Does WordPress have a function that lists all the Timezones, like found in Settings -> General ?

I'm sure it must have considering it has an opinion to list one timezone

If I have a question with an outdated answer, do I recreate the question or edit the old question for visibility?

I imagine I would add a WP version to the old question, create a new question, and link the two together.

@Howdy_McGee example?

I'm almost certain that WordPress has changed it's update process in the last few versions so this question is a tad outdated now

why do you think it has been changed?

I think one of the crons have been remove / changed. If I'm not mistaken there was a wp_maybe_auto_update cron which no longer exists.

I think it's been moved / packaged into the wp_version_check cron - which is weird that wp_version_check actually does the updating and wp_plugin_update does plugin version checks...

Hi all. I'm in need of a couple of opinion/POVs about [not] theming a site, but I feel it's not a good fit for a Q&A on the site. Is the chat a proper place to ask?

Well, I suppose just ask your question and you may get a response

Thx.

As short as possible: I know WP a bit (developed a few plugins), I want to use it for a site for its features and plugins, but apart from that I've got problems deciding what to do with themes. All site pages will lot be different from each other, so using a theme will not solve the problem at all; I have no will to learn how to write a theme from scratch, so I'm planning to just install WP-Forge (an empty Foundation-themed theme) and then directly write each page html inside the WP page editor

I did a bit of testing and it seems to work, but I'm worried about unforseen consequences. Even more because I will need to overwrite a few basic css styles, so...

Dunno, I'd just like a few comment on the matter from someone who's more expert to WP than me

Honestly, writing a theme is super simple especially when customizing. You wrap your HTML around content loops ( The Loop ). For instance, this is an example of a super simple page.html.

The biggest problem with adding all your HTML into the editor is how easily a normal user could get in and mess up any layout. Since it's using the TinyMCE Editor, it can sometimes remove malformed tags or add tags where they don't belong.

Finally, you could use a Page Builder which could solve your problem or just as easily make it more complicated. I don't suggest using one but it is an option.

@motoDrizzt I guess it really depends on what "features and plugins" you intend to leverage. The way I see it, themes largely solve the problem of injecting dynamic content into a layout. If your content is completely static and has no need for modification, you could also just load the WordPress header into custom PHP files to get access to the WordPress environment in those files: define('WP_USE_THEMES', false); require ('./wp-blog-header.php');.

But it's kind of hacky approach... If you want to use the features of WordPress, it begs the question why not use the WordPress theme system when it was designed specifically to do just that?

In the end, templates can be as simple or complicated as you wish. As @Howdy_McGee said, trying to recreate them as pages within the constraints imposed by the WordPress editor will likely end up being a lot more work than creating template files themselves.

@motoDrizzt You were right though, that type of question probably wouldn't have been on-topic for the main site. Good on you for reading the rules +1.

But how can I write a theme with a specific structure for every page, and then be able to inject third party plugins shortcodes using WP interface? We could abstract a bit from my specific problem and generalize, but let's instead use it as an example: I'm beginning the development of a series of sites based on various directory plugins; those plugins gives me a wide variety of shortcodes to do almost everything I want/need, so I just need to put them in a wp page.

But, I want this page to be as "custom" as I feel...e.g., let's take a look at airbnb home page: I could think of the search box as the result of a plugin, and the behind video as a part of the page. And every other page on airbnb has a 90% different structure, so if I want to do something like that using a custom theme...I should hardcode everything inside the theme?

I feel this is something interesting to think about, as WP has a lot of firepower under the hood and it's the perfect framework to build really complex sites without the need to write from scratch a lot of things.

At a quick glance I see four primary templates on the AirBnB site: a homepage template (created as home.php or front-page.php when using the WordPress template hierarchy), a template for individual listings (custom listing post type, displayed with single-listing.php), a template for a group of listings (archive-listing.php) and one for the static content displayed in the help center (page-help.php).

The content displayed on each "page" of AirBnB is grabbed dynamically with a query a sorts, then displayed in with the relevant template. The homepage queries for random or popular listings, the listings list queries based on the parameters the user sets (location, price range, rating, etc), and an individual listing queries for the content of that listing (description, reviews, pictures).

In this scenario, there is an almost unlimited amount of content displayed in a very tiny number of "structures" - AirBnB could easily be implemented in WordPress leveraging the theme system

You'd have to explain what you're trying to achieve a little further - I don't think AirBnB was quite the analogy you were after, is it?

The WordPress page editor may well be adequate for your needs, in the end. I suppose it depends on how complicated and unique each page is from the others...

Not in my defence, I must admit I'm the "assembly" kind of programmer: I don't like having something else taking control when I don't feel the need for it. I still do all my commercial work with plain php, CSS from scratch, clean javascript (no jQuery or such libraries) etc. etc.

But...you both gave me something to think of, and probably I must take a real look at the template system before taking any decision. Only, as in Italy is a bit late right now, I think I will go sleeping really soon :-D

Thx for all the help, for now (I will check tomorrow again :-) )

Hmm... well... Shortcodes tend to be better suited for injecting something into an individual post or page's content... something done because it's "needed in this one." WordPress's posts and pages are really intended to be used to create "layouts" - that's what templates are for. Don't stick a shortcode to display a searchbar in every post - write the page template to include a searchbar

alright man, cheers =]

I'd use the shortcode to display the search bar in the main page, ala google

but yes, I noticed half of the things you write I'm not familiar with, so I'll take my time to study a bit and maybe I will not need to reinvent the wheel :D

Thx again, all.

cheers