Theme Repository, EyeTracking And Free Themes

Despite the Tavern forum being located on the same domain as the site as well as looking the same, the forum seems to be a different world when compared to the site. For instance, there are quite a few people in the forum who are active but don’t comment on the blog and vice versa. I think the major reason for this difference is that the forum provides an avenue for YOU to start discussions while almost everything on the blog is initiated by me. At any rate, here is what is happening around the forum.

Standard Theme Hook Names – As mentioned in a previous article, Dan Cole is trying to figure out if Standardizing the names of theme hooks would be a good idea. If so, what would those names be?

WordPress theme Repository – This has turned into two threads in one. Ryan Hellyer asks that because WordPress 2.8 will have a built in theme installer if that will lead to higher quality themes in the repository. Further into the conversation, we find out thanks to Otto what information is sent to api.wordpress.org when as it relates to checking for updates to an installed theme. I remember when WordPress 2.3 was released which first provided plugin/core update notifications and people started getting worried because they didn’t know how much or what data was being sent back to WordPress.

Eyetracking Provides Inside Look – Eyetrack 3 was released and the official website conducted an interesting survey of 46 people with the top major news sites on the web to figure out homepage layout effectiveness, the effect blurbs have on the homepage compared to headlines., when is multimedia appropriate, and a bunch of other useful data.

Free Themes – Chip Bennett asks if there would be any interest in packaging up his theme and putting it on the repository. The overall conclusion is that the more themes the better. For example, Chip may have accomplished something in his theme that someone else wants to do but can’t because they don’t have access to the code.

Abandoned Themes – Our resident WPMU guru Andrea seems to have a little project on her hands involving abandoned themes on the WordPress Theme Repository.

Giving Credit Where Credit Is Due – After reading into Andrea’s project, I thought about how cool it would be to take a few outdated themes on the repository and revamp them to make them compatible with the latest version of WordPress. But, how would I give credit to the original authors of the theme? Thanks to some great people in the community, I’m on my way to finding out.

Join In The Fun

As of this post being published, there are 468 threads, 3,818 posts, 213 members, and 102 active members. Awesome stats and we just keep trucking along. I want to thank those who routinely stop by the forums to share their knowledge or opinions on various subjects. Without you, the forum would simply grind away. If you’re not a member, signup and get involved in the conversations.