wordpress soft rejection

Howdy all

Got our theme rejected again, Seems like there is always new things added to each rejections. Getting really frustrated with this. Anyhow here is what the reviewer said:

Soft Rejected

Leftovers from previous reviews and new additions:

  1. WordPress trademark requires a correct spelling of the name, with capitol P.
  2. Prefix everything and use unique (theme-name-based) consistent slugs. Additional prefix is acceptable for when the author is using a framework. Avoid using initials or abbreviations. Hereā€™s a list of the most common things that should be prefixed: PHP function names, PHP class names, PHP global variables, Action/Filter hooks, Script handles, Style handles and Image size names. Please see: http://themereview.co/prefix-all-the-things/
  3. The text domain must match the slug of the theme. If your themeā€™s name My Theme is defined in the style.css or it is contained in a folder called my-theme the domain name should be my-theme. The text domain name must use dashes and not underscores. No constants (variables), it should be a hardcoded string instead.
  4. Always use esc_url when sanitizing URLs (in text nodes, attribute nodes or anywhere else). Rejects URLs that do not have one of the provided whitelisted protocols (defaulting to http, https, ftp, ftps, mailto, news, irc, gopher, nntp, feed, and telnet), eliminates invalid characters, and removes dangerous characters.
  5. Translate all strings and escape where needed. JS and TGMPA included. You need to use a text domain to denote all text belonging to that theme. The text domain is a unique identifier, which makes sure WordPress can distinguish between all loaded translations. This increases portability and plays better with already existing WordPress tools. Any strings within a PHP variable requires to be translated. https://developer.wordpress.org/themes/functionality/internationalization/
  6. Donā€™t use this please: http://envato.d.pr/16pCn/1CZyHpc0 it is not safe.
  7. global variable should be used restrictively and only if theme really needs to. Hereā€™s an example how this would be acceptable: http://envato.d.pr/1aT9P/3ageodpz Itā€™s highly recommended not to use them at all just to keep things out of the global namespace, theyā€™re not so good coding practice.
  8. Donā€™t include widgets like this: http://envato.d.pr/dAUZ/8Kdke8Lt http://justintadlock.com/archives/2010/11/17/how-to-load-files-within-wordpress-themes
  9. Sorry, but this isnā€™t allowed: http://envato.d.pr/RCx/Y0Nys2DI
  10. All plugins should be up to date.
  11. Always use esc_url when sanitizing URLs (in text nodes, attribute nodes or anywhere else). Rejects URLs that do not have one of the provided whitelisted protocols (defaulting to http, https, ftp, ftps, mailto, news, irc, gopher, nntp, feed, and telnet), eliminates invalid characters, and removes dangerous characters.
  12. All scripts and styles (including comment reply) should be added from functions file and hooked with wp_enqueue_*, donā€™t hardcode them or include them directly, like in header.php, footer.php, etc. https://github.com/Automattic/_s/blob/master/functions.php#L113-L127
  13. Tracking, analytics etc are plugin-territory, please remove them. Donā€™t forget to run Theme Check as well https://wordpress.org/plugins/theme-check/ Please check everything carefully, not fixing the issues or fixing them partially will delay your final approval. Good luck!

Anyone have some ideas or had the same rejection notices.

Cheers

Lester

NOW THIS IS SOFT REJECT ā€¦ You know what I got?

"1) Usability, 2) Readibillity, 3) Overall quality " - that reviewer wrote and thatā€™s it.

Which reviewer? I will send him congratulations for work.

1 Like

Yeap! thatā€™s the way to give a feedback. Not to give 1 point at a time :slight_smile: and then the next and so on.You skipped 12 soft rejections! Try to step into every point and fix as requested. Good luck!

Its happening to all. Happy & Healthy Submissions

13 soft rejected reasons is too much but you should be happy because these are WP code technical and could be easily improved, a good WP developer would know how to improve them.

Good luck in next submission.

2 Likes

Hey there well yes soft reject because we are passed the usability, readability, overall quality, so these are not major things but by the sounds of it your issues are major things. We first submitted our theme in december so its been 3 full months of back and forth submissions and rejections but the issue is that 4-5 reviewers were saying different things and it was hard to figure out what they wanted because a lot of things were not on the submission requirements by envato so we did not know. Now we know after 3 months. The rest of the rejection notices were pretty vague.

Cheers

Lester

So I should get hard reject ā€¦ of course I delete item because it was impossible to fix.

Over all quality is a major thing brother. That means that the reviewer did not even look at your code. Just the live site and he did not like it for the reasons he gave you. which are vague but there must be a lot of things that are not up to their standards.

Cheers

Lester

soo again, it should be hard reject ā€¦ so I can count 14 hard reject WP and 3 soft :slight_smile: every soft reject was very ā€œautomaticā€. 17 themes almost 1 year lost :slight_smile: Have someone more ? :smiley: now waiting for 18th theme , probably it will be 18th reject and that;s my last try.

@WordicaThemes do not loss hope. you just have 17 and i canā€™t count how much I have lost. Yesterday, I got soft and then hard, but still hopeful and will try my next one with my full strength.
And I know hard work will not lost.
So cheers :slight_smile: :smiley:

All i can say is dont give up, I see a trend with some of the new reviewers and they are going beyond the envato guidelines but one way its good. It also can be a pain in the rump fo authors but the end result will be better. So just keep on working on it. Btw do you have a link to your file i can maybe give you some ideas.

Cheers

Lester

Itā€™s easy to say ā€¦ donā€™t give up. But I must live ,I must have money :slight_smile: Iā€™m freelancer had some income but creating for TF take much part of my time.

Hi Nitro, did you manage to go through ?.. what did you do with this:
add_filter(ā€˜widget_textā€™,ā€˜do_shortcodeā€™);

I have similar codeā€¦ but again its ā€œplugin territoryā€ā€¦ and what about filtering P tagsā€¦

I have almost similar list but it was a bit long, I had 21 points :slight_smile: ā€¦ I believe these will be lastā€¦ as they look minorā€¦

Wow man, thatā€™s tough going :frowning: Perhaps you should take an incremental approach to save time and effort?

You should consider building and submitting a Marketing Landing page (Marketing > Landing pages). They are plain HTML (You can add PHP for forms etc) and the review process is much easier and faster, no WP issues etc. Iā€™ve gotten 2000+ sales from the section. This will help you validate a design, which you can then expand on and submit in the HTML templates section down the line. Once you get through the HTML templates approval process you can implement it as a WP theme with a better chance of not receiving a hard reject. This process is called double dipping and is allowed.

Doing this will fast track the process and allow you to focus on getting through a good design without spending many days/weeks mucking about with WP.

Just a suggestion, all the best!

I had few landing page accepted in here ā€¦ itā€™s impossible to make money on them. Right now even on WP itā€™s impossible with more then 30 days review timeā€¦

My theme got soft rejection can anyone please tell me how to fix

  1. WordPress trademark requires a correct spelling of the name, with capitol P. (what he is talking about a string? then where )

2: Theme Check issue: http://envato.d.pr/1k32P/sOVs9WsE

I got a similar one to #2 the other day. On the TGMPA website you can download a custom build of the plugin specifically aimed at ThemeForest themes. You should do that

thanks for tip. waiting for #1 now.

Thatā€™ll just be writing WordPress like that < instead of wordpress, Wordpress or word press, that kind of thing.

There must be somewhere in your theme where itā€™s not written WordPress?

Using the themeforest version of TGMPA may get you rejected. The Wordpress.org one is more accurate to requirments. That was my experience anyway. But it still had to be modified to completely fit, but it was less work to adjust the .org one then the themeforest one.