Do we really yet another post asking our opinion about the features a theme should contain? Yes we do; that is why I am writing it. I want to know what is the simplest feature you would like any theme to contain?
I need to clarify this question becuase I am getting at something here.
There have been some great posts in the past that ask what the future of themes is, what the default theme should contain, what the ideal feature set should be, and what the minimum feature set should be. Generally these end up being either pie-in-the-sky or get-basics-right responses; sometimes even both.
That’s not what I want, so let me put it more clearly:
You have just installed a theme (premium or free, doesn’t matter) and you think it is really good. You have no complaints; in fact it does everything you need it to do. But you know what? it would have been so simple to just add x. That would be have been a nice touch.
That’s what I want. What is x?
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Daniel,
After I wrote my comment I started to think it through and I think you are probably right. It can bring some benefits to users provided if it is more than an afterthought.
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@Andrew: Yes, I think sitemaps are still useful for users, not only for google. I do agree with you that a decent standard navigation scheme should cover all available features of a site. But a sitemap can still be useful for users and I would like to provide one as another possibility to find stuff for people who like one.
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Ronald,
Do you think there is still a need for a sitemap page at all? It seems to me that any functionality a non-xml sitemap could have should really be covered in the standard navigation scheme.
Perhaps it could be an index of terms?
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@Ray,
The Mimbo Pro theme I’m using (see my link) does that I believe. And the script used (TimThumb I think) is opensource from ProThemeDesign.com.
@Andrew,
The thing I think a lot of themes lack is a decent sitemap and archive pages. I’d really like to see some innovation there and make the archives a resource rather than a place to dump old posts.
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Ray, I think you have a really good point. One of the issues with themes is that they assume that you will operate in a certain way. That is fine if it is a new blog but if it isn’t it can cause problems.
Perhaps the most important thing then is that themes need to consider what will happen for old content that doesn’t meet the requirement. If there are images attached to the post then it could offer a choice of selecting one of those automatically, or simply defaulting to a thumbnail you select.
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I’m a big fan of the magazine/portfolio style themes, that use big featured images and smaller thumbnails like a cnn would. Only problem is that my current blog never created those size images, so if I want to use that theme I have recreate their image requirement.
I’d love it if a theme took into account a blog may need a quick and easy way (automated way) to work with the featured (big image), and sub featured (medium image), and older news (thumbnail image). I don’t want to create work for myself to use your theme. I just want to activate it and it look amazing. Instantly. That may be asking a lot, but maybe it’s not. Maybe there is just a way to make a plugin to take what you currently have and turn it into what the theme needs.
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I always wonder why WordPress doesn’t already ask you where you want your feed to point to.
It would be so simple to include a basic admin page for a theme to ask where you want your feed to point to.
I guess the same is also true for your tracking code.
I suspect these are almost always changed.