[theme-reviewers] Note to theme reviewers about settings in themes

[Chip Bennett]

Themes ideally would use a *delete* hook, not a deactivation hook, for
database cleanup.

Chip

On 6/12/11, Sayontan Sinha <sayontan at gmail.com> wrote:
> I would like to add to Justin's suggestion and highlight that the uninstall
> hook should be treated differently from the deactivation hook.
>
> The problem with forcing cleanup on a deactivation hook is that occasionally
> the WP servers hand out bad copies of themes (I have had that happen quite a
> few times on my theme, where users sporadically report broken downloads -
> the fix involved Otto rebuilding the download on the faulty server).
> Depending on what got downloaded, WP either automatically deactivates the
> theme (e.g. missing or broken style.css) and defaults to TwentyTen, or the
> user gets a white screen (missing or broken functions.php). In the former at
> least, having a deactivation hook do cleanups is fraught with the user
> losing hours of work, because the switch to TwentyTen happens without the
> user intending to do it.
>
> Hence cleanup of options should be introduced only upon uninstall, and not
> deactivation.
>
> On Mon, Jun 13, 2011 at 8:10 PM, Justin Tadlock
> <justin at justintadlock.com>wrote:
>
>> **
>> The problem with themes cleaning up after themselves is simply that
>> there's
>> no uninstall hook.  Once we get that (plus some activate/deactivate
>> hooks),
>> I'd have no problem in setting some repository rules for themes to delete
>> options on uninstall.
>>
>> As far as using the $default parameter of get_option() and not setting
>> defaults, that can be good practice.  However, I see no reason themes
>> shouldn't be setting up some defaults using add_option().  Of course,
>> there's no activation hook, so some theme authors are just dropping some
>> code into functions.php instead of using a hook (load-themes.php might be
>> a
>> good one) to auto-set default options.
>>
>>
>> On 6/12/2011 10:06 PM, Emil Uzelac wrote:
>>
>> Or for future release of WP when Theme is deleted all that was associated
>> with that specific Theme gets deleted as well. Not all Authors will comply
>> with WP guides and not all Themes are downloaded from the repository.
>>
>>  ----
>> *Emil Uzelac* | ThemeID | T: 224-444-0006 | Twitter: @EmilUzelac | E:
>> emil at themeid.com | http://themeid.com
>> Make everything as simple as possible, but not simpler. - Albert Einstein
>>
>>
>>
>> On Sun, Jun 12, 2011 at 10:03 PM, Angelo Bertolli <
>> angelo.bertolli at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> On 6/12/2011 10:59 PM, Syahir Hakim wrote:
>>>
>>>> I don't think it's only the theme reviewers who are installing and
>>>> trying a lot of themes. It is not unusual at all for regular or
>>>> first-timer WP users to try a lot of themes before they settle on one
>>>> that they really like. Trying more than 10 themes is quite normal for a
>>>> first-timer WP user, I think, and some of my theme users even reported
>>>> that they've tried 40+ themes.
>>>>
>>>
>>>  It sounds like WP should have a way of forcing options to be associated
>>> with their themes, and cleanup options that are independant of theme
>>> code.
>>>  For example add_option would automatically associate the option with a
>>> particular theme, maybe by directory name.  Then after such a theme no
>>> longer exists or is deactivated, WP presents an option to "clean up theme
>>> options for theme X"
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> _______________________________________________
>>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>>
>>
>>
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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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