[theme-reviewers] Theme Reviwers

Fri May 4 06:59:49 UTC 2012

Good morning everyone!

hm, there are quite a few issues to discuss here:

Inline styles, yes/no:
I'm with Emil here, I'd love to see cleaner template file. Adding inline js or css should always be avoided where possible. I'm sure there can be exceptions to the rule when asked (as there has been for other requirements), but generally developers should strive for a separation of CSS/JS and HTML.

catching some of the obvious "issues":
This brings me back to two emails I wrote concerning the "findability" of requirements, where I unfortunately did not receive a response:
I'm still pretty green as a reviewer, and in the beginning I found it confusing that I had to look all over the place to make sure I have all requirements in check, when reviewing. I still have like four reference tabs open when I review a Theme:

Theme Review Codex
Theme Unit Test CodexWordPress 3.3 Proposed Guidelines Revisions
Chips article for new reviewers on his blog

This is what I base my reviews on but I can't be sure that I didn't miss a requirement hidden somewhere else. :)

I, for one, was not aware that jQuery functions must not be embedded in the Theme directly or that inline styles are not accepted. And I'm sure that goes for many Theme authors, too, as these things are not documented (to the best of my knowledge).

"I've seen that they were not reported in couple of reviews."
Except for when it was not a full review, I trust the preceding theme reviewer when picking up a ticket, especially on pre-approved Themes. We have to be able to rely on the judgement of our fellow reviewers. What do you think?

SPAM links:
Since there are no clear guidelines in place, this is something I always feel very uncomfortable with. I know it is hard to phrase requirements to catch all forms and shapes of Spam-links, but I would love to have a clearer set of principles that I can base my findings on.

I'll now have breakfast. :)

Konstantin

On 04.05.2012, at 08:02, Emil Uzelac wrote:

> Of course not, we're here to discuss not to debate :) 
> 
> Being an admin or reviewer has very little to do with what could be good or not so good for WP users. Inline styles was something developers liked to do I would say 6-8 years ago. Using inline styles for personal projects is one thing, passing this onto users is another story. If and when we decide to use inline styles, that's called "dictating" and that's not what we should do. Users should be able to change their CSS elements from stylesheet and not wondering where other styles might be.
> 
> In my understanding inline styles were not welcomed even before I've joined the team in December of 2010 :)
> 
> Other issues of inline styles:
> Code Bloating
> Potentially slowing down the page load time 
> There's the reason why e.g. Google PageSpeed suggests that we load styles at the top of the page, styles should load before the page does, that will not be the case if inline styles are used. Inline styles will also cause browser interruption as well. Next would be that when using stylesheet as e.g style.css browser could easily cache that and reuse what you already loaded the first time you entered example.com and again inline will not. I can go on and on about this, but that would not be necessary :)
> 
> As far as jQuery inline styles that too is not the best practice and what I call "CSS Hacking". With jQuery you can use the stylesheet too. That's why some jQuery plugins will affect the performance of the page load. 
> 
> I would highly recommend something like this:
> jquery.example.js
> jquery.example.css
> Cleaner code = less issues for users, less issues for users = less support for developers, simply stuff really.
> 
> Yes, this specifically was not in any of the links I pasted above, but I think that it goes into http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review#Code_Quality
> 
> Anyone else if free to "jump in" and tell all of us why we should allow inline CSS. This is an open topic and there's nothing one admin can do if others don't agree with him, don't think of me that way please.
> 
> Thanks,
> Emil
> 
> 
> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:55 PM, Sayontan Sinha <sayontan at gmail.com> wrote:
> Emil,
> I don't want to get into a debate here - this is too small a point. Just note this:
> I am not saying inline styles are good. I am saying they are okay, depending on the context. They certainly aren't bad or wrong, and they have their place. Pick up any reliable resource on the web - they will recommend against inline styles with a caveat, that they shouldn't be used if you want to offer the ability to override them. One way to interpret this is, "They are fine if you don't care about the ability to override them". In the cases that I use them, I make sure that the user has no reason to override them. Correctness here is really a question of context.
> None of the links you have provided says inline styles must not be used - you can go through them. Thus it is not the official position of WP. Frankly I would be surprised if this is made an official position, in which case using the "css" function of JQuery should be disallowed too, in favour of "addClass".
> I have never officially reviewed a theme, however I do follow this thread very closely. You are a WPTRT admin and thus your word carries weight amongst other reviewers. It is just that I have coded some insanely complex scenarios and I have come up against more "exception" situations than most other developers. I am just trying to bring to light some such scenarios.
> 
> Sayontan.
> 
> PS: I take the "lazy" developers as a compliment. As per Larry Wall (the creator of Perl), "The three chief virtues of a programmer are: Laziness, Impatience and Hubris".
> 
> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 7:11 PM, Emil Uzelac <emil at themeid.com> wrote:
> There's no shortcuts in CSS, saving time -vs doing it right the first time is completely different. It is very important <div style="margin-top:33px;"> will be hard to override in a stylesheet and yes it is wrong and bad practice, how can this be good. Tables too, I did not use tables in years! <div style="margin-top:33px;"> is for "lazy" developers I am sorry, not sure if you're using them or not.
> 
> This is not something that I am pushing, it was much before me. My first message was also intended for reviewers and only as a reminder that's all.
> 
> See:
> http://codex.wordpress.org/CSS_Coding_Standards
> http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Coding_Standards
> second link will give you better idea how strict the WP Standards are and how much of slack review team is giving to all of us.
> 
> Thanks,
> Emil
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -- 
> Sayontan Sinha
> http://mynethome.net | http://mynethome.net/blog
> --
> Beating Australia in Cricket is like killing a celebrity. The death gets more coverage than the crime.
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
> 
> 
> _______________________________________________
> theme-reviewers mailing list
> theme-reviewers at lists.wordpress.org
> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://lists.wordpress.org/pipermail/theme-reviewers/attachments/20120504/8898b956/attachment-0001.htm>