In every Wordpress theme there are places that are supposed to be edited and customized by the end user who is using the theme : an “About you” block to fill in, a loop to customize when you want to add “Asides” post style, some CSS to tweak to use an personal image in header, etc…
The problem is : most bloggers are not PHP or HTML expert, can’t tell the difference between an HTML tag and a PHP tag, and simple editing of templates can be hazardous and tedious to them. Adding an admin menu in your theme ensures that end users can customize things without editing source files, just as naturally as changing a Wordpress option in the admin area.
Wordpress Theme Toolkit is a PHP class that gives Wordpress theme authors the opportunity of creating a persistent admin menu for their theme as easily as editing 3 lines in a file.
You are a theme author ? Have enough skills to edit three lines ? Add an admin menu to your theme ! (click to enlarge)
Just to be sure : Wordpress Theme Toolkit is not a theme with an admin menu. It is something that makes adding an admin menu to an existing theme as easy as 1-2-3.
This long article is divided in shorter sections :
- Intro : well, here.
- Overview : a quick tour about features and how easy things are.
- Manual : detailed features and how-to
- Download ! : files and credits.
- Ideas and Examples : suggestions and ideas of what you could add to your theme … and a real Wordpress Theme as an example of use.
Related posts
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wrote, on 05/Sep/05 at 10:41 pm # :
Wow ! Ozh roulaize ! ;)
pingback on 06/Sep/05 at 4:19 am # :
[...] planetOzh planet ozh has released a tool that could be a revolutionary way of approaching theme creation. Not having had a chance to play with it yet, it seems like the opportunities are endless..now scurries off to install… [...]
pingback on 06/Sep/05 at 12:12 pm # :
[...] Wordpress Theme Toolkit es obra de Ozh, quien en su propio blog nos ofrece todos los detalles del invento. Y algo que a muchos les va a gustar: ha creado una plantilla, Minimalissimplistic, con la herramienta ya implementada para que todo aquel que quiera pueda ir probando la herramienta. Te dejo la dirección de descarga de la plantilla. [...]
commented, on 06/Sep/05 at 9:12 pm # :
While useful and innovative I wonder how the toolkit will affect performance. Seems likely to add a number of if() tests, function calls and database lookups judging by the examples on page five of this article.
said, on 07/Sep/05 at 12:25 am # :
Bill, the themetoolkit itself won’t affect performance at all. It’s just a class definition with no additionnal database lookup. Everything stored by a theme is stored in a single entry in the option table, where options are all read by Wordpress at once at the beginning of a page load. Having one more option for a theme is a matter of a few nanoseconds, something like this :)
Now, the functions you can write to make use of the themetoolkit can affect performance. You can write something that queries SQL a lot, etc… But again, in the examples of page 5, there are absolutely no additionnal query. Yes, there are if() tests, but errr dude … ever looked at the source of anything PHP ? :) This is uberbasic code I’ve put as an example here, and testing variables is nothing. When looking at performance, you don’t even look at a one liner comparing two variables man :)
pingback on 07/Sep/05 at 1:30 am # :
[...] You can check out this Wordpress theme toolkit here. [...]
pingback on 07/Sep/05 at 2:05 am # :
[...] Wordpress Theme Toolkit [...]
thought, on 11/Sep/05 at 8:47 am # :
I installed the minimalisticsimple theme and when I go into the dashboard/themes nothing pops up, but the themes name. I click on edit the theme and it shows nothing in the files. When I view them in a text editor they are there. I changed the permissions because I thought that was the problem but that didn’t work either.
Please help
replied, on 11/Sep/05 at 9:20 am # :
Sorry I don’t understand what your problem is. Install the theme, select it, *load your blog* (ie read a post), and that’s it.
said, on 16/Sep/05 at 9:18 pm # :
So is there something like this that would allow you to edit several themes at the same time? That is what I have been tyring to look for.
commented, on 16/Sep/05 at 9:56 pm # :
I don’t understand what you mean, so I guess the answer is “no”
pingback on 25/Sep/05 at 12:36 am # :
[...] Wordpress Theme Toolkit « planetOzh [...]
commented, on 27/Sep/05 at 7:33 am # :
So your instructions on how to install these tools are about as clear as mud. I keep referring back to where these are suppose to be uploaded to my ftp and to what folder and it is very unclear where I put them. Is it in the “themes” folder in the “wp-content” folder or is there some other folder I should be searching for in the blogging folder on my site that is somewhere else. You refer to putting these .php files into a “theme” folder. Please clarify.
Sincerely frustrated.
“Wordpress Theme Toolkit is just a set of 2 PHP files you will drop into your ‘THEME’ directory (see Page 4 for download links)” - Where is this directory?
commented, on 27/Sep/05 at 8:11 am # :
From the doc here :
Say we are working on a theme named, how original, “My Neat Themeâ€, which would sit in wp-content/themes/mytheme.
Step 1
Put the required files functions.php and themetoolkit.php in your theme directory.
For the frustrated no-clue “clear as mud” kind users such as toneripper, this means you put the 2 files in wp-content/themes/YOURTHEME. Which is a theme directory.
I just cannot be clearer than this. If it’s still unclear to you, move along, this means you’re lacking the basic skills required to work with WP themes.
said, on 05/Oct/05 at 10:46 am # :
This is quite amazing! The power and flexibility of Themekit should really be included right in the core of WP! Works perfectly wonderful on a stand-alone install of WP. Now we’d like to use this on a WPMU install now that MU allows plugins in each of the user blogs.
Once installed and “activated” as usual, it returns a “Fatal error: cannot redeclare xxxxx() (previously declared in….) and points to the line number of the function xxxxx().
I found a similar error with WP plugins running under PHP 5.x but Themekit works fine with PHP 5.x, just not with WPMU.
Any ideas?
pingback on 17/Nov/05 at 4:48 pm # :
[...] Options are managed from an admin panel (using Wordpress Theme Toolkit) which gives the theme a lot of functionalities and customization possibilities. [...]
pingback on 18/Nov/05 at 2:50 am # :
[...] Stumbled upon Wordpress Theme Toolkit today, and it seems really cool to add to the theme. [...]
pingback on 18/Nov/05 at 9:09 pm # :
[...] Additionally, it has an admin menu (uses WordPress Theme Toolkit) where you can set various options. [...]
pingback on 21/Nov/05 at 12:22 pm # :
[...] (Possibly) Incorporate Theme Toolkit for customization. [...]
replied, on 22/Nov/05 at 2:11 pm # :
I was wondering how to get Wordpress Theme Toolkit to allow localization. I mean in the way the WP Theme and plugin does.
I’m developping a new them and as always i wish make it fully internationalized, but using Wordpress Theme Toolkit i can’t localize the strings into settings of functions.php o at least i’m doing it worng, using __ and _e function doesn’t work
Any suggestion ?