Do you like plugins?
I just had a quick question for all of you. I’m hard at work on another WordPress template/theme and I’m pondering the user of a couple 3rd party plugins with it. Specifically “Related Posts” and possibly something else.
What is your quick take on this? Should I leave my themes bare-bones so that it will work without the use of plugins? Or does everyone feel comfortable with the addition of them as long as I document everything within the download?
Comments (2)
I would vote not to include any plugin, but instead support plugins.
If you use, for instance, <?php function_exists(‘related_posts’)?>, the users that have activated the plugin that contains “related_posts” will see their plugin working, those who don’t have it, won’t get an error message, just not the functionality.
Another way it’s to add functionality through the functions.php file on your theme; so far I’ve just experimented with very small and limited functions, for instance, recent comments, which you can get using a single database call and then display it using a very simple php function.
Rob
November 30, 2007Evan:
If they enhance your functionality / design then I suggest that you include them as long as they are documented.