[theme-reviewers] Theme names and updates

[Emil Uzelac]

Her Theme is not hosted at WPORG :) This is to avoid
updates from http://wordpress.org/themes/polaris


On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 3:38 PM, Chip Bennett <chip at chipbennett.net> wrote:

> Theme developers can simply exclude their Theme from the update API check,
> through a simple filter. Given how deeply the Theme and Plugin directories
> are integrated into the WordPress user admin, I would strongly recommend
> that developers of Themes/Plugins not hosted by WPORG implement such
> filters, as a matter of course. (Note: there is a similar method for
> hooking a third-party update *into* the update API, so that
> non-WPORG-hosted Themes/Plugins can make use of the automatic
> update/upgrade functionality.)
>
>
> On Sun, Dec 22, 2013 at 4:27 PM, Morgan Kay <morgan at wpalchemists.com>wrote:
>
>> This might be slightly off-topic for this list.... but I just ran into a
>> problem on a client's site that I have seen happen more than once.  The
>> client has a custom theme, and the theme's name is "Polaris."  The client
>> was being diligent about doing updates on their site, and WordPress told
>> them that they needed to update the Polaris theme, so they did.
>>  Unfortunately, "Polaris" is also the name of a theme in the WordPress
>> theme repository, which has a later version number than the custom theme
>> named "Polaris" on the client's website.  So they thought they were
>> updating their current theme, when actually they were installing a whole
>> new theme which completely broke their site.
>>
>> This isn't the first time I have seen this happen.  Apparently WordPress
>> only compares the theme name and the version number, and then prompts for
>> an update.
>>
>> So I have two questions here:
>> 1) Is there anything that theme authors who write bespoke themes can do
>> to prevent this from happening?  Other than only using really obscure
>> names, or giving our themes artificially high version numbers?
>> 2) Can we change how WordPress looks for theme updates so that it checks
>> Author name or some other required parameters to make sure that it is
>> actually the same theme?  (I know - you're going to tell me to fix it
>> myself.  I would actually be happy to do that, but there seem to be some
>> policy questions involved here, such as whether authors are likely to
>> change their author name or URI, and whether these changes would prevent
>> themes from being updated when they should.)
>>
>> Thanks!
>> Morgan.
>>
>> --
>> Morgan Kay
>> WordPress Alchemists
>> http://wpalchemists.com
>>
>> Alchemy Computer Solutions
>> http://alchemycs.com
>>
>> Skype: wp-alchemist
>> 206-321-1742
>>
>>
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>> http://lists.wordpress.org/mailman/listinfo/theme-reviewers
>>
>
>
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