WordPress 3.9 Guidelines Revisions Proposal

It’s just about that time again, with the WordPress 3.9 release just around the corner. We’ve taken a few release cycles off from making any major changes to the Guidelines, so now is a good time to take a look at what we can improve. To kick off the discussion, the admins propose the following revisionsRevisions The WordPress revisions system stores a record of each saved draft or published update. The revision system allows you to see what changes were made in each revision by dragging a slider (or using the Next/Previous buttons). The display indicates what has changed in each revision. to the Guidelines:

Required

Sane Defaults: Themes are required to use sane defaults.

Themes must not save default settings to the database without explicit user action, and Themes must function properly out-of-the-box without user configuration (that is: if the user does not save settings, the Theme will still function properly)

Bundled Plugins: Themes must not bundle Plugins.

Themes may incorporate support for Plugins, and may integrate 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 code directly into the Theme (if that Plugin code meets the presentation-vs-functionality requirement), but Themes must not bundle Plugins as a whole.

Arbitrary HeaderHeader The header of your site is typically the first thing people will experience. The masthead or header art located across the top of your page is part of the look and feel of your website. It can influence a visitor’s opinion about your content and you/ your organization’s brand. It may also look different on different screen sizes./Footer Scripts: Themes must not provide Theme options for arbitrary header/footer scripts.

Arbitrary scripts are non-Theme-specific scripts added to the document head or footer to provide non-Theme-specific functionality. Suchscripts are Plugin territory, and pose a significant security risk if not handled properly. Custom CSSCSS CSS is an acronym for cascading style sheets. This is what controls the design or look and feel of a site. is acceptable, if properly sanitized.

Theme Activation: Themes must not implement activation redirects, admin notices, or similar functionality.

Theme Documentation: Themes must place any required documentation in a clearly marked readme file.

Required documentation includes copyright/license attributions, Theme design constraints/limitations, description of non-standard Theme functionality, etc. Plugin-standard readme.txt is preferred, but not required.

License: Themes are required to document in the Theme readme file the copyright/license attribution for all bundled resources.

Themes are required to provide this documentation in the Theme readme file, regardless of where or how those bundled resources provide their own attribution. The purpose is to ensure that end users (and also, reviewers) don’t have to search for this important information, and to ensure that the developer has done due diligence to ensure that licenses for all bundled resources are GPLGPL GPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples.-compatible.

Theme Credit Links: ThemeURI and AuthorURI, if both are used, must be from distinctly separate sites.

Using both ThemeURI and AuthorURI is not required, and if only one is appropriate, then only one should be used. ThemeURI is a resource specific to the Theme. AuthorURI is a resource specific to the developer. For example, a Theme shop really only needs to use examplethemeshop.com OR examplethemeshop.com/themes/theme-slug. There’s really no need for both. Likewise, a non-commercial individual really only needs to use exampleperson.com OR exampleperson.com/blog/post-about-theme-slug. There’s really no reason to use both. But, if an individual has a ThemeURI of github.com/authorname/theme-name, and an AuthorURI of exampleperson.com, that’s totally appropriate.

The intent here is to try to drive the focus of ThemeURI and AuthorURI back to being *end user* resources, first and foremost: information about the Theme, or a way to contact the developer. This clarification will hopefully eliminate some of the issues regarding appropriateness of ThemeURI/AuthorURI.

Recommended

Theme Documentation

Themes are recommended to include a Plugin-standard readme.txt file.

Themes are recommended to meet the WP coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. standard for inline documentation.

Translation

Themes are recommended to be translation-ready.

Social Profile Links

Themes are recommended to use a custom navigation menuNavigation Menu A theme feature introduced with Version 3.0. WordPress includes an easy to use mechanism for giving various control options to get users to click from one place to another on a site. when incorporating social network profile links

Theme Options

Themes are recommended to integrate Theme options into the core Theme CustomizerCustomizer Tool built into WordPress core that hooks into most modern themes. You can use it to preview and modify many of your site’s appearance settings.

Discuss

Please discuss in the comments below.  If you have any additions to propose, please post them in the comments below, as well.

#guidelines