WordPress.org

1. Konstantin Kovshenin
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Howdy friends!

   I was recently experimenting with WordPress page templates and realized that it might be quite difficult for beginners to understand what they are and how they work, which is why I suggest a more user friendly approach at displaying the page template picker in the edit page screen. The full post with a visual mockup could be found here: http://kovshenin.com/archives/a-thought-on-wordpress-page-templates/

   I'd love to hear your thoughts, comments and suggestions. I can come up with an implementation patch too if necessary.

   Cheers,
   ~ K

2. RDall
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   I think this would be a great idea Kovshenin.

   I like the image idea, I think it would be a good addition to the templates.

3. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 1 year ago #

   And what happens if there is no page template image?

4. Konstantin Kovshenin
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Esmi, good question, but those are details, it could be anything from displaying the standard dropdown all alone to serving a standard "no image" image ;)

5. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 1 year ago #

   I ask because theme developers now have an awful lot of extra work to do as it is - what with all of the new post formats to consider. Asking them now create layout thumb images for all of their custom page templates could be construed as adding insult to injury.

   Also, layout thumbs don't address the most common reasons for custom page template - changes in content not layout.

6. Konstantin Kovshenin
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Esmi, you're probably right about the overhead to theme developers, but hey, but they always have the option to bail, and they always did -- dynamic sidebar, custom post types, navigation menus, post thumbnails and featured images and now post formats.

   It's not a mandatory thing, just like commenting your code is not, and a big bunch of theme developers (incl. ones in the wp.org directory) tend to forget that their code might be read by others. If I had to vote for what's next in the theme review guidelines, I'd vote for mandatory code commenting and coding standards ;)

   With that bing said, the overhead is there, but could be avoided (by the developers) or minimized (by WordPress), and the bottom line is that the end-user will be happier to use an easier-to-understand interface, and that's the part that not only WordPress and Automattic should worry about, but the community in general! We're not doing this for ourselves, are we? ;)

   Cheers, and thank you for your comment!

7. paperlate
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Oh yes please to coding standards!!! I've lost count of the number of theme developers I've wanted to slap into next week :(

8. esmi
   Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
   Posted 1 year ago #

   There are already coding standards in place: http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Review

   So it really depends upon where you download your themes from. :-)

9. Konstantin Kovshenin
   Member
   Posted 1 year ago #

   Esmi, I might have missed any recent changes to the review guidelines, but last time I checked coding standards (http://codex.wordpress.org/WordPress_Coding_Standards) were not required. But some day, hopefully ...

10. esmi
    Theme Diva & Forum Moderator
    Posted 1 year ago #

    I think we're talking about slightly different things. wordpress.org has it's own, quite strict, set of standards for any themes that want to be added to the Theme Repository.

11. Konstantin Kovshenin
    Member
    Posted 1 year ago #

    Esmi, no, we're on the same page, I've reviewed some themes for .org myself, which is why I'm a little concerned ;) Quite strict, but perhaps not strict enough :-P

    Anyways, this doesn't seem to be the right thread for this discussion, hit me on Skype or Twitter if you wanna chat about it ;)

    Cheers!

12. eriktdesign
    Member
    Posted 1 year ago #

    +1 for this idea -- this would make things much easier to figure out for my clients.

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