[theme-reviewers] Bundling Plugins

[Doug Stewart]

On Mon, May 2, 2011 at 10:15 AM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net> wrote:
> To be explicit: Theme functionality should involve the
> *presentation* of content; anything that involves the *creation* or
> *management* of content should be left to Plugins.

Chip:
What about Custom Post Types? If your theme implements any CPT
functionality, it steps directly on that bright line.

> Also, regarding "best practices", I will add: I think the "best practice"
> recommendation should be that Themes, if they choose, should incorporate
> *support* for a given Plugin, rather than incorporating the Plugin code
> itself. One example might be the WP-PageNavi Plugin, which can be supported
> as easily as adding:
>
> if ( function_exists( 'wp_paginate' ) ) {
> 	wp_paginate( 'title=' );
> } else {
> 	// do something else instead
> }
>
> Or, for Yoast Breadcrumbs:
>
> if ( function_exists('yoast_breadcrumb') ) {
> 	yoast_breadcrumb('<li id="breadcrumbs">','</li>');
> } else {
> 	// do something else instead
> } ?>
>
> This method allows for graceful degradation, and does not encumber the Theme
> developer with maintaining someone else's code.
> Chip
>

There ought to be a method for some sort of "Supports Plugins:" header
tags for themes so that, as a theme installation step, an end user
could specify "Download and activate all plugins marked as 'supported'
in this current theme."


-- 
-Doug
@zamoose
http://literalbarrage.org/blog/