WordPress Theme Toolkit Plugin

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

If you ever edited WordPress theme with build in theme editor you probably know how uncomfortable it is. Default theme editor not only do not have syntax highlighting but also (and i think it is even worse) every time you save file textarea scrolls to the top, so when you need to make further changes in file you need to again find lines which you were editing.

This were two main reasons why i decided to create Theme Toolkit, my idea was to create theme editor which would:

  • built in syntax highlighting (HTML, CSS, PHP)
  • line numbering
  • quick save with (ctrl+s) shortcut
  • resizable editor window

Two first goals were achived with a help of CodePress, online real time syntax editor, (however i had to make some changes to make it feet my needs :) ). The rest i implemented by myself.

As for now editor is 100% compatibile with FireFox 3.0, 95% compatibile with IE and was not tested with Safari and Opera. I also tested it with WordPress 2.6 and 2.5 so plugin should work correctly with them

Installation

  • Upload ‘theme-toolkit’ directory to ‘wp-content/plugins’ directory
  • Activate

To run Theme Toolkit go to: Design -> Theme Toolkit.

ScreenShots

1. CSS highlighting

2. Hidden theme files, php and html code highlighting

Download

Theme Toolkit version 0.1

To Do

Next feature i want to implement is code completion for wordpress templates tags, but this will be added somewhere in the future.

If you have some ideas that you would like to be implemented, or just want to tell me that this plugin sucks :) , please post in comments.

tagged under:

ABOUT THIS AUTHOR


Greg
  1. Mike
    July 27, 2008 at 4:09 pm

    How old is this article? I might consider putting a posted date or something on this page ;)

    Do you need any other plugins to edit themes in wordpress? Does this work on the hosted wordpress blogs, or must you have your own install? I am new to wordpress plugins and have found your articles very helpful. Thanks!

  2. Greg
    July 27, 2008 at 6:46 pm

    First of all, welcome to my blog and thanks for comment Mike. :)

    Post is about a week or two old, i deleted dates because they did not fit to my design however you can find dates in main page.

    This is the only plugin you will need to edit theme, just upload it to your plugin directory, activate and you are good to go, but actually you do not need any plugins to edit theme, you can use builtin theme editor.

    I do not have wordpress.com blog so i a cannot really tell, however if you can install plugins there and edit themes with “normal” theme editor, then my plugin should work just fine.

    I hope i answered all your questions, if not feel free to ask again. :)

  3. Pablo DiCiacco
    August 8, 2008 at 10:05 am

    This is an extremely useful plugin.
    Thank you,
    Pablo

  4. Pablo DiCiacco
    August 9, 2008 at 8:11 am

    Greg,

    This plug-in anything but sucks. I give it an A+.

    Development Suggestion:
    To have the ability to edit theme files in an interface similar to the post editor would be perfect, especially if full-screen were possible.

    Thanks again,
    Pablo

  5. Greg
    August 10, 2008 at 7:58 am

    Hi Pablo,
    Thanks for your suggestions, i will implement them in next version of this plugin.

    I am not sure when will be it, i guess one or two months.

  6. Jai Pandya
    August 11, 2008 at 1:50 pm

    Hi Greg!

    An Absolute awesome plugin. You just gave me what I wanted for a very long time. Your plugin actually gives the wordpress theme editor a meaning. Won’t it be nice if we have it in the core of the wordpress code…!

  7. Vladimir Prelovac
    September 11, 2008 at 12:04 am

    Extremely good idea, keep on developing this gem!

  8. Greg
    September 11, 2008 at 5:08 pm

    Thanks Vladimir, i will definitely work on it.

  9. Michelle
    October 5, 2008 at 6:02 pm

    I found your page pretty randomly on google and installed the plugin. I’ve haven’t had a chance to use it a lot yet, but it looks awesome. So I wanted to say great job. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for the next version.

  10. c0d3r
    October 7, 2008 at 9:39 am

    Fantabulous :D The old theme editor is quite a problem to work with.. i used to edit with notepad++ and then copy/paste it. Now atleast i can do it online :D

    code completion for wordpress templates tags wud be cool, but still, something is better than nothing :D

  11. ghostpray
    October 9, 2008 at 9:26 pm

    great. thanks for a plugin. it will definitely make us easy edit our wordpress themes. great job. create other useful plugins too, i’ll keep a vulture eye on it.

  12. Greg
    October 19, 2008 at 7:17 am

    @ghostpray you can expect new version of this plugin soon enough. Also i have idea for another useful plugin for wordpress.

    @c0d3r thsnks for the comment, this is why i created this plugin in the first place. Working with the old editor was such a pain in the … you know where :)

  13. Costin
    October 19, 2008 at 4:03 pm

    thanks man ! 1.000.000 thanks !
    this is an awesome plugin. i was looking for it !

  14. napcok
    October 28, 2008 at 6:56 pm

    Great plugin! Thanks :D

    It is possible to make this plugin able to edit javascript (.js) ?
    This could be a killer feature for me.

  15. Greg
    October 28, 2008 at 7:11 pm

    Thanks @napcok. Yes it is possible to make it edit JavaScript files, in fact that is a great idea, i think i will add it in the next release.

    Well actually i promised new realease soon, but i still do not have much time to work on it.

    So to speed things up. Theme toolkit version 0.2 will be realeased on 10th November 2008. There i said it, so there is no turning back now :)

  16. Jennifer
    November 5, 2008 at 12:08 am

    Greg, the link to CodePress does not work anymore.

  17. Greg
    November 5, 2008 at 6:32 pm

    Thanks for noticing Jennifer – link updated.

  18. Dom Chudlegh
    March 16, 2009 at 1:50 pm

    Hi Greg,

    I hope you are well.

    How are you getting on with your WordPress Editors ToolKit? I am a newbie and keen to make some simple changes (Font, colour, header styles) but can’t find an easy visual way to see what I am doing. Even choosing colours is difficult because they’re all numbers!

    Any help, input gratefully received.

    Yours

    Dom

  19. Greg
    March 16, 2009 at 6:07 pm

    Hi Dom, unfortunately i currently work on three projects + i have a day job so any work on WP Theme Toolkit is suspended until … well just suspended, however you can use current version it should work just fine with with the newest WP.

  20. Chris
    March 17, 2009 at 1:51 pm

    Awesome plugin. You’re my new hero.

    Two requests: Auto indenting when you hit enter and the ability to change the tab size would be even more awesome!

  21. Greg
    March 17, 2009 at 8:39 pm

    Thanks Chris, but the real heroes are the guys who created CodePress i just ported it to WP.
    Well i will have some time to work on this plugin i will take your suggestions into account.

  22. Christian The Jew
    August 7, 2009 at 3:18 am

    Hey, I’ve been trying to find the solution with this plugin for the 2.8.2 upgrade… Any suggestions. The plugin isn’t working so far.

  23. Greg
    August 8, 2009 at 1:43 pm

    Christian, unfortuantely this plugin is no longer maintained, mainly because Wordpress 2.8+ has similar functionality built in.

  24. Home Based MLM
    October 23, 2009 at 3:59 am

    Well, at least we know Wordpress is incorporating ideas from plugin developers.

  25. Aery
    November 4, 2009 at 6:28 pm

    Thanks for the wonderful plugin.

    Greg, if you need any help I can be some of use, being an experienced programmer.

    Let’s make this plugin stable and atleast version 1.00

  26. Kamrul
    November 13, 2009 at 8:54 pm

    Hurry up man! We are all waiting for this. Actually this facilities should have built in Word Press.

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