[wp-hackers] User folders for themes, plug-ins

[Steve Lewis]

On 1/18/07, Charles <lists07 at wiltgen.net> wrote:
>
> Let's depend on convention over configuration at first, keeping it
> conceptually simple as we introduce it.  However, any new WP functions
> that
> need to be created could abstract the path to the point that they wouldn't
> prevent this from becoming configurable in the future.
>
> > Should we allow it to be outside the webroot?
>
> I can't think of reason that this would be necessary, but others might.
>

For Mac servers, the problem stems from directory replacement behaviors.
IIRC that is how we ended up here.
That leaves us with the important question of how can Wordpress:

a) deprecate wp-content/plugins and wp-content/themes
b) while continuing to support existing plugins which depend on that path
gracefully
c) make sure that the new 'user-extensions' directory exists on install
d) not overwrite that directory on upgrade

By my thinking it will require the path to be customizable by configuration.

I can also say that I have some concerns over the security of the model that
allows us to write plugins that generate HTML responses.  I don't know that
having the new user extensions directory outside the webroot is necessary,
but would want to consider it at least.

-- 
SteveL