[wp-hackers] Safe location for "fallback" theme

[Stephen Rider]

On Apr 20, 2010, at 2:17 PM, scribu wrote:

> I think the trend is to move everything out of the wp-content directory and
> leave it empty by default.
> 
> The user would create a child theme if he wants to customize the fallback
> theme.

As much as duplication is generally a bad thing, I think it makes sense here.  Probably most people who've created a theme first did so by taking the default theme and making changes.  This is actually a pretty good way to learn.  I think the Default theme should still be in the /themes/ directory where it's easily found, but if no known fallback is present in the themes directory, there should be a second copy of "Default" that is the *real* fallback.  Some theme is an absolute requirement.  Let's make sure that there's always a working theme.

Removing Default from the themes directory entirely will just confuse people, *and* (I believe) will require different code to handle the child theme built off the Default in the different location.  (Or does the new "register theme folder" code handle child/parent themes in completely separate locations?)  Hackers get started by looking at what is there and making changes.  Let's leave the code as approachable as possible.

(Along these lines, if there is a problem and the "hidden" fallback is used, the Themes admin page should say that it's using a hard-coded default because there's a problem finding the selected theme in /themes/.)

Stephen


-- 
Stephen Rider
http://striderweb.com/