If you use the CMS of WordPress to set up your site or to manage your web content, you can feel much easy to decorate your online platform due to the existence of the massive number of WordPress templates. Once you have chosen the right theme, you can achieve the well-designed website layout and appearance for your readers, along with the carefully selected color scheme and properly located elements.
But now, we have found a special WordPress plugin that is called as Theme Check, which has been rated within the top 5 featured WordPress plugins by WordPress.org. Just as its name indicates, this plugin is used to test your selected theme to figure out whether it is a good option that already has passed the standard plugin principles and can achieve the error-free working. At present, it has been downloaded by hundreds of thousands of times. However, is it really worth installing?
In the following, we have listed the answer and some reasons of is it needed to test WordPress theme using the Theme Check plugin.
Test WordPress Theme using Theme Check
To better know this plugin, we’d like to introduce its utilization in the first place. After installing the Theme Check, you can target it by clicking the Appearance button from the admin panel. Here, you need to hit the Theme Check button.
Now, from the right hand screen, you can find the theme you want to check from the drop-down list. After targeting it, you can click the Check It button.
Here, you can get the detailed information of this theme, such as the title, version, author information, download URL, tags and description. If there is anything wrong, you can move down to see the warning messages, such as removing some tags from the style.css header file and replacing some filters for the better performance.
That’s it. These are all the results you can get after checking your template using this plugin.
Is It Needed to Use Theme Check
Personally speaking, we think there is no need to use the Theme Check plugin to test your WordPress template. We have summarized some reasons in the following.
You Have to Install the Theme Before Checking It
From the previous plugin introduction, you must figure out that you have to install the template on your WordPress site before you can use this plugin to test and evaluate it. It is fine if you install the plugins from WordPress.org or use the free templates from some third-party platforms or market places. After all, if the tested theme is not fine, you can undoubtedly remove it and choose another one.
However, what if you are looking for a premium one that is not free of charges? Actually, for most people, once they drop the money on a template, it means they are committed to installing it on their sites without any further consideration. They are not in the theme checking stage, but move to the next step of theme utilization. In this case, the checking process carried out by Theme Check can be nonsense.
Themes in WordPress.Org Must Pass the Test
Now, you can find a large number of free templates from WordPress.org Theme Directory. Here, you need to know that all of these listed options are ensured to meet the review standards of this special directory, which are exactly the checking principles of Theme Checker. In other words, these templates are guaranteed to pass the checks of this plugin already before they can be listed in the directory.
Besides, it is possible that you can get some suggestions and recommendations from this plugin after checking your template, but none of these messages are the warning or error ones.
Themes Failing to Pass the Test Are Not the Bad Ones
Surely, you may leave away from the templates offered by WordPress.org but find some options for the outside places. If so, you still can give up this plugin.
You always need to bear in mind that the Theme Check plugin is used to check the templates based on the WordPress.org template guidelines. However, many premium and advanced theme developers are not willing to make any effort to promise that their products must pass these guidelines. Instead, they only want to focus on the design, functionality, layout, colors and many more.
In this aspect, even if the testing result of your currently used theme contains a lot of warnings, it does not mean that this theme is problematic, of low quality and should be changed. It just does not comply with the theme requirements of WordPress.org.
When to Use the Theme Check Plugin
Here, we need to mention that we do not point that the Theme Check plugin is a useless one. Instead, by using it, you can figure out that whether your template has some key errors, such as the dangerous and suspicious PHP coding stuff, hidden spam code, improper metadata, incompatibility of WordPress installation and many WordPress plugins.
In this case, it can be a great tool if you use this plugin properly and under the right condition. For instance, this plugin can benefit you a lot if you are a developer or a designer of WordPress templates and are looking to have your well-coded and properly-designed templates added into the theme list of WordPress.org. After all, you might be not very clear of the review standards of WordPress.org or you may carelessly forget some aspects. Due to this, the Theme Checker can help you fix all the loopholes and identify the potential issues the review teams may raise as the reasons for rejection.
How to Test A WordPress Theme
Personally speaking, unless you are a theme developer, it can be much harder for you to test the WordPress templates. Instead, what you can do is to use this theme in the real world and figure out whether there is something wrong during the running of your WordPress sites. In this case, as compared to checking a theme, we are much more likely to recommend you to review a theme before putting it into implementation.
In the following, we have listed some key points when evaluating, choosing and reviewing a theme. Generally, the information can be found from the rating star, feature introduction and customer comments of this special template.
Responsiveness – Now, browsing using the laptop or on the personal computer is not the main trend. People are likely to visit the website using their smart phones or the tablets due to the easy-to-carry feature. In this case, you have to make sure that the template you choose is responsive, which can ensure the proper content display on all the devices coming with different screen sizes.
Compatibility – Next, you have to make sure that the theme you choose can work well with the WordPress core and all the widely used plugins. This can achieve the proper running of your site.
No Error – This part can be checked by reading the reviews of the current users. Note that if the theme comes with even a single coding error or any spam issue, it can bring the great disaster to your site.
Freedom – It would be great that your theme gives you enough freedom for customization and function adjustment. Even, some quality themes have various versions for you to choose.
Design – Surely, you need to review a theme based on the aesthetic feeling. Note that the theme design must be fully suitable for your website image.
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