Comments on: Resurrected Themes – Bringing Old WordPress Themes Back to Life

By: Darren

Darren — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:57:10 +0000

Ahright although thematic is a great framework. I think I’ll )for at least my 1st few themes) code them from scratch / improve their current code.

I enjoy coding so I guess I may as well.

By: Leland

Leland — Wed, 19 May 2010 14:03:56 +0000

I used Thematic because I know it’s regularly updated. It doesn’t have to be, I just decided it would be best to use an actively developed, free framework for my resurrected themes.

By: Darren

Darren — Wed, 19 May 2010 13:47:40 +0000

Between you and wpmods I’ve taken an old theme and have it running on my test install to work on now

Do you think making theme a thematic child theme would be better than having them as a standalone theme?

By: Leland

Leland — Sat, 08 May 2010 12:21:07 +0000

Thanks a lot for your feedback, Tung. That is a good point about abandoned plugins getting picked up by other developers, although (up until now) I’ve never seen the same of themes.

By: Tung Do

Tung Do — Sat, 08 May 2010 07:53:13 +0000

Hi Leland. I’ve been busy and recently moved to a new place, just got internet set up today. Sorry for such a late response.

I’m +1 for theme resurrection. Plugins get abandoned and re-supported all the times. It’s about time someone does it for themes.

By: AA

AA — Fri, 07 May 2010 19:20:07 +0000

I’m not a developer but I’m not liking what I see being done with the new themes introduced at wordpress.com. First, the newer themes are apparently coming up with the option to add background images and headers. This is not the case with the already installed older themes, so there is an inconsistency here. Secondly, the older themes don’t necessarily have the same look and feel with the threaded comments. I am particularly surprised by the fact that even though Authomatic bought the Intense Debate, they still have not been able to implement it exactly as is. The middle way was acquired to introduce the threaded comments and it was based on individual themes (seemed like a patch job).

There are significant number of people out there who are not happy with the way theme customization operate at wordpress.com. Obviously the comparison is with blogger and other services where you can WYSIWYG the themes. The CSS upgrade option is suited best for professional developers.

Anyways, I didn’t wish to open the whining session here on wordpress.com theme structures but since you blogged about the older themes, I just thought I share my views.

By: Leland

Leland — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:59:03 +0000

Bear with me here as I don’t use WP.com, but do some of the themes not have features like threaded comments?

I’m not sure they would be cool with this idea as child themes aren’t even allowed on WordPress.org yet.

The closest you could get is probably one of the CSS editing upgrades, and that’s only part of what a child theme can do.

By: Leland

Leland — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:57:38 +0000

Glad you like it, although I should clarify I didn't come up with the original idea (@DeFries did). I really liked the idea though so decided to post about it to see if I could help popularize it.

By: Leland

Leland — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:56:09 +0000

Go for it, Andy.

By: Leland

Leland — Thu, 06 May 2010 21:55:26 +0000

Malcom, not yet. Expect the Braintied child theme to be released within a few days.