We are a group of volunteers who review and approve themes submitted to be included in the official WordPress Theme directory.
We do license, security, and code quality reviews.
We help build and maintain default themes.
The primary focus of the team is to help theme authors transition to blockBlockBlock is the abstract term used to describe units of markup that, composed together, form the content or layout of a webpage using the WordPress editor. The idea combines concepts of what in the past may have achieved with shortcodes, custom HTML, and embed discovery into a single consistent API and user experience.-based themes.
A theme reviewer is a volunteer who helps theme authors add their theme to the official theme directory.
A reviewer installs and tests the theme, reviews the code and checks for security issues. The reviewer also confirms that the theme is compatible with GPLGPLGPL is an acronym for GNU Public License. It is the standard license WordPress uses for Open Source licensing https://wordpress.org/about/license/. The GPL is a ‘copyleft’ license https://www.gnu.org/licenses/copyleft.en.html. This means that derivative work can only be distributed under the same license terms. This is in distinction to permissive free software licenses, of which the BSD license and the MIT License are widely used examples., the license that is used by WordPress.
The themes team is open to anyone and you can get started following the steps below. If you find short video tutorials helpful you can also see our onboarding for new reviewers.
To contribute as a reviewer you need an understanding of theme development and knowledge of PHPPHPPHP (recursive acronym for PHP: Hypertext Preprocessor) is a widely-used open source general-purpose scripting language that is especially suited for web development and can be embedded into HTML. http://php.net/manual/en/intro-whatis.php. and common WordPress functions.
Submitting a theme and experiencing the workflow before becoming a reviewer is also beneficial.
You don’t need to be an expert, and reviewing themes is a great way to learn more about theme development. If you have expertise in one area but not the other, you are still welcome to contribute.
Theme reviewers communicate with theme authors via the TracTracTrac is the place where contributors create issues for bugs or feature requests much like GitHub.https://core.trac.wordpress.org/. ticket system and SlackSlackSlack is a Collaborative Group Chat Platform https://slack.com/. The WordPress community has its own Slack Channel at https://make.wordpress.org/chat/.. The team uses English as the primary language of communication.
Join Slack. Visit make.wordpress.org/chat/ and sign up using your WordPress.orgWordPress.orgThe community site where WordPress code is created and shared by the users. This is where you can download the source code for WordPress core, plugins and themes as well as the central location for community conversations and organization. https://wordpress.org/ user account. You can then join the themes team in the #themereview channel. All our meetings are done in Slack. Checkout when our next one will be.
Subscribe to the blog on make.wordpress.org/themes. Being subscribed to this blog lets you keep in touch with the team and updates.
Import the theme unit test data into your installation. This gives you content to help to run tests.
Set WP_DEBUG to 'true' in your wp-config.php file. This helps you find any PHP notices, warnings and errors.
Install the following Plugins (Note:all plugins below can be installed via the DeveloperpluginPluginA plugin is a piece of software containing a group of functions that can be added to a WordPress website. They can extend functionality or add new features to your WordPress websites. WordPress plugins are written in the PHP programming language and integrate seamlessly with WordPress. These can be free in the WordPress.org Plugin Directory https://wordpress.org/plugins/ or can be cost-based plugin from a third-party except the theme snifferTheme SnifferTheme Sniffer is a plugin utilizing custom sniffs for PHP_CodeSniffer that statically analyzes your theme and ensures that it adheres to WordPress coding conventions, as well as checking your code against PHP version compatibility.
The plugin is available from the plugin directory and Github.
Themes are not required to pass the Theme Sniffer scan without warnings or errors to be included in the theme directory.):
The teams on WordPress.org uses a ticket system called Trac. Each theme has its own ticket. The theme tickets are found here: https://themes.trac.wordpress.org/
Select the theme at the top of the list, and leave a note in the comment field that you are starting the review. Download the zip file and start your review.
Every reviewer has their own workflows. This section is designed to shed some insight into common aspects of the being a reviewer.
Do your review! See the suggested ticket format below. Please remember that we do not review design. The focus of your review should be security. We only require design changes if something is broken or unusable.
Be sure not to close your ticket. Leave it open for the author’s changes in response to your review.
The theme author may submit several updates for you to review.
Approve the theme once it passes all of the requirements.
Once the ticket is approved, one of the experienced reviewers will go over the ticket.
You may be asked to follow up on some questions, or the administrators will add the theme to the directory.
When you write your ticket response to a theme here is a suggested way of doing that:
Welcome wrapper . Say Hi to the author, let them know what you are going to do. This may be their first review.
Say the outcome. Let the author know from the start what the outcome is.
Required. List all the required items, a theme can’t be approved until all of these are met.
Recommended. You can then list all the recommended items. These won’t be a grounds to not approve, but they are good theme practice.
Notes. This could be a section where you add design notes, maybe additional information. Again, this can’t be something you don’t approve because, but it can be a way to educate
Say what is going to happen next. Keeping the author informed is great. Let them know you will let them upload a new version or what the approval process is.
Using the headings ‘Required, Recommended and Notes’ is helpful for people when viewing the review.
Once you have done enough theme reviews to be comfortable with the process and guidelines, you will be added to the “Reviewers” group, which will enable you to assign and close tickets yourself.
You are always welcome to participate in meetings and contributor days. The team welcomes new ideas on how to improve the review process.
