Please join us in welcoming our new partner/reviewer, Sakin Shrestha!

Briefly about Sakin:

Sakin is a Core Contributor, WordPress.org Key Theme Reviewer, WordCamp organizer and speaker. He is also a founder/lead developer at Catch Themes and Catch Internet.

Currently, we’re both working on this part time and have other full-time jobs that we perform. Eventually, we’d like to turn this into a full-time business for the both of us. We have some exciting things in the pipeline that will be a natural extension of a review service that focuses on standards and quality. More on that later.

Without further ado, our current financial report: As of a few days ago, the business has brought in $8,074.

If you’re doing the math, that’s roughly $2,000/month. For part-time work, that’s not bad. However, we want to both be able to make a comfortable living by providing this service within the WordPress ecosystem, so we still have a ways to go. So far, we’re off to a pretty good start.

The best thing you can do to help out with this is spread the word about our service. We’re now reviewing both plugins and themes.

Currently we are accepting only a limited number of plugins until we determine the best way to handle the pricing structure and rest of the process.

For the time being each plugin will be evaluated individually and cost will be based on the amount of code and the complexity.

To arrange a review, please press the green button below.

P.S. If you are interested in helping us grow faster, please read our previous post.

Genesis is pure code-harmony and with endless possibilities.

Last week Envato’s finest Stephen Cronin, Will Herring and Ben Fornarino helped us launch our Envato Studio service under a brand new category called Expert Feedback.

Theme Review, Co. is the first service of this type anywhere in the world but if you don’t have a fat chunk of funding this can be a pretty scary thing.

With that said, being a 100% self-funded startup both Genesis and Envato Studio are definitely big deal for us.

Now the question few already asked me:

Would you accept an accelerator?

Short answer, Yes we would!

Both Justin and I are still working with our clients and individual services, this is sure future but not our primary source of income yet.

With a right push this service can also grow exponentially.

Prefix everything.

What does it mean to prefix something? Basically, when you create custom functions, classes, and other items in the global namespace, it needs to be unique so that it doesn’t conflict with WordPress, plugins, or other scripts. Therefore, you add a prefix that’s unique to your theme name. If everyone follows this simple rule, it’s rare to see any conflicts. Like rare on the level of seeing a real-life unicorn.

Is it really a simple rule? Yes, and no. There are times to follow the rules and times to break the rules. There’s also a few extra things to cover, so follow along. While I’ll be focusing on themes, this applies directly to plugins as well.

What’s my prefix?

Fortunately, you have a prefix already made available to you, so all the guesswork about what prefix to use is already taken care of. This prefix is your theme slug. Take a look at the folder name you’ve packaged your theme in. That’s your prefix.

Let’s assume you have a theme named “Firefly” with a folder name of firefly. Your theme prefix is firefly_ or firefly-, depending on the circumstance. We’ll get to when to use an underscore or hyphen later.

Wait? What if my theme name has more than one word like “Firefly Browncoats”? That’s simple. You follow the same convention. Your slug becomes firefly_browncoats_ or firefly-browncoats-.

What should be prefixed?

Believe it or not, there are loads of things that need to be prefixed. Function names are the most obvious, but we’re not limited to those. Here’s a list of the most common things that should be prefixed:

• PHP function names.
• PHP class names.
• PHP global variables.
• Action/Filter hooks.
• Script handles.
• Style handles.
• Image size names.

Don’t assume this list is exhaustive. I’m sure there are things that I’m missing and new things will come in the future. These are just the common items in WordPress themes.

Also, while not technically prefixes, theme textdomains should also match the slug.

How to use prefixes

The simplest way to use a prefix is to add firefly_ (prefix we used above) to the beginning of whatever it is that you’re prefixing. So, if you had a function named do_something_cool(), you’d want to change that to firefly_do_someting_cool(). Sure, it makes the function name longer, but it also makes sure that the function doesn’t conflict with core WordPress, a plugin, or another PHP script running on a user’s site, which would create a nasty fatal error.

Depending on what you’re prefixing, you’ll need to know how to use that prefix. While there aren’t always hard-and-fast rules, if you follow core WordPress coding standards, things get pretty clear. The following is are examples of the various items that you should prefix.

