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View Full Version : A Premium Wordpress Theme Framework?



jamestl2
02-09-2011, 05:43 PM
Hey guys,

Lately, I've been formulating different ways I might be able to make my themes more marketable, and easier to manage as well. Basically, what I had in mind was the following:

I would develop specific Wordpress "Add-ons" that would offer different functionality across various themes I've developed now and plan to develop in the future (like the advanced commenting system, which I mentioned in a few other threads, would be one). They'd function pretty much like plugins, except they would only be compatible with my themes, and they have their own separate options page. In fact, all my themes will have their own menu section in the dashboard, each with pages dedicated to managing various sections of the site.

I already started writing the code to implement this, however I've hit a few PHP roadblocks (mostly dealing with how the Add-ons should be activated and controlled; the OOP, the API, etc.'s already written and working fine), and it make take a while to work all the kinks out of the scripts (there's still plenty more hours I'll have to invest in to complete the project, since I'm not a big PHP guy). However, I believe this sort of system, separating the design from feature-driven theme aspects, can be great for managing Wordpress and giving users even more control over their themes.

I do want to keep working at it and get it functioning right if this is something that makes themes more marketable and easier to develop, and I definitely think it has the potential to be.

What do you think? Would an Add-on system give you more flexibility and choices for your theme? Or is it too over-the-top and / or redundant, being that plugins already exist? Or something else entirely?

mattbeck
02-09-2011, 07:01 PM
I have to say, this would be a turn off for me (although to be fair, I'm not likely to use other people's themes for much).

Specifically it seems like you would be reinventing the wheel a bit. It'd be better to handle the add-on functionality as plugins. It shouldn't be a huge trick to build them so that they require the matching theme to function.

This is how most of the other feature intense plugins/themes work already.

Also, be careful with what you are selling with Premium themes and plugins they are a bit of a can of worms already licensing-wise. Unless your theme is GPL licensed you risk pushing up against the WordPress licensing.

Keep in mind what happened with Thesis for a good example of what not to do.

vangogh
02-09-2011, 07:35 PM
I have to agree with Matt. You'd be making your themes less marketable. Your plugins are only going to run on your themes meaning you're asking people to commit to using your themes forever. If you have an idea for an advanced commenting system just make an advanced commenting system that will work with any theme on WordPres. Otherwise you're only making sure no one uses either your themes or your plugins. You're taking away a major benefit of WordPress by forcing people to use your themes.

WordPress has an add-on system in place. There's no reason to add another one on top of it. You're adding another level of complexity for end users. You should be working to make things easier for them.

jamestl2
02-09-2011, 08:08 PM
Well, the reasons I wanted to incorporate this "add-on" feature were so that I could easily separate "design" from "function", and so I could give away these add-ons for free with the themes, and make sure they work correctly.

What's the best way to go about this? I don't want to just incorporate a few features into one theme that may not precisely fit with the design, but they're great features all the same. (Like I did with my recent "Dark Mystery (http://engipress.com/themes/dark-mystery/)" Theme, which I was planning on revising to include the new approach.)

Should I just sell the plugins? I've got several potential, in-depth add-ons I'd eventually like to create. But I don't want to give away all the hard scripting work like I have with the simple plugins I've already created.



Also, be careful with what you are selling with Premium themes and plugins they are a bit of a can of worms already licensing-wise. Unless your theme is GPL licensed you risk pushing up against the WordPress licensing.

I don't think there's any major issues there. I'm just providing a service, and only selling themes. The customers that purchase them can edit, modify, and use their theme's anywhere they wish.

vangogh
02-09-2011, 10:35 PM
I can understand what you're trying to do, but I think the way you were doing it was making things more complicated and less separate.


I don't want to just incorporate a few features into one theme that may not precisely fit with the design, but they're great features all the same.

Then don't incorporate those features into that theme. Just because some feature is cool doesn't mean it belong in every theme. That's what I've been trying to get across to you. A feature no matter how great isn't what's going to sell a theme. With both themes and plugins you have to start by thinking about who it's for and what problem it's going to solve. Then build in all the features that help solve that problem and leave the others out. For features that aren't necessary, but might be nice to have create a plugin and let people decide if they want to install them or not.

