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Should I Test Each Theme Before Enabling It?

Hi,

I was just thinking, that all I did after I uploaded the Premium theme package, was enable all the themes. Should I test each theme first, before I enable it?

Thanks,

Tom

Sat, 17 Nov 2007 4:03:12
  • Luke
    • The Crimson Coder

    Yes. Absolutely.

    Make a test blog, make it private (under Options->Privacy) so that it doesn’t ping and doesn’t get listed in various site listings.

    Then, edit that blog through Site Admin -> Blogs, and enable all the new themes for that blog.

    Then, test each one out. That way, in case a theme sucks or breaks, it isn’t on a user site.

    Of course even better is having a local copy of your site, and testing it locally instead.

  • Luke
    • The Crimson Coder

    Yep. Themes will keep you quite busy for quite a while.

    The “good” news is that if you set up your themes right, you won’t have to do it again.

    I’m going back through some 200+ themes and doing just that. It’s taking a while for each theme (edit, test; edit, test:wink: but in the long run it will save a ton of time.

  • drmike
    • DEV MAN’s Mascot

    Oh yes. Another thing to search for in the mu forums is we’ve discussed a couple of times writing up a process list on what you expect out of each theme and what it should look like after you;re done. ie Link in the footer, widget support, custom header image, page templates, etc. Again, something to think about.

  • TomFisher
    • Flash Drive

    drmike,

    The ‘process list’ you mentioned on the wpmu forum, what ‘tags’ should I search for? This would be great!

    Also, what theme do you guys use for your admin blog? Do you keep it available just for your site and not have it site wide?

    Thanks,

    Tom

  • drmike
    • DEV MAN’s Mascot

    Here’s my list. SOme won’t apply to you but it shoudl give you some ideas

    * Remove wp.org link

    * Link back to cynix.us <a href="http://cynix.us/" rel="generator">Get a free blog at cynix.us</a>

    * Modify wp.org meta in header.php and point to cynix.us

    * Remove Blog Archive bit from title

    * Add in wp_head and wp_footer call

    * Custom header image

    * Widget support

    * Make screen cap into 300 x 225 and jpg

    * Comments on Pages <?php comments_template(); ?>

    * Remove source comments

    * Review theme description

    * Page Templates – Catgeories (Alpha and Ordered), Links (Alpha and Ordered), Author’s page, Most read

    * Avatar support

    * redirect css load to plugin @import "<?php get_my_css(); ?>"

    * Check against wp-security

    * Check atom version

    * Support for tags

    I noticed by the way that we’ve gone back to atom 0.3 on trac. Is that correct?

  • TomFisher
    • Flash Drive

    Thanks everyone,

    I got SOOOOO much to learn, and little time. Oh well.

    That list will be helpful, but do not understand it all. Some I do. I can even do some of it.

    I’ll do what I can. Will probably need to hire one of you in a couple of months. I was just trying out this membership. It’s up on Dec 4th. I’ll be back after that, probably Feb, and definately sign up for a year.

    You guys are very knowledgeable and helpful. I’m a bit over my head, but will learn it, or hire out what I can’t do, when money starts coming in from my other site projects.

    I at least found out where I need to be for help. Here!

    Thanks,

    Tom

  • drmike
    • DEV MAN’s Mascot

    At least you’re willing to admit that you need to learn, can learn, and are willing to do so. That’s one of the problems with the mu forums. Seems like most people are under the impression that everything gets handed to them and they’re unwilling to take 2 seconds to look.

    *sigh* Or even read the bloody readme file.