WP Theme Showcase ext and i18n

Installation

1. Upload ‘wp-theme-showcase-ext-and-i18n’ folder to ‘/wp-content/plugins/’ directory
2. Activate the plugin through the ‘Plugins’ menu in WordPress. The plugin creates the necessary default options, but be sure to enter all necessary information for the features you activate. Go to the plugin options and choose Hide themes, if you need to hide one or more themes.
3. Enter [showcaseext] in a page or post where you want to display the showcase. You can, of course, add your own text, e.g., an introduction before and/or after the shortcode.
4. Configure the plugin via the Appearance/Theme submenu and unleash its full power. You can change the appearance of the name and/or thumbnail index and customize some user instructions. Many other options are available.
5. Edit the showcaseext.css file if you want to change the appearance of the output.
6. If you want to display your own theme descriptions (e.g., because you have translated those included in the style.css of each theme and saved your translations separately), then you must create a directory for these files under wp-content and name it as specified in the Options.
7. If you want to display download instructions, you can do so by creating another directory under wp-content and placing the files you create for this purpose in this directory. See the Options page for instructions for naming these files. You can also let the plugin generate links to Download Monitor downloads.
8. If you want to use the sidebar widget, then a number of conditions must be met. Firstly, you must use thumbnails that fit the sidebar. Secondly, you must enter a page id for the page or post where the showcase is displayed. The page id is shown in the status bar if you hover the mouse over an Edit page link or button. Showcase widget will only display a new theme after at least 20 minutes (note, however, that this value and the widget screen texts can be changed in the widget control). Although you can add more than one Showcase widget, currently, they will display the same theme image for the time being, as the necessary code is generated by the plugin. This means that you must view your showcase at least once in order to generate code for the widget.

WP Theme Showcase ext and i18n employs three different image sizes (if optimally configured; in the default options, ‘screenshot.png’ is used for all three image sizes). The showcase proper, which displays all the uploaded themes with a user-defined number of pieces of information (if available), makes use of medium-size screenshot files. Showcase ext creates one or two indices, “Table of Contents,” that employ small-size screenshot files, “thumbnails.” I have found that 100x100px images fit well in the thumbnail index.

If the user clicks the medium-size screenshot files, if optimally set up, he will be shown large pictures for a closer inspection of the design of the theme. If Shutter Reloaded or a compatible plugin is activated, the users may browse all the large pictures as a set. It is the responsibility of admin to provide these images. It is also possible to preview the theme with the content from the current blog.

If admin enters multiple user-defined filenames for the medium-size screenshots, Showcase ext will loop through these filenames and use the first filename that matches an existing file, as the theme image of the showcase proper. Optionally, it will add links to any additional image files found. If no screenshot is found, a placeholder is used.

Showcase ext can search for a number of readme filenames (the Options page provides a sample of such filenames, of which five are chosen upon first-time activation). You can modify the list in the Options. Showcase ext will create a link for each existing readme file, in the order of the filenames entered. This is useful, e.g., if translations of the readme files are available. Of course, the same feature can display links to license and changelog files (see my site for an example).

A later version may allow admin to enter additional directories for theme images (note that WP 2.9 supports this now; it should work with this version of the plugin as well) and readme files (thus allowing admin to keep his own files in a separate directory), especially if you tell me that you need it.