[theme-reviewers] Question about ob_start and ob_get_clean (Vicky Arulsingam)

[Chip Bennett]

And how many Plugins are you going to "correct"?

I'm not disagreeing with you in principle; on my own site, I have custom
functions that do exactly what you're describing. I'm mainly questioning
whether such functionality is appropriate for Themes intended for general
distribution - Themes that may never be used in combination with any of the
Plugins whose behavior the Theme "corrects".

The best-case solution, IMHO, is better education of Plugin developers.
Rather than spend time building into your Theme "correction" code for a
Plugin, why not ping the Plugin developer, and submit a patch for the Plugin
itself? That way, every single user of the Plugin benefits from the effort.

Chip

On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 4:13 PM, Gmail <darrenslatten at gmail.com> wrote:

> So...a better approach would be what? Rewrite all plugins that don't follow
> best practices?
>
> That still wouldn't address issues like client-side load order (e.g. to
> optimize page load times).
>
> A real example where wp_head filtering is useful is in conjunction with the
> Contact Form 7 plugin. By default, enabling that plugin would insert a CSS
> file and script into the head of every page. With a custom filter and a
> conditional statement, I can make sure only the contact form page loads
> those resources.
>
> In many cases, this can also be achieved "more elegantly" by removing
> hooked functions, but filtering the output buffer (i.e., working with regex)
> is much faster/easier than digging through plugins, searching for the custom
> function code that hooked into wp_head.
>
> -Darren Slatten
>
> On Jun 29, 2011, at 1:44 PM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net> wrote:
>
> I think you have that approach exactly backwards. Plugins should be looking
> after themselves, by hooking properly into appropriate hooks. Theme and
> Plugins should mostly stay out of one another's way.
>
> If Theme and Plugins all enqueue jQuery properly, then there will *never*
> be duplicate jQuery scripts enqueued.
>
> Chip
>
> On Wed, Jun 29, 2011 at 11:45 AM, Gmail < <darrenslatten at gmail.com>
> darrenslatten at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> I use output buffering on wp_head() and wp_footer(), in order to give my
>> theme complete control over them. Since most plugins hook onto these, they
>> can become cluttered with scripts and CSS file links. By using OB and a
>> custom filter, I can do things like (1) remove duplicate jQuery scripts, and
>> (2) optimize the order that CSS and scripts are loaded in. Essentially this
>> gives my theme the final say in what resources are loaded into the page,
>> allowing me to "clean up after" plugins.
>>
>> -Darren Slatten
>>
>> On Jun 29, 2011, at 10:12 AM, Vicky Arulsingam <<vicky.arulsingam at gmail.com>
>> vicky.arulsingam at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > I've asked the theme author to explain the usage. If there's a valid
>> > use for it then it should be allowed but I haven't a clue how.
>> >
>> > On 6/29/11, Ryan Hellyer < <ryan at pixopoint.com>ryan at pixopoint.com>
>> wrote:
>> >> There are many reasons to use output buffering (ob_start etc), but
>> >> they would rarely be used within a theme. I've seen themes which use
>> >> buffering as a way to dynamically minify the markup, but that's a
>> >> horrid way to do it - much better incorporated within a caching plugin
>> >> IMO.
>> >>
>> >> There may be a practical use for output buffer in a theme, but I'm
>> >> darned if I can think of a good example. I wouldn't want to see it
>> >> banned outright, as someone may come up with a cunning use for it that
>> >> none of us have thought of.
>> >>
>> >> Perhaps the theme check plugin could check for output buffering
>> >> functions and leave a request for the theme developer to provide a
>> >> reason for using it? That way they'll know it's non-standard and
>> >> provide a reason (good or bad) for the theme reviewers to read. Could
>> >> potentially save a little to and fro'ing in the future. Just an idea.
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>> >
>> >
>> > --
>> > -----
>> > Vicky Arulsingam
>> > _______________________________________________
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