What to do before releasing a new WordPress theme

Theme Checklists

When releasing a WordPress theme, and to some extent also when delivering one to a client or rolling out one of your own projects on a theme, there are some things that just have to be there. Naturally, the theme needs to work, that’s the first thing, and that means you need at the very least the style.css file with the theme information at the top, as well as the index.php file, and whatever other template files you may want to use.

But that’s not all. There are a bunch of other things, outlined in this section, that you should make sure are in your theme and have been properly considered. This checklist can help you avoid the unnecessary mistake of releasing a theme and then having to patch it right away.

Development Issues

Does the theme validate?
Is there a proper doctype in the header?
Do you call wp_head() and wp_footer()? (Because you really should!)
Is there a RSS feed link in the header declaration? Web browsers need that to see the feed and add that pretty little icon to the right of the URL.
Have you gotten rid of everything from your local development environment? This can be anything from local image references, to things relating to your svn.
Are you using JavaScript properly? Remember, a lot of themes are shipped with WordPress and there is even a wp_enqueue_script() function for this purpose, available at codex. wordpress.org/Function_Reference/wp_enqueue_script.
hey display default content? If they are, make sure it matters, otherwise they shouldn’t output anything at all.
Have you added Edit links to posts, Pages, and possibly even comments that display only when administrators are logged in? This is very handy so you should use it.
Make sure the gravatars work properly.
Remember to add CSS for threaded comments, even if you don’t think you’ll use it. It should support three, preferably five, comments in-depth at the very least.
Is your theme ready for localization? Should it be?
Are all the dates and times displaying properly? Try to not code this into the template files by passing parameters to the_date() and the_time(); it is a lot better than having the user controlling these things in the WordPress admin settings.
Have you set the content width variable in functions.php? You really should; it helps a lot.
If you have built-in support for plugins, make sure that the theme works even when the plugins aren’t installed.
Are your readme.txt and the theme information in style.css up-to-date? Do you fulfill whatever demands your license of choice puts on the theme?
Have you done the basic tests to make sure that the correct posts are displayed in listings, posting comments works, and things like that? Don’t forget the most basic stuff: you can break a lot of WordPress functionality with your theme, so test it from the ground up!

Things the User Will Notice

Is there proper 404 error handling?
Is there a search form, and is the search results page actually usable?
Are all the archive templates in your theme, or have you considered them in any other way? Make sure that archives for categories, tags, author, dates, and so on work in the way you want.
Do nested categories and Pages display correctly when used? If there are widget areas where they should not be used at all, have you made sure the user is aware of this?
Have you styled the single post view properly?
Have you styled the Page view properly?
Make sure you’re not using the_excerpt() anywhere you should be using the_content().
Do you have pagination working? Previous/later posts on post listing pages, and possibly previous/ next post links on single posts.
Does the author name display the way you want?
Make sure attachments (images, videos, and so on) are displayed properly. You may need to make a template file for this if your design is limiting in any way.
Do image galleries look good?
When comments are turned off, what happens? Make sure that it looks good and displays a message the way you’d like it to.

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