10 Questions About Wordpress Theme Development

Envato Authors Theme Authors
,
1

Hello to an amazing community. My Name is Gor. This is my first post in this forum. Years ago, I started to build a WordPress theme. I stopped the project and now I want to do the job. I have couple of questions and I hope that you amazing developers can help me to figure things out. I am thankful for your time.

  1. What plugin would you recommend to use for metaboxes?
    Do you have experience with metabox.io?
    Do you have any alternative option?

  2. I have an experience with SMOF (Slightly modified options framework). I really like it.
    Redux is based on SMOF. But I still want to use SMOF. Is it still relevant. Will my theme be rejected because of SMOF?

  3. TGM Plugin Activation uses “tgmpa” as textdomain. Am I allowed to change it?

  4. What plugin would you recommend for Shortcodes?

  5. CPTs have to be integrated as plugin. Some themes ignore that requirement. Can you explain to me why are they being accepted? Because if there is a way to not integrate CPTs as plugin I would love to go that way.

  6. What page builders would you recommend? I don’t like the visual composer because of its speed. Any alternatives?

  7. Video.js is an open source library for working with video on the web. I would like to use it to give customers way more options. (polls, captions, etc…). Do you have any experience with video.js? If yes did you like it and can you comment it?

  8. What lightbox plugin would you recommend to use?

  9. One click import, demo content is important factor. What solutions do you have for it?

  10. I Want Breadcrumbs to be a part of theme not as plugin. Is it a reason for rejection?

3 Likes
2

Hi there,

I will give you some quick answers to your ten questions: :slight_smile:

  1. Better use CMB2. It’s free and can be used without any problems.

  2. As I see SMOF is not listed on Supported frameworks (when you submit a WP Theme), but if your theme is ok when checking with Theme Check plugin, then I believe this can be used.

  3. Yes, you can change the textdomain from tgmpa class.

  4. Hmm, build your own shortcodes and add them in a custom plugin (because you are not allowed to store shortcodes in your theme). Many plugins come with useless shortcodes which will charge your theme loading speed, weight. So better build your own shortcodes.

  5. Nowadays all themes needs to have any CPTs code in a custom plugin. if you want get a rejection add it on your theme :slight_smile:

  6. Page Builder by SiteOrigin or Elementor.

  7. To me, video.js is ugly. I didn’t used it but I don’t like it (just my opinion);

  8. I love the Magnific Popup.

  9. You can use a plugin like One Click Demo Import

  10. No. If your code passes the Theme Check plugin + current PHP standards and Envato WP requirements.

Good Luck :slight_smile:

4 Likes