Latest Theme Submission Requirements 2016

Hi,

I am in the process of completing my first wordpress template! I have read a lot of threads on forums regarding theme submission requirements. I know envato has a page with all the requirements but I hear there is more to it than the things listed on that page. Can someone please answer the following 2 questions for me? I will also appreciate any other tips regarding submission requirements. Thank you in advance:

1- Is it mandatory to correct all the errors and warnings produced by Theme Check plugin?
2- Do we need to supply a PSD version of our wordpress theme or does Envato require any PSDs as part of their submission process?

Yes you need to correct errors and no you don’t have to supply the PSD

Thank you Charlie.

I also have a question about the theme name. We have a brand name and we would like to use it as our theme name. However, after we developed the theme, we realised there is another free Wordpress theme that is using the same name. That theme has not been updated in years and it looks like it has been made redundant. It is also not on themeforest as it is a free wordpress template.

Currently in our wordpress admin panel, there is an “update available for your theme” notification. If we click the update button, the wordpress admin panel tries to update our theme to the latest version of the other free wordpress theme. I think it thinks our theme is the same theme as the other free theme.

My question is if we use the same name, will our theme get rejected? Do we need to change the name so it doesn’t show an update available message in admin panel?

Thank you again in advance.

From what I know, an author cannot use his brand/name in his item’s name, but I can’t find anymore the exact article in Envato’s knowledge base that says that. I will look further and I will post a link when I find it.

Thank you for your reply. Our company name is different to the theme name. We want to use our theme name when submitting to Envato but there is another theme with the same name on Wordpress site and it is not selling on Themeforest. We don’t want to get rejected because of that. Especially when Wordpress Update notification thinks our theme is same as the other free theme.

I can’t see you being rejected for that.

As for the update issue - if you have never had the other version installed I can’t see why it would be looking for an update to that theme.

If you want auto or one click updates then when you configure the theme options etc. (This starts to get out of my expertise zone) you should be able to set it up so that the update uploads the files you want it to preferabky using envato API (I’m not sure how this is done but sure someone more experienced with WP on envato can answer it.

I think if we just change the theme folder name and theme slug, it will be unique.

As far as I know, this is not a reason for a rejection.

But in your case, if another theme (free) with the same name exists on WordPress repository, you should be aware that your buyers will have issues with theme updates, like this:
https://wordpress.org/support/topic/theme-with-the-same-name-triggers-update-notice

You can find more details about this (and a fix) here: