Sun 12 Jul 2009
Theme Options Plugin
Posted by Dan Cole under Plugins[12] Comments
(17 votes, average: 3.35 out of 5)
Loading ...To protect yourself from losing modifications to your theme when you update, you should not make direct changes to your theme or even include new files in that theme folder, if you use automatic update for the later. It’s also impossible for a single site to make changes to their theme inside of a WPMU install. This plugin, called Theme Options, provides a solution to a wide range of problem involved with modifying themes.
Problems this plugin addresses:
- How to allow WPMU sites to make individual changes to a single theme.
- How to prevent WordPress sites from losing theme changes.
- How to manage changes to your current theme, instead of mixing them together.
- How to quickly and efficiently add code the smart and safe way.
- How to make your site more safe in the theme section.
Features of this plugin:
- Management of code in file and database form.
- Backend code editor with code highlighting.
- Activate, copy, create, deactivate, delete, edite, and upload code.
- Turns off code snippets that cause fatal errors.
- Filtering of code snippets by status, author, storage type, and tags.
- Bulk activate, deactivate, and delete.
- Database storage of snippets, which is great for WPMU.
- Hook Converting for code snippets.
- Supports the WordPress in Your Language Standard.
Pre-packed code snippets:
- Favicon
- Comment highlighting
- Custom background & logo header
- Author section in post
- Theme image management
- Element formatting.
- Others upon request or that are submitted.
Who this plugin is designed for:
- Non-technical people who want to add features to their site’s design or functionality.
- People new to PHP & HTML who want to make changes to their theme.
- People who get code from forum helpers and tutorials.
- Developers who make code snippets and tutorials.
- Theme supporters who want to test code before giving it out.
- WordPress MU sites.
This plugin works by taking advantage of WordPress hooks that are located in themes. Using hooks is the recommended way of changes WordPress its self, but also themes. You can checkout a few screenshots of the plugin in the WordPress.org Extend Plugin Repository.
More info and download link:
Theme Options in the WordPress Plugin Repository.
Feedback and Requests:
I’m always looking for feedback in terms of feature requests, bugs, errors, typos, enhancements, default code snippets, or other ways to improve this plugin. If you would like me to go into more detail about anything just ask in the comments below.
(17 votes, average: 3.35 out of 5) Loading ...
wow, what a great and useful plugin.
just curios, as I intend to use it on a wpmu installation: isn’t it unsafe to allow users code editing? I mean as far as I can see they can include php code too? and what about .js code?
oh, yes, maybe build in a feature to only allow usage of existing snippets, so users can’t nuke the whole site with their code?
@Ovidiu, great idea about limiting editing, uploading, and creating of code. I’ll get on that and included it in the next version release.
[...] WordPress Plugin Competition Blog » Theme Options Plugin (tags: wpmu plugin wordpress) [...]
Is there anything else anyone would like me to consider adding or changing? I’m open for ideas and would like this plugin to be the best it can be. Constructive feedback is always welcome.
ok, for wpmu compatibility:
- I suggest you check the file/image upload: paths are different in wpmu, structure is kinda wp-content/blogs.dir/blog_ID/files if I am not mistaken, that path example is from memory, needs to be double checked
- no php code editing and upload for wpmu, too dangerous
all these features can be limited by checking if the currently logged in user has the is_site_admin super-power
The importer uploads the code into the MySQL database. The code snippets that are in the folder “snippets” have to be manually put there. The reason behind this is due to the fact that you want your permissions to be as strict as possible.
Currently people can only view the Theme Options Panel page if they can manage_options and can only import code if they can install_plugins. I used these two capabilities because that’s basically what they are doing in this plugin.
I’ll do some checking to make sure thing plugin works like it should under WordPress and WordPress MU.
any news on the wpmu version/compatibility?
I’ve tested it in WPMU with the latest release and it works like it should. For example, the global site admin can add/edit/delete snippets, but each blog admin can only activate/deactivate and save options.
seems to work as supposed: only site admin can edit or add snippets, users see the delete snippet option but are told they lack the rights….
THANKS
Hi there. Beautiful plugin.
Still there is an issue with the way I have configured it.
I am using a custom header image and have hidden both my blog title and description.
This raises the following problem. There is NOWAY to click someplace so as to GO BACK to the HOME page.
Could you please put an option of making the header image clickable to home?
Thanx in advance… Marikamitsos