[wp-hackers] Child themes, theme revisions, and the theme editor

[Andrew Nacin]

>
> Impossible?  Difficult maybe, but impossible?  What if we eliminate some
> assumptions?


Say you're editing "archive.php". The issue is, you don't know on which
pages "archive.php" is actually used, due to template hierarchy and numerous
filters in the template API and template loader. So you can't request the
home page (which most likely does not include "archive.php") or any other
page and say with certainty that "archive.php" works. And specifically
loading "archive.php" may generate errors simply because the file wasn't
included in the way that the theme intended it to be.

Again, the purpose of sandboxing is to prevent showstoppers. A template file
will not take down every aspect of your blog the way functions.php will.

I appreciate the feedback on this. That said, the proposal revolves around
some bigger ideas -- revisioning and child themes in particular -- and I
would not want those to be overshadowed by discussions on technical
implementation.