[theme-reviewers] Theme Reviwers

Fri May 4 13:26:40 UTC 2012

Re: findability of requirements - if you still, er, find something missing
from the actual Guidelines, please let me know. I am happy to clarify as
necessary. We certainly want all requirements contained in one location.

Thanks,

Chip

On Fri, May 4, 2012 at 1:59 AM, Konstantin Obenland
<konstantin at obenland.it>wrote:

> 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:
>>
>>    1. 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.
>>    2. 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.
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
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>>
>>
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