Non-working themes being 'hidden'

[Frankenpod]

This is a response to something that I noticed being discussed in the IRC logs.  Posting it here as I'm not on IRC.

So I gather some themes have disappeared from the theme  site, and apparently it's because stricter WPS syntax checking found faults with them, so they get 'hidden' by default.

I just wanted to suggest that maybe this isn't the best approach, as it means people (including the original author, but also anyone else if the original author is no longer around) can't see that such themes need fixing. (Plus if they aren't the original author they can't easily download them to fix them)

I also don't understand the specific point being made in IRC, about the Interpod theme having a problem because of the volume viewport adding up to >240 width.  As the ipod video has an x-width of 320 that should not be a problem for that player.  And that theme (not one of mine) works fine for me on an ipod video.


 (Obviously it would be better if I could say this in IRC.)  But it either the comment in IRC was itself mistaken, or the issue is the syntax checker getting the x and y dimensions swapped over and wrongly finding an error where there isn't one.

[Bilgus]

its possible that the width and height are getting swapped
I've fixed a few bugs I introduced this weekend in the parsers but I can't get the theme in question to pass even with older builds (last wps related commit I saw) I'll investigate more this eve

BTW have you tried kiwi IRC on the IRC page it works for me on my work network

[Frankenpod]

On the general point of the themes site, rather than by default hiding all no-longer-syntax-check-compliant themes, is it possible maybe for the page to have an optional 'filter' to show only working themes (or even, if required, show only non-working ones)?

Then it would be easier for anyone who feels like it to make a fixed version of any theme that's become broken.  And easier perhaps to see the effect of changes to the syntax checker?  (I didn't even notice a few themes had gone AWOL in this case)

RE: IRC, mainly I find I just can't get round to working out how to use it!