Meeting Summary 2016-08-30

Welcome to the Themes team!

We are a group of volunteers who review and approve themes submitted to be included in the official WordPress Theme directory.

We do license, security, and code quality reviews.

We help build and maintain default themes.

The primary focus of the team is to help theme authors transition to blockBlock Block is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.-based themes.

If this sounds interesting, read more about the team here. Check out our guide for new reviewers and the frequently asked questions.

Handbooks and review requirements

The team maintains the official Theme Review Requirements, the Theme Unit Test Data, and helps the documentation team with the Theme Developer Handbook.

Coding standards and plugins

We maintain the WPThemeReview Standard for PHP_CodeSniffer, the Theme Sniffer plugin and Theme Check

Code Packages

We have code packages for themes available for use on Github and Packagist

Communication

Meet us in the #themereview SlackSlack Slack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/. channel.

Meetings:

Twice monthly at Tuesday @ 15:00 UTC.

#themereview

Items discussed

Slack link to meeting [Slack account needed]

CoreCore Core is the set of software required to run WordPress. The Core Development Team builds WordPress. ticket #37335
- currently using JS ( recommend against )
- document better examples using core APIAPI An API or Application Programming Interface is a software intermediary that allows programs to interact with each other and share data in limited, clearly defined ways.
Monthly Review Shindigs/Hootenannies
- We are going to attempt having theme review sessions once a month. This coming weekend September 3 will be the first.
Theme Developer Handbook

Thanks to those who attended and participated.

Shaped Pixels 10:28 pm on September 1, 2016

I wasn’t able to join in on the meeting yesterday and only read part of the results in reference to 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. and theme upsell links being added, as some themes have the buttons added. In mine, I have 1 button for a pro version, then a few more (1 for theme support at .org, 1 for reviews at .org, and 1 for theme documentation).

If I understand correctly, this method of adding buttons to the top of the customizer is currently being discussed as to whether it will be allowed or if an alternate method can be added by the theme author either as buttons or links or not allowed at all? I have 3 themes in the queue for the last 5 months and awaiting review, so my question is, can I still leave the buttons in there until a final decision is made on this subject?

I’ve set mine up with multiple buttons for the benefit of the end-user. Aside from the upsell button, the others for a user review, but most importantly, the one for theme documentation is very important. As it stands right now, text files like Changelog and the Readme files are in with the rest of the theme files, but most if not all users are not aware these exist or do not know how to access them. So having a visible button(s) helps by giving easy access to setup tutorials and other theme documentation….something to consider when the team is deciding on how to standardize it.
- Ulrich 5:47 am on September 2, 2016
  
  We have previously decided on restrictions on upselling and extra links https://make.wordpress.org/themes/2016/05/03/may-3rd-meeting-notes/
  
  The current discussion is how to go about providing a standard solution for this.
Shaped Pixels 10:29 pm on September 1, 2016

By the way… this September 3rd theme review day event….is this in reference to the Admin queue or New theme queue?
- Ulrich 5:47 am on September 2, 2016
  
  It is for both queues.
Carolina Nymark 12:32 pm on September 2, 2016

A side note – you are allowed a full page in the admin. This page can be used for documentation.