Is the Theme Directory “Blog” Focused?

Some recent discussions in the community have indicated that the Theme directory is too “blog” focused, and that the Guidelines actively discourage non-blogging Themes from being submitted. There are some things that are true, some things that are untrue, and some things that are simply outside of the control of the Theme Review Team, in terms of the Theme directory and “non-blogging” Themes.

One thing that is true is that the current stance of the Theme Review Team is that the “CMS” use case is not significantly compelling for a Theme to omit support for a blog. From a coding perspective, the differences between a post loopLoop The Loop is PHP code used by WordPress to display posts. Using The Loop, WordPress processes each post to be displayed on the current page, and formats it according to how it matches specified criteria within The Loop tags. Any HTML or PHP code in the Loop will be processed on each post. https://codex.wordpress.org/The_Loop. and a static page loop are minimal. From a user perspective, there is no real reason to restrict a “CMS” Theme’s user base only to users who don’t intend to use the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. blog functionality.

Another thing that is partially true is that the current Theme Unit Tests appear heavily blog-centric. But that’s mainly because the unit tests are presented as blog posts. Some things – taxonomies, posts navigation, post formats, etc. – only apply to blog posts; but most of the rest of the Theme Unit Tests apply equally regardless of post type. The Theme Unit Tests are designed as test-every-reasonable-use-case data: to push edge cases and boundaries, to ensure that Themes accommodate the widest possible range of use cases and to see how Themes respond to break points. Generally speaking, the entire suite won’t apply to any given Theme (for example, most Themes don’t add support for all post formats; so the unit tests for unsupported post formats wouldn’t apply).

By contrast, one thing that is not true is that there is no recourse for hosting a non-traditional Theme in the Theme directory. Want to submit a Theme intended to be used as a support ticket system, a knowledge base, or a presentation slideshow? Those are all welcome in the Theme directory. We refer to these Themes as “niche” or “custom use” Themes, and we already have a mechanism in place to “whitelist” those Themes so that they can bypass non-applicable upload script tests. All we ask is that developers email the mail-list and ask for an exemption, along with explaining the justification.

But there are many things that are outside of the control of the Theme Review Team, including anything that deals with the infrastructure of wordpress.orgWordPress.org The community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org//themes itself. We have one Theme directory to work with. We can recommend filterFilter Filters are one of the two types of Hooks https://codex.wordpress.org/Plugin_API/Hooks. They provide a way for functions to modify data of other functions. They are the counterpart to Actions. Unlike Actions, filters are meant to work in an isolated manner, and should never have side effects such as affecting global variables and output. tags to be added, removed, or modified; but we don’t make the final call on them. We have no control over the each Theme’s page in the directory, the ratings/review system, the algorithms for trending Theme lists, or pretty much anything other than actually marking Themes as “live” in the directory, after completing a review. There are many ways that these things could be improved, but we are dependent on other people who have much higher priorities in the grand scheme of the WordPress project and website.

I would love to have the ability to host Theme frameworks (in the classic, non-marketing sense of the term: a drop-in code library that facilitates Theme development) in the directory, it would greatly simplify review for Themes that use frameworks such as Hybrid Core and the like; but we currently have no infrastructure to do so. I would love to have the Theme’s directory listing page parse the Theme’s readme file the same way that a PluginPlugin A plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party’s listing page parses its readme; but that’s something else that isn’t possible at the moment.

I would love to explore the idea of having multiple Theme directories, or some sort of “tier” system; but we just don’t have that infrastructure. And that’s one of the primary reasons that we have what appears to be a “one size fits all” approach and mechanism for Theme submission, review, and approval – but that doesn’t mean that we can’t or won’t accept submissions for Themes that don’t fall strictly within the “blogging” genre. If you have an idea or question, mail the Theme Reviewers mail-list and ask. It can’t hurt anything, and you very well may be surprised by the response.

#discussion, #guidelines

nofearinc 4:25 pm on November 18, 2013

I’ve already expressed my thoughts last week, and I’m happy for getting this discussion in the public.

I agree with most of your thoughts here. The only thing I’d like to outline is that: 1) the limitations of the existing infrastructure shouldn’t stop us from proposing new features that would bring value to the Directory, if we all agree on this, and 2) we could express these thoughts of yours (such as “All we ask is that developers email the mail-list and ask for an exemption, along with explaining the justification”) in a more public manner.

