Justin Tadlock 7:03 pm on May 27, 2015

Front page demo content

It has recently come to my attention that several themes are adding full front-page demo content to show off their themes in the theme previewer. Basically, this is not cool.

No, there’s no specific guideline in the handbook against it. I really don’t think there needs to be one. This falls under the universal don’t try to game the system guideline.

What I’m seeing in several cases are theme authors outputting things so that their themes have an unfair advantage over other themes when previewed via the 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/ theme previewer. We take gaming-the-system issues pretty seriously around here.

Update: I wanted to clarify that I’m not calling all devs who do this cheaters. I’m sure many are good people trying to do good things. As admins of the TRT, we have to take a stern look at things sometimes and view things at their possible worst.

Update #2: Deleting/Rewriting the examples section because I’ve had a few theme authors ask for clarification. What specifically prompted this post are themes that are overwriting the front page with a demo HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. file, with things like a fake contact form, one that’s not even packaged with the theme. This doesn’t refer to themes that are outputting sane defaults for theme options that have not been configured.

Essentially, a lot of this really comes down to themes not respecting the users “Settings > Reading” settings. By default, sites are going to show the blog posts index on the front page. This should be what is shown. It’s what is shown in the WordPress.org theme previewer. I highly recommend reading this tutorial.

Reviewers

We have to catch this sort of thing. It’s next to impossible to miss when you install/activate a theme, which all reviewers should be doing.

The WordPress.org preview doesn’t show off my theme

We’re all aware of the issues. Believe me. I’m right there with you. I just ask for patience, discussion/participation about making the previewer better, and the use of sane defaults.

Here’s the meta ticket if you want to get involved with better demo content.

Chip Bennett 7:23 pm on May 27, 2015

We really need to think about auto-output “demo” content (Lorem Ipsum, Theme promotion, etc.) in general. What is the user experience when the user installs a Theme initially, and the user’s site becomes “lorem ipsum”, or worse: a Theme promotion?
ThinkUpThemes 9:00 pm on May 27, 2015

Hi guys.

I’m really unclear here. Many devs add some form of demo content which is useful to the user. Often saying things like “you can find me in…”, “turn me on / of from here…”. This is useful, and the user can disable it in seconds. I’m struggling to see how this can be viewed as deceitful and gaming the system.

Where a theme only shows demo content that is shown in the screenshot, that seems very honest to me, not an attempt at seeking an unfair advantage.

Just wanting clarification on this point.

I do agree however, that theme previews where there are masses of content, row after row, not indicated at all in screenshot can be highly misleading and questionably lead to an unfair advantage. Although with a quick scan through the most popular list (to approx 20), it looks like around 50% have some form of demo content. If demo content is considered to significantly provide the theme with an unfair advantage then would one not expect to see a higher proportion of popular themes with the form of demo content you bring into question?

Finally, if we’re claiming that those who use demo content are are gaming the system then this is essentially calling these devs cheaters (the lowest of the low). As such I’m sure you guys have a ton of evidence backing up this claim. Please do share this.

By the way I’m not looking to have each of my above comments blasted, I’m just keen to understand this better.

Thanks!
- Justin Tadlock 9:41 pm on May 27, 2015
  
  Whether it’s done intentionally or unintentionally, the admins have to view this as a form of trying to game the system. It’s something that we’ve always had to deal with in one form or another. It’s just part of the job description. We have to deal with these things swiftly and, sometimes, severely.
  
  I’m sure any one of us will be more than happy look at something you have in mind if you think one of your themes might fall under this. This also doesn’t have anything to do with the screenshot. It’s primarily about creating a custom front page (that doesn’t respect Settings > Reading and, thus, not allowed) and putting a lot of demo content in when the theme options haven’t been configured.
  
  We will not be publicly sharing any themes and/or evidence about those themes. We do not “call people out” specifically. We will be dealing with these on a case-by-case basis. This is more or less an announcement that we’ve been made aware and are on the lookout for this sort of thing.
Omaar Osmaan 9:29 pm on May 27, 2015

Thanks to @otto42 to make a blog for creating the new demo-data for previewing Themes on the directory.
Here’s the URLURL A specific web address of a website or web page on the Internet, such as a website’s URL www.wordpress.org to take a peek and suggest what it could be: http://ottodestruct.com/democontent/

I would really love to see a nice data set that can help to understand a lot of time how the theme can look and function before downloading the theme.

And as a developer, I’m tempting to make my theme-demo looks good, too.
wpHoot 5:52 am on May 28, 2015

Hi Justin,
Thanks for bringing this to notice.

I dont have it in my themes yet, but I was thinking of adding something like this in the future.
Honestly, in my head this was to have a better user experience, rather than the whole preview thing..

Let me be specific using an example.
1. If a user has “Your Latest Posts” selected:
a) Have a slider saying something like “you can find me in…”, “turn me on / of from here…”
b) Below this is the post list like one would expect
2. If the user has a static page for front page, then that page is displayed without the demo content.

I am assuming that even something like the slider in 2(a) above would have to go away… Correct?

Thanks in advance.
cheers.
Jasin
Sami Keijonen 6:59 am on May 28, 2015
It’s no secret that some themes are doing pretty well if they stay high in popular themes list. Before it was features list also. I assume there are several reasons how can you stay up in popular themes list.
- They are great themes
- Good marketing and timing
- Update often, more often than necessary. Same happened in plugins repo before
- Mess with front-page.php, home.php or index.php template to get much much better theme preview in .org. This can involve sane or insane default also
I’ve been also experimenting how to get better theme preview in .org.
- Set default 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. image.
- Set default background, at least for color.
- Set default WidgetWidget A WordPress Widget is a small block that performs a specific function. You can add these widgets in sidebars also known as widget-ready areas on your web page. WordPress widgets were originally created to provide a simple and easy-to-use way of giving design and structure control of the WordPress theme to the user. in sidebarSidebar A sidebar in WordPress is referred to a widget-ready area used by WordPress themes to display information that is not a part of the main content. It is not always a vertical column on the side. It can be a horizontal rectangle below or above the content area, footer, header, or any where in the theme. if there is one. I decided to set default CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. widgets for Subsidiary (Footer) Sidebar.
- Main menu should display pages as fallback. I personally don’t like this because user might not want to use main menu. And even user leaves the menu empty there would still be HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. markup in the front-end.
I was really close to mess with front-page.php but it was bending default behaviour of WordPress in the wrong way: users can’t show latest post in front page unless you add additional setting in the 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.. At least that was the case in my experiment.

I have written more about my experiment in my blog.

Anyways I’m glad that discussion about gaming the system is open.
Jami Gibbs 11:42 am on May 28, 2015

Having better demo content is a good start but this doesn’t solve the larger issue. Post demo content is really only valuable for blogging themes that are displaying posts on the home page in this way. If a theme’s home page doesn’t use posts on the home page like this (common for niche themes), then we’re back at square one.

I’ve struggled with this issue too and came to the same conclusion as Sami in that I don’t want to add a bunch of extra demo content or conditionals into my theme just so the home page template displays as intended. So I just removed it all completely. The reward for not gaming the system is having an abysmal demo on .org.

I really only see two avenues here:

a) Change the demo link to the author’s own demo page (not the .org install).
b) Allow the author to use their own demo content on the .org preview.
- Jami Gibbs 11:58 am on May 28, 2015
  
  A few more thoughts:
  
  c) Add both a repo demo link and an author demo link
  d) Add a theme setup instructions tab (similar to plugins). This way users will know to assign the home template page in the Reading setting or however the author recommends setting up the theme.
  - acosmin 12:12 pm on May 28, 2015
    
    +1 for options a and c
- Samuel Wood (Otto) 2:12 pm on May 28, 2015
  
  If a theme’s home page doesn’t use posts on the home page like this
  
  If I have the Settings->Reading “Front page displays” set to “Your latest posts” and the theme fails to do that, then the theme is broken and should not have been approved to be in the directory in the first place.
  - Jami Gibbs 5:39 pm on May 28, 2015
    
    Apologies if I wasn’t entirely clear. I am talking about themes that respect “Settings > Reading” settings but the author intends for the theme to display a custom home page template. There’s no way for an author to apply that custom home page template right now.
    
    It does the theme designer a disservice and misrepresents the theme when demos are forced to display the default blog post listing. It doesn’t represent the theme.
    - Chip Bennett 5:51 pm on May 28, 2015
      
      Bear in mind that we’re talking about the Theme previewer hosted on wp.org. There are obvious security concerns with allowing arbitrary content, even if there were an elegant way for Themes to indicate that they should display a static front pageStatic Front Page A WordPress website can have a dynamic blog-like front page, or a “static front page” which is used to show customized content. Typically this is the first page you see when you visit a site url, like wordpress.org for example. by default. These aren’t questions and issues that can be resolved by the TRT alone.
      
      If the wp.org previewer isn’t sufficient to show off a Theme’s potential (and everyone would agree that it isn’t, especially in its current state), developers always have the option to host their own Theme demos. I would even be supportive of adding some 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. (such as a “Demo URI” keyword?) that would allow developers to point users to an external demo.
      
      But adding into the Theme code that bypass coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. settings, and that display static HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. that isn’t even being generated by the Theme, and many other things that we’ve encountered that try to do some kind of workaround, is not a viable solution. It’s not just the wp.org previewer we’re concerned about; it is also the behavior of the Theme in its default state as installed on end users’ sites.
      - Jami Gibbs 6:31 pm on May 28, 2015
        
        I agree that displaying static HMTL is gross and not the solution. That’s not even something I’m talking about or suggesting.
        
