WordPress quick tip #2 – keeping track of theme changes
- Date:
- 13 Apr 2010
- Category:
Keeping track of changes to a WordPress theme as it develops is great practice when working alone, and essential when working in a team. When working on WordPress themes I include a ‘docs’ folder which always contains a changelog.txt file. This, plain text, file starts with the theme release number, 2.0.2 for example, a sentence sumarising the key changes in the release, information which I also include in the style.css file so that it shows up in the theme summary in on the appearance page of WordPress. Below the summary information I list the theme files along with any changes made. Once the revisions are complete I make an archive file and name it with the revision number, so keeping a stable copy safe just in case.
This makes retracing and changes easy, not only for when things have gone wrong, but also when a tracking down a nifty piece of coding was retired some time ago but would now be useful again. Most importantly perhaps, the change list can form the basis of a pre-launch testing check list. The exact format of the file can be varied to suit your needs, the important thing is finding a format which works for you, and sticking to it.
