[wp-hackers] Theme framework proposal

[scribu]

On Mon, Mar 30, 2009 at 8:18 PM, Tong Zou <xitongzou at gmail.com> wrote:

> Well my idea is actually two different ideas but related to one another.
> They are both based on the idea of theme frameworks that was discussed on
> the GSoC ideas page. The idea is to have 'theme packages' that tie in a
> theme with a set of related plugins.
> Right now WP only provides installation/activation of one plugin at a time
> and then the theme has to be optimized to take advantage of those plugins.
> I
> propose to have one installer that can install/activate/deactivate one set
> of plugins at a time, in combination with a relevant theme. For example,
> the
> Buddypress package installs a set of plugins that are used with BuddyPress,
> and the layout could be a facebook-type layout. I think this could greatly
> benefit users who need to save time and are not going to mix and match
> different plugins and layouts.


That's a very good ideea, if you take it one step further: Each theme/plugin
could have a set of dependencies. The user should have an option to install
all dependencies automatically. Uses: child themes, child plugins, theme
packages (like you mentioned).


> The second idea is to have a dynamic switchable theme by visitors. Right
> now
> I have a primitive example on my site http://www.blue-kaos.com that
> changes
> the theme every time the page reloads. Eventually I want to have it so that
> vistors can change the theme of the site to customize its properties. If a
> big MU site has lots of different functionality then the user can switch
> between say 'wordpress-social networking mode' and 'wordpress-wiki mode',
> etc. And/or change the template to suit themselves. But this will have to
> be
> done client-side, so I think a bit of AJAX and JS-PHP interaction would
> have
> to be done here.


I don't see much use for that. Sure, a style/layout switcher can be cool for
some sites, but it's plugin-land.

-- 
http://scribu.net