[wp-trac] [WordPress Trac] #23930: Screen option for post formats UI

[WordPress Trac]

#23930: Screen option for post formats UI
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 Reporter:  johnbillion      |       Owner:
     Type:  feature request  |      Status:  new
 Priority:  normal           |   Milestone:  3.6
Component:  Administration   |     Version:  trunk
 Severity:  normal           |  Resolution:
 Keywords:                   |
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Comment (by nathanrice):

 Ideally, from a theme developer's perspective, it's not great that this be
 a user opt-in feature. If the theme isn't prepared to handle the data then
 this feature shouldn't be available (Menus and featured images, anyone?)

 I understand there's a clever fallback system in place to make sure that,
 even if the theme doesn't know about the new fields, they get output
 through `the_content`, and that's all find and good, but it still doesn't
 address the numerous outlier cases where this could be tremendously
 confusing.

 What happens if a theme supports certain post formats and styles them
 appropriately, but not others? Do all the post formats suddenly get
 activated? Won't the user be somewhat confused that they have a new post
 format available, but apparently it gets styled just like a blog post?

 Seems the 3 big scenarios we have to prepare for are:

 * No post format support in the theme at all
 * Support for the old post formats
 * Support for the new structured post formats

 (and some cases where a theme had post format support without the
 structured stuff, and has now enabled structured stuff, etc.)

 But I don't see how that justifies moving this from a theme activated
 feature to a user option. Again, menus are awesome, but we don't force
 them on people just because they're awesome.

 >If a theme doesn't support a certain format...that's OK. We put a lot of
 work into fall backs that handle this.

 No doubt, the fallbacks keep it from completely breaking. But there's an
 expected behavior here ... if a post format is supported, the theme does
 something special with it. That's what people expect to happen, and when
 it doesn't, you won't be the one answering those support requests
 demanding an explanation. Theme authors will.

 >Seeing something new in your post edit screen immediately following a
 WordPress upgrade seems like it would be less jarring than seeing the same
 thing after a theme update (when your theme starts supporting these).

 I don't think so at all. Post formats are theme enabled currently. People
 expect the theme to control what formats are and are not supported.

 But that's irrelevant, because people don't update their themes,
 typically. Even in cases where they do (as with Genesis), it's the child
 themes that actually come with the CSS to style post format data (which
 really don't ever get updated by the user).

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Ticket URL: <http://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/23930#comment:10>
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