[theme-reviewers] Feature slider default links

[Trent Lapinski]

Chip,

The feature slider that presents the slides is built into our theme, as are the options for the feature slider. We had to put defaults for those options in our theme so the slider would function properly on the theme preview on .org. 

We use to leave this default blank, and inserted a "#" in there instead, but that of course lead to dozens of support questions on a weekly basis asking us where to put a custom url for the feature slider. No matter how much we documented this, it didn't seem to matter.

We got tired of answering the same question over and over again, and thats when we just put our link in there instead and it seemed to have resolved the issue because it forces users to enter their own URL and we haven't had anyone asking about this feature since then (this was literally months ago and we forgot about it until a reviewer mentioned it recently). People seem to understand replacing the default URL better than an empty entry field (I suppose when they see an actual URL they just simply understand), and I'm simply trying to prevent having to answer that question multiple times a week again.

I imagine if used home_url() people would keep asking us why when they click the feature slider it keeps taking them back to the homepage, which will just raise a whole new issue.

I'm not opposed to keeping the link consistent or linking to the documentation or something along those lines, I would just prefer having an actual default URL in there so people know immediately it has that functionality. We deal with enough, "You're feature slider is broken because I didn't read the docs yet."

--Trent Lapinski
=============
CEO of CyberChimps LLC
trent at cyberchimps.com
Mobile (714) 904-4280
Twitter @trentlapinski
http://CyberChimps.com

On Aug 8, 2012, at 3:27 PM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net> wrote:

> Why not have them link to home_url() by default, instead?
> 
> On Wed, Aug 8, 2012 at 4:57 PM, Trent Lapinski <trent at cyberchimps.com> wrote:
> Hi everyone,
> 
> Some of my themes have feature sliders, and for the default links for those slides I simply link them back to my company website to show users can link the images in the feature slider.
> 
> It was recently brought to my attention that this may be a grey area in terms of the guidelines. I spoke to Otto about this at WCSF12, and he said it likely shouldn't be too big of an issue and I should be able to request an exception to keep these links.
> 
> With that said, I would like to formally request an exception to have these default links. I can have them direct to theme specific pages perhaps?
> 
> --Trent Lapinski
> =============
> CEO of CyberChimps LLC
> trent at cyberchimps.com
> Mobile (714) 904-4280
> Twitter @trentlapinski
> http://CyberChimps.com
> 
> 
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