Otto is mostly in charge of https://meta.trac.wordpress.org/ and I believe that we could propose some changes (and texts, which is easy) to improve the process with time. That’s valuable only if we are on the same page when it comes to the state of themes and it makes sense to build a roadmap that slowly gets into the infrastructure.
tskk 4:30 pm on November 18, 2013

We need new tags, frameworks can be added under a new tag, KB themes can be added under a new tag etc…

Getting new tags should be doable and first step.
- StyledThemes 5:08 pm on November 18, 2013
  
  That would be great. Actually the tags need an overhaul…I already know of one that should be added: responsive
- StyledThemes 5:21 pm on November 18, 2013
  
  You pretty much got to the point of some changes would be great but as you mentioned as one idea:
  
  “I would love to explore the idea of having multiple Theme directories, or some sort of “tier” system; but we just don’t have that infrastructure.”
  
  That would be a great one actually; one for the current basic themes, then another for the more professional designed themes (free of course). It would be nice to also have the theme pages like the Plugins have for layout and information. I’d even like to see that Preview system abolished as it does not do justice for themes…make it a link to a live demo site instead. There’s a lot of ideas that can be presented but as you said, the infrastructure is not there…perhaps this is something that should be looked into at some point and have a scalable solution in place.
  
  Anyway, as for the Blog or cms topic, I never really noticed that there was focus more on blog themes (or the appearance of) and never gave it much thought. I know for my themes I make them for both uses. I’ve had some people as me if my themes can be used without the blog and the answer is definitely yes. I am seeing a growing number of people looking to the cms theme solution, but it’s still important to maintain a blogging capability within themes should one decide to use it.
  - StyledThemes 5:22 pm on November 18, 2013
    
    sorry…not sure why or how this reply got posted here, it was meant for Chip’s first opening post.
Zulfikar Nore 4:34 pm on November 18, 2013

Agreed +1

I’ve hated each time I’ve had to ask an author to reconfigure their theme so that it handles the “Blog” as intended. Personally I see nothing wrong with a theme having a custom front page with the blog handled on another internal page.

Not only will this move simplify the review process but it will also facilitate the ability for authors to submit custom (non bloggy <- if that's even a word!) themes. I would totally welcome the chance to do so myself 🙂

And since we have from having the TUT being a required element of the theme approval process, dealing with CMS type themes shouldn't too tasking on the team as whole.
- Zulfikar Nore 4:36 pm on November 18, 2013
  
  EDIT: And since we have “moved” from having the TUT being a required element of the theme approval process, dealing with CMS type themes shouldn’t too tasking on the team as whole.
  - Chip Bennett 4:37 pm on November 18, 2013
    
    We already can deal with “CMS” Themes. But if the only defining difference for a “CMS” Theme is that it omits support for the blog, that’s not a reasonable enough difference to warrant an exception.
    - nofearinc 4:44 pm on November 18, 2013
      
      IMO it’s not really the “omits support for the blog”, but rather focusing on other, business-theme related details, and not covering some details from TUT. The “Recommended” status of the TUT would facilitate that process, especially if there is a major shout-out to theme developers for the new decision and the willingness of the TRT to help CMS theme authors without being too picky and restrictive (just as is with UIUI UI is an acronym for User Interface - the layout of the page the user interacts with. Think ‘how are they doing that’ and less about what they are doing. comments for reviewers that are subjective).
- Chip Bennett 4:37 pm on November 18, 2013
  
  But that’s kind of the point: there’s no change happening here. I’m mostly just trying to dis spell some misconceptions.
Subharanjan 4:50 pm on November 18, 2013

“”” We have no control over the each Theme’s page in the directory, the ratings/review system, the algorithms for trending Theme lists, or pretty much anything other than actually marking Themes as “live” in the directory, after completing a review. “””
— Can we have some rules for themes of different kinds to be accepted after approved by 5 reviewers.
— If approved, it should be allowed to use custom theme unit test data to better match its functionality and design.
- Chip Bennett 5:04 pm on November 18, 2013
  
  I don’t understand the need for 5 reviewers?
  
  Also: The Theme Unit Test data are what they are, and they are used only so far as they serve their purpose. There really isn’t a need to “specialized” Theme Unit Test data for custom Themes. Are you referring to the Theme Previewer, by chance? That’s something else we don’t have control over.