I’ll have to disagree with this a bit about themes not having functions. This is actually how I build almost all of my plugins. I build the functionality into the theme first. Then, I separate that code into a plugin afterward. This way, if a user ever decides to not use my theme, they can simply download the plugin that offers the functionality they’re missing.

If things were done this way, it becomes kind of a win-win for end users. Personally, I just like having all of my stuff packaged within the theme, so that’s how I code it. At the same time, I realize that users might want to change themes, and I don’t want to force them into anything.

I’m not sure why you feel locked into thesis. Any custom WP developer should still be able to pull over the option values to a new theme.

I do get the point in regards to everyday users but not when custom WP is involved.

I have to agree with Cristi, functions belong in plugins and not themes.

We have Thesis now and don’t like at all how our client has to keep using Thesis and lose content.

We are taking open source and freedom and putting it in a prison. And paying for it.

It’s the emperor’s new clothes and real human stupidity.

Well written plugins and clean basic themes please!

The problem with using plugins is that you would probably want to tie them more closely to the theme meaning they wouldn’t simply slot in to other themes. That would cause the same portability issues as any theme.

I suspect that if someone developed a system of plugins that attached to a theme they wouldn’t want every theme author running off with their plugins for their own themes.

As for Thesis, I don’t really know much about it.

Child themes are useful. I’ve built a hand full of child themes for clients based on Thematic just by editing css and in some cases adding small pieces of code in the function.php. It’s fast and easy work if you ask me.

However I do have to agree about the extra functionality in themes. I personally hate it!

If you use the seo features of a theme instead of a plugin (for meta tags, etc) what will it happen with all the information once you change the theme? It will just vanish. Themes should be used for presentation purposes only! Anything that adds extra functionality in terms of extra content should never be used.

For example take the “Easy Peasy Images” code for themes developed by Andrew himself. It’s great. It uses the built in WP gallery so even if you change the theme that uses it, that information isn’t lost, it’s still there in each of the post gallery and you can use it in your future theme if you want to.

This is why I think Thesis is crap. If you use it at it’s full and then decide to change it… well… you’re just going to lose some of your content… But hey! Thesis is future proof isn’t it?

I guess what I really wanted to say is that themes should be use just for presentational purposes and should not add extra content functionality unless that content can be reused by other themes or plugins!

yeah I’ve got the customising the header.php file all cracked. thing is, I’m no genius with php, I’m literally just cracking css and some really basic php stuff so I’ve got a feeling that the functions.php stuff might be a bit out of my league for now (which is why themes like thematic appeal, nice & easy to customise!).

@ian, I’ll check out the forums and see what I can learn. thanks for the pointer.

Oh wait, sounds like you didn’t want to know the how. Sorry.

Anyways, thematic does allow it, you just have to be creative :)

You could do this by using CSS variables and php or using some JQuery within your header.php file. There’s a ton of tuts out there for this particular feature.

If you’re using a framework just hook the same code you’d use in the header into a custom function.

I think, Ian might have to confirm this, that you can override the functions.php from a child theme to add more to it.

It is certainly possible to do anything in functions.php that you can do from a theme file as long as the theme file has some hooks, filters, or widget holes for the place you want to use.

Yep. Check out the ThemeShaper Forums.

really!? then it’s my beyond poor coding knowledge! are you saying you can randomise a header image just using the css or functions.php file?

I’ve been meaning to write about my opinion about child themes for a while now (on my blog): basically, I think they’re over rated and unnecessary for almost all instances that I can think of.

I do agree with you about plugins, it’s a unique idea and I never really thought about building modules out of plugins. Instead I tend to bring in custom functions that are organized within a functions directory (that I individually call from the main functions.php file). @Dane: It’s almost as if I have a plugins directory within my theme and I activate those modules/functions/features within the functions file.

Anyways, maybe the reason I don’t like the idea of child themes is I don’t see any advantage other than not having to build a theme switcher in an options panel–which I’ve already done.

Frameworks are a different story entirely, short answer: KISS. Only the large scale projects where you need one framework to manage multiple sites that each have unique layouts and options would a framework work. Otherwise, just build it as you normally would and stop worrying about hooking into template sections and trying something more complicated than it should be. For example, my “framework” for all client work is basically a stripped done version with little markup and no CSS. The functions file is my framework, where arrays handle my option pages and (as mentioned) pull in other custom functions from a manageable directory.

I don’t want to derail the comments on this post but, gite guru, you could have done all the things you listed without editing the Thematic code, meaning no onerous compare and update job in the future if you wanted to upgrade.

I think Child Themes should be used to extend frameworks from a design point of view. As for customizing a theme, this is over kill and will lead to things like grandchild-themes… Instead, I think Themes should have there own plugin folder. That way customizations can be managed individually and be potentially more universal across different themes.

I’ve been messing around with Thematic quite a bit and have to say it’s a god send when you just need to knock something together quickly. However when developing a site for a client recently, I quickly realised that the premise of the parent / child structure wasn’t going to hold tight for me, as I increasingly found the need to edit the parent code to get the theme to function for me as i needed it (eg random header image, some custom image fields and even some page templates). All of which means that I’m either now stuck with the current theme version, or I have a fairly onerous compare and update job ahead of me sometime in the future.

Interesting point about plugins integration. I was recently trying to integrate the wonderful smoothgallery plugin into a theme but ended up giving it up as a bad job. I read somewhere it was as simple as cut & paste the plugin php into your functions.php file, but what to do with the other files in the plugin… just pop them in the theme folder?

kr,

Gite Guru