Comments on: If you were a WordPress theme developer: Plugin support

By: Justin Tadlock

Justin Tadlock — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:25:14 +0000

EmmaB
That’s definitely something all theme authors should consider. I typically support two or three of them.

Wayne Luke
I say forget the plugin — build the breadcrumbs right into the theme.

By: Wayne Luke

Wayne Luke — Fri, 07 Nov 2008 15:10:46 +0000

I may be old fashioned but I still like a good breadcrumb navigation at the top. Category lists and tags are nice but a breadcrumb is like street signs and should really be included in all sites so you can easily get back to a category without relying on the browser’s back button.

There are several plugins that build breadcrumbs and they are fairly similar so it would be the designers choice.

Also if you include plugin support in your theme include the actual plugins or at least URLs to find them so that people do not have to hunt for them. Creating a plugin directory and having the code in that directory with installation instructions is probably easiest.

By: EmmaB

EmmaB — Sat, 18 Oct 2008 10:26:49 +0000

I would love to see support for a related entries plugin. I always have difficulty getting Wasabis to work but R. Marshs plugin is divine.

By: If you were a WordPress theme developer: Feature

If you were a WordPress theme developer: Feature — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 05:50:07 +0000

[...] Plugin support [...]

By: Justin Tadlock

Justin Tadlock — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:53:28 +0000

John James Jacoby I definitely agree that breadcrumbs are sorely needed. I've been actually building them into my themes though instead of using a plugin. It's definitely something that should be considered. For anyone that's interested, the plugin John's referring to is Breadcrumb NavXT.

By: John James Jacoby

John James Jacoby — Tue, 14 Oct 2008 20:17:42 +0000

I get what you’re saying, and it makes sense. In my opinion the only thing that Wordpress doesn’t inherently offer that could use a good solid place on every page is a breadcrumb.

I really like Breadcrumb NavXT. Seems to do everything the way a good breadcrumb should.

By: Justin Tadlock

Justin Tadlock — Mon, 13 Oct 2008 22:40:50 +0000

Tim
Keeping code within themes minimal is becoming harder and harder if one wants to keep with the theme market (free or paid). This is usually because users are asking for more and more.

If theme developers make use of the appropriate hooks and filters along with functions.php, it should make things easier and cleaner. Some new theme developers aren’t that advanced though, and things sometimes get messy. Of course, I consider myself a plugin developer trapped within a theme developer’s mind.

Using appropriate template tags and WordPress hooks should be paramount though to make sure plugins play nicely with themes.

Thanks for the insight from a plugin developer’s viewpoint, Tim.

By: Tim Nash

Tim Nash — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 21:10:04 +0000

As a plugin author I tend to find the biggest problems come from compatibility issues with other plugins and the new generation of “premium themes” where the authors are in many ways blurring the line between a theme and a plugin, I would rather see themes supporting widgets and then keep their code minimal enough that users can easily modify the template as per the plugin developers instructions.

If we can get back to a theme being a presentational piece, even if this means themes coming with companion plugin, then it will be easier for plugin developers to write generic functions and instructions to allow any plugin to be used within a theme.

By: Justin Tadlock

Justin Tadlock — Sun, 12 Oct 2008 03:41:47 +0000

suchtreasures
I like the idea of adding a print stylesheet as opposed to supporting the plugin. Stylesheets are something that should be theme-controlled anyway.

A couple of my themes have a print stylesheet built in, but all of them will have one in future updates.

By:

Sat, 11 Oct 2008 21:42:49 +0000

I'd like to see theme support for WP-Print, although the work-around for this is create a print style sheet, which I've been meaning to do for the themes of yours I'm using. However, to have the plugin built in would be really cool.