Open letter: WordPress Themes- Developers need to get the basics right!

Dear Developers

Open letter to WordPress developers
(especially developers of Twenty Eighteen theme)

Bad WordPress themes

A theme whole droll in our sole poll
Takes hours’ toll and sours dour ol’ soul
Without dream basics quite right
Makes our’s seem a sick shite site
Shout out ALL CAPS STOLE OUR WHOLE GOAL

Alan Grace
17 November 2017

WordPress themes need to get the basics right. All the bells and whistles are useless without the basics done well.

I am hoping WordPress will pass this post on to developers so that some things may be included at this late stage in the Twenty Eighteen theme.

Below are my top 16 items (I was hoping to keep to 10) currently on my wishlist (not in any particular order). The last four items are probably not theme related. Also see my original wishlist.

What’s on your wishlist?

I’ll email a link to this post soon to WordPress Support with a request to forward it to developers of the Twenty Eighteen theme and other WordPress theme developers.

1. I like a menu bar (not All Caps) that “floats” (remains visible) when users scroll down, a minimal header with any logo alongside (on the left of) the Blog title and tagline (to minimise screen size). Please include this in Twenty Eighteen theme. These are probably the main (only?) things I like about the Twenty Seventeen theme and the reason I have now chosen it. It is sad the blog title is in All caps. At least the menu and tagline weren’t in All Caps.
2. Let the user choose what capitalisation they would like in Heading, subheading and menus (or else have sentence case as the default). ALL CAPS looks yuk (and is SHOUTING). If users like All Caps, let them put All CAPS in themselves. 99% of WordPress themes seem to force All Caps. This limits the theme choice for those users who do not like All Caps.
3. Please include an option for a very minimalist header.
4. Let the default settings be the setting users like most. Enable ‘infinite scrolling’ by default even if this means having an empty top Footer. it is easiest to delete a setting than to work out what needs to be done to enable a feature.
5. Please continue to allow ‘sticky’ posts.
6. Allow post date stamp to include day, date, and time (12 hour) by default.
7. Clearly any sidebar info needs to appear an the bottom when viewing posts on a mobile phone. There needs to be a link to the sidebar in the hamburger menu so users don’t need to scroll to the bottom to see the sidebar info. When ‘infinite scrolling’ is enabled mobile users never get to see the sidebar when viewing all posts.
8. Make sure post headings don’t appear too big on the screen (default heading font size often too big in themes). Also it seems difficult to determine the default font. This should be made easier. We need to be able to change the default font size.
9. Allow menu items to link to an external site (and to the Sidebar). I had to create links myself in another ‘blog’ (WordPress website) since this did not seem possible at the moment in any theme. See:
   https://alangracesite.wordpress.com/
10. Allow an image to have a link (internal link or to an external site). Users should not have to use html to do this. This could also become an easy way to acknowledge other people’s work.
11. Continue to have images retain animation.
12. Allow a background colour for post and sidebar text boxes so that a background image can appear in a (whole) blog without making text unreadable.
13. Do not put ads on the home screen. Users need to be able to see posts without having to scroll past ads. The best place to put ads is just before the very end of a post. Users are likely to use ad blockers if they are not happy with the placement of ads.
14. Allow users to choose a theme before starting another new blog. This will allow a new blog to include easily old theme settings, and posts/ sidebar. Currently Dara seems to be the main default chosen automatically.
15. Allow a whole blog to be duplicated so that user settings do not need to be redone [or at least allow the shell (everything except the posts: theme, settings, header, pages, footer(s), sidebar) of a blog to be copied/ exported to new WordPress blog].
16. Make sure Postaday works in Edge (default Windows 10 browser). I have been unable to access Postaday in Edge since towards the end of last week (from Thursday 9 November the site just keeps trying to load repeatedly until an error message appears).

see: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/poll

Daily prompt:  Droll

I hope it is not too late to make some changes to the Twenty Eighteen WordPress theme.

Yours faithfully

Alan Grace

P.S. I have recently changed the name of my blog to

Wordplay. Work in Progress.

My humour may be too droll for some.

I hate the ALL CAPS in the header 🙁