[theme-reviewers] Theme selection is great frustration

[Yentl Bresseleers]

Totally agree, the "Preview" button doesn't really show anything decent 
in 99% of all themes.
Even for default themes these preview button doesn't really show 
anything useful:
http://wp-themes.com/twentyfourteen/
Wouldn't it be better if that link got replaced by the demo url, which 
you can find here?
http://twentyfourteendemo.wordpress.com/

Another comparison:
http://wp-themes.com/twentythirteen/ vs 
http://twentythirteendemo.wordpress.com/

Most probably this is out of our hands but I really think we should add 
a "Demo URI:" to our style.css file.
That link can then be used on the Preview button rather than the link we 
currently have.
This seems like a really easy fix.

Maybe we should add the Demo URI in *style.css* and *readme.txt* even if 
we have no control over the preview button.
People looking at these files will at least get an idea of what is 
possible with the theme.

What do you guys think? What do you propose?


On 18/09/2014 02:46, // ravi wrote:
>
> Hello all,
>
> this is a bit larger than theme review, so apologies beforehand if it 
> is misdirected, but I want to relate my experience in trying to help 
> some friends choose a theme for their site. In this effort, searching 
> on wordpress.org <http://wordpress.org> using the provided filters is 
> a very frustrating experience, mostly stemming from a disparity 
> between the filter selection, the theme preview image, and the actual 
> theme preview.
>
> First, what shows up in the preview is a far cry from what is in the 
> screenshot. It is understandable that the screenshot was carefully 
> crafted with various features enabled in order to display the theme at 
> its best, and therefore some discrepancy is inevitable. But what one 
> sees in the preview at times has almost no relation visually to the 
> screenshot.
>
> Next, what appears in the preview seems to have no relation to the 
> selected filters either. Say I select "left sidebar"... well, in many 
> cases, the preview has none.
>
> Having written a few themes myself, back in the stone ages, I realise 
> that there are reasons behind all of this, but consider the experience 
> from a regular WordPress user's perspective. Selecting a theme is one 
> of the first, and certainly the most defining activity, for a new 
> user. Whatever the underlying reasons may be, their experience has to 
> be better than what occurs today.
>
> Apologies if I have missed some obvious steps that would have improved 
> my experience.
>
> Regards,
>
> ---ravi
>
>
> P.S: background: this was for a self-hosted blog, not one on 
> WordPress.com <http://WordPress.com>.
>
>
>
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