[theme-reviewers] Suggestion for Theme Support Plugins

[Dylan Scott]

Just as an aside isn't having companion plugins to make themes work counter
intuitive? The way I've always understood the distinction between themes
and plugins is themes handle presentation and plugins handle functionality.
By allowing theme authors to have companion plugins aren't you effectively
tying the user to plugins? This can be especially annoying when the plugins
don't work too well. Just thinking aloud and would love some other views.

Thanks


On 26 June 2014 01:25, Edward Caissie <edward.caissie at gmail.com> wrote:

> Although an interesting idea, plugins can "self-deactivate" if specific
> conditions are met and the plugin author writes the appropriate code ...
> actually the plugin can do many things in many areas, but the most
> important point of this is simply: it is a plugin; and, as such, it really
> is outside the scope of the Theme Review Team to establish guidelines for
> plugins even if they are recommended to be used with a specific theme.
>
> Personally I would prefer themes not use any "recommended plugin" method,
> but that would be a different discussion for a different time.
>
> Edward Caissie
> aka Cais.
>
>
> On Wed, Jun 25, 2014 at 7:05 PM, Weaver Theme <weavertheme at gmail.com>
> wrote:
>
>> As I noted in my last post, an increasing number of themes are
>> recommending a companion support plugin to get optimal theme functionality.
>> Some are using TGM, others other ways to load the related plugin.
>>
>> My users have just reported a fairly severe issue with my own theme's
>> companion plugin, and I've confirmed that at least some other themes with
>> companion plugins suffer the same issue: when people deactivate a theme,
>> they often forget to deactivate the companion plugin. This may or may not
>> matter - but I would guess most often people would want to deactivate both
>> the theme and its companion plugin. Since there is no deactivation hook for
>> themes, it would be up to the plugin to detect the situation.
>>
>> While it would be somewhat difficult to check and enforce, I would like
>> to suggest that it be RECOMMENDED that companion plugins for themes detect
>> that their "parent" theme has been deactivated, and display a notice that
>> the plugin should be deactivated as well.
>>
>> This sort of goes along with my suggestion that there be some more formal
>> guidelines for theme companion plugins. It is important that the end user
>> gets an easy and optimal experience for this increasingly common
>> theme/companion plugin scenario.
>>
>> Bruce Wampler
>>
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>>
>
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