress to make it fit a
>>>> particular role.
>>>>
>>>> Perhaps a means to bundle plugins    with a theme as a *customising
>>>> package* might be a better approach?
>>>>
>>>> I can get behind theme as presentation layer and plugin to add function
>>>> but there's clearly an overlap where a *theme* needs to add function and
>>>> style/present it at the same time.  I think the lack of a *plugin required*
>>>> system is what leads to theme authors including plugin type function in
>>>> theme templates.
>>>>
>>>> Or I might be off the mark.
>>>>
>>>>
>>>> _______________________________________________
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>>>>
>>>
>>>
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>>>
>>
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>>
>
>
> --
> Darren Slatten
>
>
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