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<\/strong> 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.<\/p>\n This long article is divided in shorter sections :<\/p>\n <\/p>\n WordPress Theme Toolkit<\/strong> is just a set of 2 PHP files you will drop into your theme directory (see Page 4 for download links)<\/p>\n Ready for a 3 minutes tour ? Let's create our admin menu. Say we are working on a theme named, how original, "My Neat Theme", which would sit in wp-content\/themes\/mytheme<\/em>.<\/p>\n First line is where the class definition is included. Nothing to edit here.<\/p>\n Then, a function call with three parameters : themetoolkit()<\/em>, which is passed a theme name, an array of options, and PHP predefined constant __FILE__. Leave this last parameter untouched, edit the first two to suit your needs.\n<\/li>\n Now load your blog with your theme enabled.\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n And that's about it.<\/p>\n These three steps produced a few things :<\/p>\n From now on, everything you will input in the admin menu you've just created will be stored in a array of variables, named $mytheme->option<\/strong>. For example, if you enter in our 3 input fields the values "value1<\/em>", "43<\/em>", "some other text<\/em>", the following array will be available :<\/p>\n What you "just" have to do now is create your own functions, add features to your theme that will use these values the user can input. Look below in section "Examples and Ideas" to see what you could use this for.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n The syntax of options you can add into the option array, in functions.php<\/strong>, is very simple, yet it allows you to create detailed and complex admin forms : input fields, checkboxes, radio buttons, multiline text areas, mostly everything you will need. Let's make another menu with the following entries in the array of options :<\/p>\n Input field :<\/strong> Bare Input field :<\/strong> Text Area :<\/strong> Radio Buttons :<\/strong> Check Boxes :<\/strong> Separator :<\/strong> The result of such an array of options would be the following admin menu (click to enlarge) What you probably like, as a PHP programmer who wants to write your own functions, is to know any time what variables you have, and their values. WordPress Theme Toolkit<\/strong> come in with a handy feature called the Programmer's Corner<\/strong>.<\/p>\n Just add this fake entry in your array of options :<\/p>\n
\n![\"Theme](\"\/blog\/images\/themetoolkit\/themetoolkit_2.gif\")
<\/a><\/p>\n\n
What is it exactly ?<\/h2>\n
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So, how easily ?<\/h2>\n
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\nPut the required files functions.php <\/strong>and themetoolkit.php <\/strong>in your theme directory.\n<\/li>\n
\nFile functions.php<\/strong> looks like this :<\/p>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n(This step is not required with WordPress 2.0, but is for WP 1.5 compatibility. Once the whole world will have switched to 2.0, you can just skip it !)
\nAdd this line to your template header.php <\/em>:<\/p>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\tAnd what did that do ?<\/h2>\n
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\n<\/li>\n<\/a>\n<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nNow what ?<\/h2>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\tSimple syntax, detailed results<\/h2>\n
\nRegular input field, with the text "optional explanations" below it.<\/p>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\nWhen the option is self explanatory, trim it to the minimum.<\/p>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\nAdding {textarea|number of rows|number of columns}<\/em> create a textarea input field.<\/p>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\nUse {radio|value1|text1|value2|text2}<\/em> with any number of options to add radio buttons.<\/p>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\nCheckbox syntax is the following : {checkbox|name of variable|value of variable when checked|text}<\/em> with any number of options.<\/p>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\nYou can add a separator line if you feel your options list gets too long.<\/p>\n
\n\n\t<\/div>\n\t\n\t
\n<\/a><\/p>\nHandy to Programmers<\/h2>\n