Meetup november

What to look for a quality theme to have:

0) Super Duper Sexy
1) Support (if your into that sort of thing)
2) Future compatability / updates
3) Community of existing users
4) Child theme capable (e.g. you can actually activate a child theme without errors
5) Compatability with latest version of WordPress
6) Correct Licenses – is it GPL? Why should you care?
7) Browser Compliant – does it support modern browsers
8) W3C compliant code
9) Has Options where needed, nothing “hard-coded”
A) Follows WordPress theme conventions (or not if that’s what you are into) B) Is easy to understand “the code” and is well documented
C) Supports Nav Menus vs wp_list_pages, has widgetized area uses featured images
D) Download link is from WordPress Repository (sometimes a good idea for free themes especially)
E) Compatable with the plugins that you *plan* to use
F) minimal (or zero) css on the fly – (think style.php)

What to avoid for sure

0) anything that uses base 64 encoded code at all (often but not only found in warez premium themes or repackaged themes where someone is ripping another persons work and labeling or reselling it)
1) too many javascript and or stylesheet files
2) too many theme options to understand / trying to do way too much
3) Themes that introduce advanced functionality without making it scalable into other themes (theme vs plugin functionality… e.g. shopping carts, contact forms etc)
4) Anything that appears in this page (possibly more) [show google screenshot now]
5) Heavy plug in dependancy, should fail gracefully and use if ( function_exists( !
6) NO ABSOLUTE URL’S EVER TO THEME CONTENT (think /assets 3.3)
7) Themes that have non translatable text (if your into that)
8) Themes that I think really suck: autuaohuapa (or whatever)
9) non mobile friendly (perhaps)
A) themes that don’t make it very far past http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/tac/ and http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/exploit-scanner/
B) inline styles in elements or in the head
C) css and javascript files that are not enqueued properly
D) is provided as part of a hosting providers “custom” WordPress stack (think Dreamhost)
E) creates database tables (at all mu)
F) contains suspicious scripting anywhere that connects to third party servers, IP addresses, etc.