WordPress Theme Options Overload? A Judgment Call

Lately, while I’ve been busy coding themes for WPBundle, I’ve had to make a few judgment calls. One of the main ones for me is how I wanted to handle the “Theme Options” people have come to know, and quite frankly, expect.

Every theme these days has theme options, and there are a ton of guides on creating theme options. So now instead of it being about actually having the Options page, it’s turned into how many options can you squeeze into your theme.

A Growing Problem

But I see a problem with this. Not only are people resorting to creating custom pages so they can have 10+ tabs on the single page just so they can fit all the options, but they are creating redundant options. Sometimes I think Theme Developers are completely forgetting how huge the Plugin Directory on WordPress is. So when you are creating your theme, is there really a need to have an option to put “Stat Tracking” code? If the user actually wants that option, they can do a quick Plugin search and find over 300 stat plugins.

Making the Most of the Basics.

The point I am trying to make is, why confuse people? By creating these “custom” option pages, not only can you end up confusing the user by giving them a completely different environment, but you end up overwhelming them with options they may have no clue about. So instead of cluttering up the options that really need to be easily changed, with something that has been done hundreds of times in a Plugin, just give them the basics.

I think if someone is really interested in customizing their theme, they will probably already have some knowledge on how to do it. Or just let them ask in the Support forums; that’s what they are for right?

One of the theme’s I’m working on right now only has two options on the Theme Options page (which could really even be one.) So instead of spending an hour rummaging through 100+ different inputs, checkboxes, dropdowns, they can start adding their content almost instantly.

Less is more.