[theme-reviewers] A Question About Theme Review/Submission

[Ryan Frankel]

Philip,
> The purpose of a theme is primarily presentation, and the purpose of a plugin is primarily functionality. Sure there are grey areas, but keeping this distinction in mind is good for everyone.
I agree.  We had an internal debate on which way to go with this and it was decided that since we were including styling it would be a theme.  What we saw with a lot of plugins is that while they give you the functionality you still have to do all the styling yourself (see any calendar plugin).  We wanted to create something that required absolutely no end-user interaction or coding so the theme was born.  

It is even more of a grey area then I realized though.  

When you look at it as users should be able to switch to any theme in the Repo I completely understand everyone's position.  Our's just wouldn't fit.  (Note:  You could argue that ours supports all the Core functionality, but it just doesn't display it =) [a joke] ).

Thanks everyone for your input.  I'm having a blast doing these WordPress projects and your input has definitely helped.

-Ryan

On May 24, 2011, at 6:09 PM, Philip Walton wrote:

> Ryan, you've brought up good points in a fair manner. I don't think you've wasted anyone's time. These discussions are good.
> 
> Regarding the data lock-in of plugins being essentially the same as themes, I'd have to disagree. While I see your point that any custom post-type/taxonomy locks that content in at creation time, there is still one big difference:
> 
> The purpose of a theme is primarily presentation, and the purpose of a plugin is primarily functionality. Sure there are grey areas, but keeping this distinction in mind is good for everyone.
> 
> Being "locked-in" to a particular plugin because of functionality the user wants is very different than being "locked-in" to a specific design because of functionality the user wants.
> 
> Philip
> 
> 
> On 5/24/11 2:55 PM, Ryan Frankel wrote:
>> I see what you are saying about data lock-in.  Even with a plugin and a custom post type the data would be locked into that post type. As I think about it, if you add any Custom Taxonomy you have already automatically locked-in that data too.   It seems to me that creating a plugin that adds this functionality doesn't really solve the problem with the data being 'stuck' except that a user can switch their theme.  They would still be stuck to our plugin so it just pushes the problem deeper down.
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