You can certainly sell plugins and themes if you want. You could give both away behind a membership site or you can give everything away and charge for support. There are several different business models. I'm not sure any one is automatically the best. With plugins I think you also have to ask whether or not there's enough to charge for. For example some plugins are just a wrapper around a couple lines of code you could add directly to your theme or functions.php file. I wouldn't charge for things like those. You could give them away for the marketing benefit. Naturally something with more functionality like a shopping cart is worth charging for.

By the way are you subscribed to some of the WordPress blogs out there. If you want to be a theme and/or plugin developer you should be plugged into the community to see what's going on.

jamestl2
02-10-2011, 03:26 PM
Just because some feature is cool doesn't mean it belong in every theme. That's what I've been trying to get across to you.

I already get that. That's why I considered the add-on idea in the first place...

Where some add-ons would fit the needs of certain audiences, whereas others wouldn't quite fit, and people can use whatever add-ons they want, to meet their needs.


If you want to be a theme and/or plugin developer you should be plugged into the community to see what's going on.

Don't know what that's supposed to mean. I already consider myself a theme developer, but yes, I do look for updates, trends, etc. every now and then.


I wouldn't charge for things like those. You could give them away for the marketing benefit. Naturally something with more functionality like a shopping cart is worth charging for.

I understand what you saying. I've taken that approach with the simple plugins I've created so far. Some plugins may be a grayish area though when it comes to charging / not charging for them.

I figured I could create an add-on system that would give people more incentive to purchase the themes I develop, from a marketing standpoint. My add-ons were never intended to replace the plugin system that WP implements, just compliment the themes that I develop, and give users more freedom in what they want to do and change about them.



I was just trying to find a good medium between theme development and theme use that makes it easy and manageable for everyone. And maybe the add-on system wasn't the best approach to that....

Harold Mansfield
02-10-2011, 05:34 PM
Sounds like to me that what you are talking about is developing not just a theme but a new framework to run on Wordpress. From a service providers point of view, I am tired of new frameworks.
It's much easier for me to teach someone how to run their site without having to teach them a framework.
Between Platform Pro, Themeatic, Thesis, and all of the others...it's overkill.
For me, it doesn't make things easier, it makes them harder. Wordpress works best when everything works together and you aren't limited to functions that the designers have provided and I tell my people to stay away from things that are proprietary in nature.

If you want to do plug ins, then make them useful no matter what theme I use. Things like comment systems and forms are not things that I want to be limited to based on the theme. Or at least give me the option to use my own.

jamestl2
02-10-2011, 05:56 PM
I find it much easier to just edit the code where I need to rather than sifting through rules for a new framework as well, but we aren't like the average Wordpress User.

Guys like us can change things around whenever we wish because we have the experience and understanding of how Wordpress code works. However, I'm guessing the average joe doesn't, and they like to have all those extra options and customizations available to them without needing to understand the code.

I'm trying to consider things from an end-user's standpoint, as in the customers who will be purchasing my themes, and make things as easy as possible for them.

vangogh
02-10-2011, 06:56 PM
Don't know what that's supposed to mean.

I mean are you subscribed to the blogs of the influential people in the WordPress community? I just did a quick check of my feedreader and I'm subscribed to about 50 different blogs that I have categorized as WordPress. I probably have another dozen or so that I left in other categories of feeds as well. Are you a member of any WordPress specific forums? Do you listen to any WordPress podcasts? Have you ever listened in on the WordPress development IRC channel? Besides Matt Mullenweg how many people who work on the core of WordPress can you name?

You need to pay attention to all of the above to really understand the WordPress market. Many of the questions you're trying to sort out like whether or not functionality should be in themes or plugins, come up as debates all the time. There's no definitive answer, but by paying attention to those debates you'll get a greater sense of how you want to solve that problem.

Also all those people are going to be good to connect with. You'll have a much easier time selling themes and/or plugins if some of those people start talking about them.

That's what I mean by being plugged in. Checking trends and updates every now and then isn't enough. The more you know about what others are doing in the WordPress community, the better you'll be able to develop and sell themes and plugins.