[theme-reviewers] Special demo config for wp-themes.com, allowed?

[Anca@anca.tv]

Hi everyone,

I've been lurking on this list for a while.  Hope it's cool to chime in.  I'm not part of the theme review process, but I spend several hours each week helping neophytes learn how to set up their WordPress sites.

One problem with the default setup is that it's not always clear to users how to configure the theme in order to achieve the end result shown the demo.  This is really an issue with premium themes (StudioPress comes to mind, Modularity) where the demo has a full set of content that shows a gorgeous site, rather than  bare-bones framework which is what you get out of the box. 

Some premium themes solve this problem by having a "demo" file you can load which contains posts and categories such that people can see the basic building blocks for the site, but then you wind up with content in your site that doesn't really belong there - and, if you install several of these themes you wind up with a hot mess.

It would help if theme authors (and providers) gave a succinct overview of how to achieve the demo theme look step by step, with content of your own.  These things take time to produce, but your users will be rather grateful if you provide them.

Anca.

On Jan 16, 2012, at 1:10 PM, theme-reviewers-request at lists.wordpress.org wrote:

> Date: Mon, 16 Jan 2012 12:28:27 -0600
> From: Otto <otto at ottodestruct.com>
> Subject: Re: [theme-reviewers] Special demo config for wp-themes.com,
> 	allowed?
> To: theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> Message-ID:
> 	<CAD-FghxnFJt5rw0KJJy3YfvR719DpbHwh+S5VpYQ35LLh84B9Q at mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=ISO-8859-1
> 
> Not allowed. Please don't try this. Theme preview should show default
> as the end user will see the default.
> 
> -Otto
> 
> 
> 
> On Mon, Jan 16, 2012 at 12:02 PM, Robert Ambartsumov
> <robert6292 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> Hey,
>> 
>> I would like to include in my theme a special demo configuration file for
>> default settings that will be loaded when it matches the wp-themes.com url,
>> so that for example I can load some data that wont be available on a typical
>> end user theme activation, i.e twitter username feed or a custom home page
>> screen.
>> the?reason?for this is because I do want to show the user what the theme is
>> capable of and improve the?overall?demonstration process eventually, but i
>> agree that those settings shouldn't be loaded as default for the end user as
>> per theme reviewers suggestions and guidelines.
>> 
>> i.e by doing this:
>> $mframe['globals'] = home_url() == $mframe['demo']['server'] ?
>> wp_parse_args( $mframe['demo'], $mframe['globals']) : $mframe['globals'];
>> 
>> the demo server url can be setup as anything, but for this example is
>> obviously wp-themes.com where we can view demo version of the theme.
>> 
>> thanks!
>> 
>> _______________________________________________
>> theme-reviewers mailing list
>> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>> 
> 

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