[wp-hackers] Theme framework proposal

[Tong Zou]

Hello fellow Wordpress developers, I am a student currently applying for the
GSoC program and I have some ideas for Wordpress I would like to double
check with everyone before I write up my proposal.

Well my idea is actually two different ideas but related to one another.
They are both based on the idea of theme frameworks that was discussed on
the GSoC ideas page. The idea is to have 'theme packages' that tie in a
theme with a set of related plugins.
Right now WP only provides installation/activation of one plugin at a time
and then the theme has to be optimized to take advantage of those plugins. I
propose to have one installer that can install/activate/deactivate one set
of plugins at a time, in combination with a relevant theme. For example, the
Buddypress package installs a set of plugins that are used with BuddyPress,
and the layout could be a facebook-type layout. I think this could greatly
benefit users who need to save time and are not going to mix and match
different plugins and layouts.

The second idea is to have a dynamic switchable theme by visitors. Right now
I have a primitive example on my site http://www.blue-kaos.com that changes
the theme every time the page reloads. Eventually I want to have it so that
vistors can change the theme of the site to customize its properties. If a
big MU site has lots of different functionality then the user can switch
between say 'wordpress-social networking mode' and 'wordpress-wiki mode',
etc. And/or change the template to suit themselves. But this will have to be
done client-side, so I think a bit of AJAX and JS-PHP interaction would have
to be done here.

What do you think? I could greatly appreciiate some support/criticism
Tong