Admired Theme Options
This was suggested by @obenland via Twitter — Admired theme for WordPress. The theme options are really admirable, and the page is called Ultra Panel. Obviously with Google Analytics and SEO integrated. This must be like the Best of the Best and Ultimate. I’m going to stop using the Setting API from now on.
That was all sarcasm. Seriously, I think this is horrible, and there’s not too much you can do to make it worse, but judging from the download numbers, looks like people can live with it. Can you?
If you know of a theme with a Theme Options panel worth featuring (whether it’s good or bad), don’t hesitate to submit it!
Theme Options Gallery 
This is so bad it’s funny, love that corny text in the top right
It reminds me of WordArt:
Haha. agreed!
As much as I love to bash these sorts of hideous theme options screens, I don’t like to bash things without having a good think about what exactly is bad about them.
Sure, there are a hundred options and the visual appearance of the screen isn’t great, but that doesn’t inherently make it “bad”. The tabbed interface makes finding the option you want relatively straight forward. It’s fundamentally no different to finding the option you want in the seven Settings sub-menus.
If – for some unforseeable reason – I were to build a theme which had a whole bunch of options, I’m not sure that simply using WordPress’ settings API would make the experience of using the options screen any better. It would just provide my options screen with an interface which is visually closer to the other settings screens.
In theory, the new theme customizer in 3.4 could go a long way to replacing these sorts of options screens (although it needs a little work itself). In practice we’re still going to see these Super Ultra Options 2000 Pro™ type screens because they’re sold as a feature of the theme – “Holy crap look at our amazing ultra custom mega options screen! Your site can do anything!” – especially on marketplaces such as ThemeForest where every theme is vying for the attention of so many inexperienced users, and shiny things are the best way to accomplish that.
So the answer to replacing shitty options screens is the theme customizer. The answer to selling themes with a thousand options? Probably still shitty options screens.
Hi John, thanks so much for your input! I also think such themes should not be allowed into the 3.4 customizer, or at least limited by the number of options they can squeeze in there, but this is just me, the guy who hates (a lot of) theme options ;) Thanks for stopping by!
There is one big fact that most all “theme” developers miss (Ryan Imel, Mike McAlister, etc), is the fact that some people are actually developing sites for clients using WordPress (ie. WordPress as a CMS). How could it be a CMS with NO options? “Management” in Content Management System would be the key word there. Have any of these developers ever seen a real, custom-built CMS before? Probably not. Or worked with a real, non-themeforest client? Maybe.
How the typical “client” market works is, clients do not want to any complexities in updating their websites. They don’t want to edit or even look at code. They want to update their sites in the simplest way possible. They want the ability to modify and create dynamic pages within their sites without ever looking at HTML, CSS, PHP. But the big point for a client is that they don’t want to pay the developer to come in and make changes. Lower overhead is always at the top of the clients list.
While at WCSF this past weekend, I listened to Ryan Imel’s talk. It was good talk, but I believe a talk like that or the entire “theme options” discussions need to be specified that it’s geared towards theme developers/theme sales, not WordPress developers or the community as a whole. Why I say that is, it really leaves a bad taste about WordPress for those developers who aren’t just sitting around, slapping themes together to sell on Themeforest. Some developers are actually solving real problems for clients, utilizing meta options, theme options and the like. But I’m not talking about having every free webfont or google font under the sun in your theme options or 9000 different layout options. That’s just plain lunacy.
How is anyone ever going to consider WordPress to be a true CMS if discussions like this take place from people who’ve never developed a theme or site for a real world solution? This is probably why when mentioning WordPress as a CMS solution to client, most of them always respond with “I don’t need a Blog”.
Hi, thanks for your opinion! :)
I am using the admired theme with the ultra panel and for a free theme with support I have no complaints. One thing that I do want to point out is this theme has been converted to Responsive!!!!!
Thanks for your comment @dl!
Hi Konstantin! Thanks for solving my -idiotic- problem and thanks for following my blog!