New Plugin for Writing WordPress Theme JSON Files via YAML – WP Tavern

March 20, 2022 Xploited Media

I’ve a brand new favourite WordPress development-related plugin: Theme YAML. Sascha Paukner launched it a mere day in the past, and it might discover its place in lots of theme builders’ toolboxes earlier than lengthy. It permits themers to put in writing theme JSON in YAML format.

To make use of, theme authors solely have to create a brand new theme.yaml file and start including their customized configuration within the human-friendly YAML format. The plugin will convert it into JSON and reserve it to the theme.json file.

As somebody who has had his justifiable share of complications writing immediately in JSON, I’ve by no means been happier to take a look at the next in my code editor:

Atom code editor opened to a theme.yaml file with settings that will be converted to JSON.

That’s fairly.

I simply want I had considered this plugin concept first. I routinely work with YAML information when coping with different techniques and convert the info to PHP and JSON. It simply made sense as quickly as I noticed the plugin description.

JSON will not be the easiest-to-write format when coping with configuration information, which is what the theme.json file is. It really works nicely for cross-language information storage, however I typically cringe when opening a JSON file to sort in, particularly if it has 100s or 1,000s of strains. Plus, you can’t depart inline feedback to remind your self or others why a selected choice was made or a setting configured.

Is YAML higher? It has its professionals and cons, and in my expertise, components of the syntax can develop into complicated for the unfamiliar. Nevertheless, supporting inline feedback alone is value it.

The plugin’s documentation was bare-bones at greatest. It mentioned nothing about the way it labored below the hood. I had questions. Is there a setting for the conversion? Is it automated? Does it occur on each web page load?

I peaked below the hood so that you simply shouldn’t have to. The plugin mechanically searches for a theme.yaml file within the lively theme’s root folder when a web page is loaded. If discovered, it would verify its final modified time and retailer the worth within the database. If there are new modifications, the plugin parses theme.yaml, converts it to JSON, and writes it to the theme.json file.

If the lively theme is a toddler, it would additionally mechanically run by way of this course of for its father or mother.

The draw back to the plugin is that it leaves the ensuing JSON minified, which is hard to learn. That is OK when you might have the theme.yaml file available. Nevertheless, when submitting to the WordPress.org theme listing, this “construct” file would sometimes be one thing a theme creator wouldn’t bundle of their theme ZIP.

I firmly imagine in delivery code that’s readable and editable to whoever receives a duplicate. There are a few choices for theme authors to do that. They’ll ship each the theme.json and theme.yaml information or change the next code within the plugin’s predominant file:

$themeJson = json_encode($themeObject, JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES);

We merely have to toggle on the JSON_PRETTY_PRINT flag for the json_encode() function:

$themeJson = json_encode($themeObject, JSON_UNESCAPED_SLASHES | JSON_PRETTY_PRINT);

I hope the plugin developer will think about this transformation in a future model or enable theme authors to filter it.

There are different options for theme authors who draw back from theme.json. I’ve break up my JSON into manageable chunks throughout a number of information up to now. Then, I used a webpack plugin for merging them throughout my watch/construct course of.

I like to recommend utilizing the JS YAML Parser or an identical package deal for many who choose YAML however need integration with their construct system.