New WordPress Theme Submission Requirement?

#1

To TF Product Reviewers (Ivor, Kailoon, Michael)
My recent theme was soft rejected 2 times because of the “Theme prefixing should be theme-name-based and unique to this theme only”. I have more than 50 WordPress themes submitted to TF with the unique prefix “gt3”. Its clearly stated here https://help.market.envato.com/hc/en-us/articles/202822450-WordPress-Theme-Submission-Requirements “Use a unique prefix for all function names, classes, hooks, public/global variables, and database entries to avoid conflict issues with plugins and other themes.”

The reviewer claims that “Sorry to say but earlier review had items that you didn’t fix. Prefixes need to match with your theme”. Which means that if the theme is called “explorer” I must use prefix “explorer”

What requirements should I follow, the officially published on the site or reviewer’s?

Please clarify the situation. I would like to get an official response.
Thanks

12 Likes
#2

imho as a developer as I have always prefixed code per “site / theme”… so a website called Tomshardware I would probably prefix everything as th_ or tomshw_

I was just going to write a post which covers this but Envato need to be more open with authors on stuff like this.

#3

I would do that from the very beginning if it was clearly mentioned in the requirements.

#4

And the reason for this requirement being?

Enqueues and image sizes maybe, but what’s the point of having a theme-based prefix for function names, classes, hooks? Have they ever heard of theme frameworks? Do they expect authors with 50 themes to create 50 variations of a theme framework? A standard theme framework-based prefix does all that’s necessary to avoid conflicts (gt3 in case of the OP).

It’s clearly a concern for plugins since multiple plugins have to be active at once and two plugins using same plugin framework would clash (although can be circumvented by using class_exists/function_exists and ensuring consistency between framework versions). But what’s the justification for themes?

6 Likes
#6

I always try to meet all the requirements even if the reviewers ask the things which are not even mentioned in the submission requirements. But in this case I can’t agree with the reviewer’s decision. 5 days passed and that reviewer rejects the theme for the same reason, though I explained all the things. Is there an option on this new forum to request staffs reply?

3 Likes
#7

I’ve got to agree it seems the rules change or there’s new requirements every time I’ve uploaded a theme. I also agree everything should be prefixed however making it a requirement that its the theme name is ridiculous I’ve been using “ct_” for years, which coincides with my own framework. I’d push this back to the reviewer they can’t just be making things up on the fly, and if new requirements are implemented post it in the requirements, pretty simple.

My last theme took almost two months due to crap soft reject reasons like this.

1 Like
#8

Well what if a user activated two of your themes at once? There might be conflicts.

P.S. Sarcasm was clearly intended.

5 Likes
#9

We have got rejected exactly for same reason (we used crele as our theme prefix) and we are again waiting in 3 days queue. :rage:

Our first theme approved with the crele prefix and now our second them got soft rejected because we used crele as our prefix. Strange! I just don’t understand this.

And from past 24 hours, there is no item reviewed. What is going on?

#10

We had the same issue with our theme.

After we explained that we use the same framework in all of our themes and it’s not viable to change the prefix each time, reviewer said that’s ok.

#11

Wow! I don’t know what to say. I think themeforest reviewers should have a round table conference and decide a final set of guidelines.

#12

You can use @staffname to notify.

#13

We explained it as well that we used this prefix in all our themes and it was ignored.

#14

hope these link will help

#15

Is it really hard to answer a simple question? What’s the purpose of this forum then?

#16

We tried to explain the same thing for our prefix that is used across all themes and it was ignored. I was sent a link to an article by Justin Tadlock who seem to casually mention this in an article.

http://themereview.co/prefix-all-the-things/

The fact is that Justin himself does not follow this rule (as interpreted here) for his themes since all of his themes are powered by Hybrid Core (80-90% of the PHP code for a typical theme released by him) which have a common prefix across all themes.

None of our 9k customers have complained about this common prefix causing any conflict so far. The rule makes sense for plugins but not themes.

#17

the problem is we’ve had prefix already, but reviewers don’t like it because they think prefix should be g67a9fgd_ :smile:

4 Likes
#18

This is absurd. These rules do not make any sense for a theme. So now we have to create a modified version of a framework each time we build a new theme? I’m up for prefixing everything, I’ve always done it, but a theme isn’t a plugin.

3 Likes
#19

I agree, having an unique prefix for each theme is a total nonsense.

4 Likes
#20

Submitted the support ticket asking to provide the official answer to this very important question.

#21

The review process here has become ridiculous, specifically the reasons for rejection/soft-rejection. The reasons for rejecting a theme these days are so full of contradictions and massively inconsistent. I got seriously fed up with it.

Another example is “Sorry this is too similar to what’s already on the market” and then 5 other themes go through that all look identical.

Soon it’ll be “Sorry, your logo’s orange, I prefer green.”

3 Likes