        I just want a proper demo for my home page template. I’m not talking about overriding default WP behavior. I’m talking about a custom home page template that’s assigned to a page and set in the Reading settings.
        
        I don’t want to force the theme to apply this page. I’m not setting up a bunch of static HTMLHTML HTML is an acronym for Hyper Text Markup Language. It is a markup language that is used in the development of web pages and websites. and conditional nonsense.
        
        Potential users of my themes should see the home page template in the demo. This template is applied manually. It’s not overriding or bypassing anything.
        
        In the current state, the author demo link isn’t very obvious and sometimes not easy to navigate to. You’d have to click the “Theme Homepage” link (below the prominent “Preview” button which is where users will go by default) and navigate your way around the author’s theme description page for the demo link (which will be setup differently from author to author).
        
        Allowing an author demo link (not just a theme description / homepage link) would be a good compromise. Something like a “Default Theme Demo” and “Author Theme Demo”. It should be clear to the user what they’re looking at.
- Omaar Osmaan 12:02 am on May 29, 2015
  
  Totally agree with “Author Theme Demo” idea- it could be a great edition to previewing theme before downloading a theme.
codeinwp 11:48 am on May 28, 2015

Hey Justin,

While I appreciate that you are opening this for discussion, I don’t appreciate your attitude and way for looking at this.

As @thinkupthemes is saying 50% of the most popular themes is doing it, have tried to ask yourself why ? Just because they like to game the system ? Do you really believe this ?

I personally did that not to game the system, to get downloads, money or fame, but because the option that you are suggestion is useless and just waste people time, and I will explain why ( I already did that in the Responsive 2 ticket few month ago as well ) :

User x sees Zerif image, he loves it and he wanna use the theme, based on your logic, they will be forced to see a useless preview, to install the theme and see again a useless preview and to go in forums/documentation and learn how to create a new page and set as front-page.

Based on my logic and other authors, we deliver to users the experience that they expect/want/need/seen, without wasted time and extra steps, with the tools that we have ( using latest news section for latest news + other content ).

I was looking on 100s of Zerif theme users and NOBODY is using the blog as homepage, nobody want this, why force them to do it ?

Why instead of enforcing a bad experience/rule we can’t come with a solution ? Just because is harder and we don’t really care ? or pandora boxes and mystical stuff ? 🙂

Allow the authors to change the reading settings automatically on the theme basic and everything will be fine, also what cyberchimps/ @grapplerulrich did here : https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/20991 was awesome, but you, @frank, @emiluzelac disagreed .

Ionut
- Carolina Nymark 12:47 pm on May 28, 2015
  
  I wanted to say +1 for allowing the authors to change the reading settings automatically on theme basis, but now I’m torn. -If we do that we remove the blogging element and could just as well allow themes without comments too.
  - Chip Bennett 1:31 pm on May 28, 2015
    
    This is actually a coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. issue, and there is an open/active ticket to discuss it:
    
    https://core.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/19627
    
    This is one of those cases where Themes need to follow core’s lead. When/if core implements the functionality, then we’ll certainly allow/encourage Themes to use it.
    - Carolina Nymark 1:38 pm on May 28, 2015
      
      I thought it might be. Another ticket for the list.
codeinwp 3:41 pm on May 28, 2015

It is a coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. issue, but that doesn’t mean we just need to pass the problem to somebody else, I think we as a team need to care and do whatever we can for the best user experience with the tools that we have, there are solutions even if the core team add this or not.
- Chip Bennett 3:43 pm on May 28, 2015
  
  If you care about a solution, then get involved with the coreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. ticket. That is the path forward to enabling Themes to auto-select a static front pageStatic Front Page A WordPress website can have a dynamic blog-like front page, or a “static front page” which is used to show customized content. Typically this is the first page you see when you visit a site url, like wordpress.org for example.. We will not do anything contrary to what core does.
Carolina Nymark 3:44 pm on May 28, 2015

That is why we are having a ticket meeting tonight. Lets not sit and wait for others if we can contribute.
codeinwp 5:43 pm on May 28, 2015

Sure, as you see in the ticket, Hardeep which is part of our team, asked some updates few months ago and I got it in discussion here : https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/ticket/20991 and on different channels however people were totally against, so I just stopped trying to do something.
Justin Tadlock 6:12 pm on May 28, 2015

I’ve updated the post to provide some clarity of the issue that we’re specifically dealing with.
Chip Bennett 7:33 pm on May 28, 2015

I wonder if it is worth considering to change the base settings of the wp.org Theme previewer to display a static page, instead of the blog posts index, on the site front page?

The page assigned as the front page can still have default demo content, so it will not look bad for Themes that don’t do anything special with front-page.php. And the blog posts index would still be displayed using the page assigned as the posts page.

That’s probably a question for @otto42?
- Samuel Wood (Otto) 7:38 pm on May 28, 2015
  
  Actually, I was thinking about making it show the 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. screen, with some special handlers to eliminate things like file uploaders and the like.
  - Chip Bennett 7:40 pm on May 28, 2015
    
    Even more elegant! That would let users test-drive all of the Theme settings, as well as front-page, etc.
    - Samuel Wood (Otto) 7:50 pm on May 28, 2015
      
      That was my thinking. Still looking for a clean way to not show uploaders and such, but any uploads would fail anyway so it’s not a very big deal.
      
      Current plan:
      
      1. Get better preview data (in progress)
      2. Figure out how to show the 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. properly and eliminate weirdness (in progress)
      3. Lock the previewer database down to read-only mode. No modifications by anything, including themes. (todo)
      
      Note that number 3 means that theme defaults become a very big deal, as you well understand. Might be worth coming up with a test protocol for that, BTW. So that we can sort out problem themes before it becomes an actual problem. I can dig up the necessary MySQLMySQL MySQL is a relational database management system. A database is a structured collection of data where content, configuration and other options are stored. https://www.mysql.com/. commands to make you a read-only user to work on a test site, if needed.
      - Chip Bennett 7:54 pm on May 28, 2015
        
        Once #1 is taken care of (one thing at a time), perhaps you could set up a test server for theme previews? Then we can use it to hash out some of the expected (and unexpected) issues?
      - Samuel Wood (Otto) 8:24 pm on May 28, 2015
        
        If you want to try out a read-only user on your test setup, BTW, here’s the MySQLMySQL MySQL is a relational database management system. A database is a structured collection of data where content, configuration and other options are stored. https://www.mysql.com/. commands to make one:
        
        create user 'USERNAME'@'localhost' identified by 'PASSWORD'; grant select on DB_NAME.* to 'USERNAME'@'localhost'; flush privileges;
        
        Then just change the wp-config.php to use that new username and password. It will only have permissions to run “select” statements. Note that the admin area gets, well, a bit weird when you do this, but the front end seems to run okay for the most part.
      - Omaar Osmaan 12:17 am on May 29, 2015
        
        Ah- that’s a great route! ‘Read-only’ mode and allowing to ‘Play with settings’-
      - Omaar Osmaan 12:40 am on May 29, 2015
        
        You may know it probably,
        
        (1) Setting up a ‘WP user’ with ‘manage_options’, and ‘theme_mod” permission
        
        (2) Disregard/redirect any ‘Ajax’ calling
        
        allows the user to access the customize panel without any issue.
        
        The (2)nd step may be unnecessary when the DB sets to read-only mode.
        
        I’ve tested a setup where a ‘Customize’ button loads the customize panel and auto-sign-in the visitor to a ‘demo user’ mode, where the visitor able to test-drive customize options but not able to upload/save any of the settings.
tskk 1:13 am on June 3, 2015

Are theme authors allowed to have other sections around the section/area which respects “Settings > Reading” setting?
Abby 4:57 pm on April 20, 2016
My 2 cents on this – even though this seems to be an old post by now.

What if you coded a front-page.php file that respected the reading settings AND allowed for “demo” content? It’s quite simple – use get_option(‘show_on_front’) to check if a static page is being displayed – and then show the front page layout. Else show the posts. IF the demo is turned on (a simple checkbox from Appearance > Customize that can be toggled on or off), then show the demo content.

Demo content is important for many reasons:
- The user gets to know the true capability of the theme. No one has the time to install, fiddle with, and then decide if the theme is good for them or not.
- The theme home page link is not something all users are either aware of or would think of clicking to check the ACTUAL demo if they are put off entirely by the WordPress preview/demo.
- Sometimes the styling and content, images etc. used in demo content can give the users ideas on how to format their own content. Most users are not developers and designers and so they need extra help on getting this set up.
We also have to respect the theme design. Not all themes can be the same. A theme may want to show a small slider on top of the latest blog posts (even if the main page is set to show latest posts). We won’t have any variety and the users will ultimately not have much options if we restrict “design” options so severely.

I don’t think anyone tries to “game” the system. I think providing a better user experience as well as showcasing the themes completely capabilities is mostly the main objective.

Welcome to the Themes team!

Handbooks and review requirements

Coding standards and plugins

Code Packages

Communication

Front page demo content

Reviewers

The WordPress.org preview doesn’t show off my theme

Welcome to the Themes team!

Handbooks and review requirements

Coding standards and plugins

Code Packages

Communication

Reviewers

The WordPress.org preview doesn’t show off my theme

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