[wp-hackers] Two GSoC Ideas: Default Theme Framework and Community/Event Organizing

[Naa Marteki Reed]

On Sat, Mar 28, 2009 at 4:26 AM, Ozh <ozh at planetozh.com> wrote:

> I must be dumb, but I don't understand what a "theme framework" is.
>
> Or, more precisely, what is it that "sandbox" or "default" themes are not?
>
> On Fri, Mar 27, 2009 at 9:35 PM, Naa Marteki Reed <marteki at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> > PROPOSAL #1:
> > Create a default theme framework for WordPress, as suggested in the
> > following entry from the Codex GSoC2009 Idea
> > List<http://codex.wordpress.org/GSoC2009>
>

Basic definition: http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Frameworks

In the past, you had to edit the .php and .css files directly with your
changes. If you ever decided to update the theme to a higher version, you
had to "keep track of your changes, remember about them, and reapply them
every time the theme is updated". (Reference: http://op111.net/53) By using
a theme framework and only modifying the child themes, the parent theme
remains untouched. A simple update of the parent theme would not break your
theme or site (or, depending on the level of modifications to the child
theme, would break it much, much less than in the past).

I think this has become increasingly important with the release of the theme
update API in 2.7, and will be even more so if automatic notification of
theme updates (as currently done for plugins) makes it into 2.8. (Reference:
http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/7519)

"Sandbox" themes can be used as parent themes in a framework. But by
themselves out of the box, they aren't very useful or even desired by a
basic user. I'm hoping to create something that would become the "default"
theme for WordPress -- that could and would be used out of the box by basic
users, that could also easily be modified by intermediate users, and that
could be child theme modded into something crazy-fabulous by advanced users.

Plus -- and note, I am *entirely* speculating here about the
thoughts/motivations of the core devs in including this idea and might be
conflating them with my own thoughts -- WordPress official theme development
is seriously lagging behind that of many unofficial themes, and the official
theme is either quickly trashed or is being ignored by many non-basic users.
It would be nice if it would be used.

- Marteki