Function names

function firefly_engine_failed()

Class names

class Firefly_Transport_Boat {}

Global variables

global $firefly_passengers;

Action hooks

do_action( ‘firefly_start_engine’ );

Filter hooks

$shutdown = apply_filters( ‘firefly_shutdown’, true );

Script handles

wp_enqueue_script( ‘firefly-vertical’, trailingslashit( get_theme_directory_uri() ) . ‘js/firefly-vertical.js’ );

Style handles

wp_enqueue_style( ‘firefly-paint-job’, trailingslashit( get_theme_directory_uri() ) . ‘css/firefly-paint-job.css’ );

Image size names (Note: Hyphens or underscores acceptable. Just be consistent.)

add_image_size( ‘firefly-large’, 1000, 500 );
add_image_size( ‘firefly_small’, 200, 200 );

When to break the rules

For every rule there’s an exception, right? Pretty much. There are times when it’s actually better to break the rules.

Pluggable functions immediately come to mind. I almost always advocate for not using pluggable functions for various reasons (we’ll save that discussion for another day). They exist, so we’ll talk about them. When building a child theme, it’s possible that the parent theme developer created some functions that can be overwritten in child themes. In that particular case, you must use the same function name to actually overwrite it.

Third-party script/style handles also offer a unique situation. See, if your theme loads the Genericons font stylesheet and another plugin does the same, you’d only want that file to load once. If both have unique handles, it’ll load twice. The best thing to do in this situation is to not prefix and simply use genericons in this case. Follow the core naming convention of lowercase letters and hyphenating between words in the handle.

Third-party PHP scripts/libraries are something I’d avoid prefixing as well. While it’s possible you could run a string replace in a text editor to add your prefix in, it’d be silly to do this every time you updated the library. Not to mention, if you’re using a version control system, you’re probably just pulling in those changes. In this particular scenario, your theme should do a function_exists() or class_exists() (whichever the case may be) before loading the third-party file.

I’m sure there are other exceptions as well, but these are the big three. Once you’ve learned the rules, it becomes a lot easier to recognize situations where you can or should break them.

A good rule of thumb to code by: When in doubt, prefix.

You have probably heard about my new service by now. You may have seen that my service is now our service – now only few weeks old – and forces are doubled with Justin Tadlock along the side.

Tweets of glory

Had a great experience working with @emiluzelac and @justintadlock. Hire them if you want to make your themes better: http://t.co/m2BeLmcXh1

— Brady Vercher (@bradyvercher) January 26, 2015

Looking at the feedback @justintadlock & @emiluzelac are providing in their new review service. Incredibly detailed – can highly recommend.

— Ben May (@benjmay) January 17, 2015

Got a bunch of Issues from @emiluzelac and @justintadlock as part of their Theme Review service. Timely, professional, concise, thorough.

— Nate Wright (@NateWr) January 19, 2015

I can't say enough great things about @emiluzelac & @justintadlock's http://t.co/oOhhkwjpXU service. Felt like I just leveled up today!

— Jami Gibbs (@JamiGibbs) January 28, 2015

Now, we sail…

In the WordPress Community, I am a senior theme reviewer and administrator. I’m also the creator of some of the most popular themes. And folks who downloaded and used my themes on their websites… they know firsthand about my support and dedication to their goals as end users.

Reviewing themes is something I love. And I’m very good at it.

Creating a WordPress theme is challenging, exciting and rewarding. But theming is not easy or quick, particularly when the work is done by one person. And when it comes time to submit your theme, you want to make a good first impression. I know; I’ve been there.

But in the push to produce, some things get overlooked. And those things can send your end users running.

Look, no one wants to ship a theme with issues. Everyone knows time constraints and the pressure to finish can introduce mistakes even the most seasoned developers miss. That’s completely normal.

But frustrated end users quickly abandon themes they don’t understand or can’t fix. And that first bad review… it never feels good.

Theme Review can help

As the first dedicated WordPress Theme Review service, we can help you make that all important stunning first impression at launch. We’ll take the pressure off with a thorough, professional review of your WordPress theme.

You’ll receive suggestions for improvements along with examples and support within 3 days of submitting your theme to us.

And you’ll be the hero at launch.

Getting Started is Easy

1. Submit your Theme codebase (GitHub or BitBucket) to us.
2. We’ll evaluate your theme.
3. You’ll receive your review along with improvements, suggestions and examples.

Special thanks to Val Lynn for helping me and Sarah Gooding for publishing an amazing post on WPTavern.

Please note that our Theme Review service is our website are not affiliated with the official WordPress theme review team. Your theme will not receive any special treatment from the official theme review team nor will it be reviewed faster than the rest. Our Theme Review Service however will enable faster approval once your theme is assigned to a reviewer.