WordPress Version Requirement Support for Themes

[kretzschmar]

Right now, there seems to be no way to add a minimum required version to a themes style.css.

This should be used for the automatic update of themes build into WordPress. The theme update should only be applied after WordPress is updated to at least that version.

[dd32]

This doesnt really need to be done inside of WordPress, rather, its a feature request for the Themes directory.

With all the new functionalities in each version, and the functions which Themes can call to register certain things, Adding a required version would get a +1 for me.

[ocean90]

Related/Duplicate: #16868

[bpetty]

Pushing this to 3.6 milestone since this is now a priority for Twenty Thirteen.

As discussed in Twenty Thirteen office hours, this theme will require WP 3.6 (mostly due to post formats focus).

The tasks involved here may include:

• Hiding WP.org themes with specified requirement in style.css from themes API search used by older versions of WP (API and core work required).
• Preventing activation of theme uploaded manually by ZIP if minimum required WP version is not met (which obviously won't help older versions of WP, but will help in the future with this).

See ​this post for more info.

[pdclark]

Uploaded patches for all the cases I could think of.

​13780-check-theme-version-on-upload.diff​ checks theme's minimum required WordPress version not just on upload, but also when a theme is being installed from ​themes_api(). Because of this, ​13780-check-theme-version-from-api.diff isn't really necessary unless modifying the remote API is worth saving a small bit of bandwidth.

​13780-check-theme-version-on-activate.diff​ covers cases where a user might have uploaded a theme over FTP – it does a check during ​switch_theme(), which should catch when clicking "Activate" or doing a theme preview.

Some things to consider:

• I used "Requires at least" as the plugin head key to match wordpress.org plugin syntax for readme.txt. If matching theme head / plugin head to readme.txt isn't necessary, then "Requires" is worth considering.
• The WP_Error IDs being passed currently match their context -- incompatible_archive and themes_api_failed. A more specific error, like requirement_not_met might be appropriate
• API revision isn't necessary when ​Theme_Upgrader is patched.

Items I didn't address:

• Hiding incompatible themes outright in API search. It seems like a flag or warning might be more appropriate.

[SergeyBiryukov]

Related: #23819

[pdclark]

Check theme version when uploading .zip. Checks for "Requires at least:" in theme style.css head.

[pdclark]

Checks theme version when "requires" value sent by theme API.

[pdclark]

Check theme version before switching themes. Checks for "Requires at least:" in theme style.css head.

[lancewillett]

In 23816:

Twenty Thirteen: add back-compat function to avoid activation with older WordPress installs. Props kovshenin, see #23819 and #13780.

[bpetty]

As the Twenty Thirteen part of this issue is handled, moving to WordPress.org milestone.

[SergeyBiryukov]

#16868 was marked as a duplicate.

[iandunn]

The Meta team discussed this and concluded it's more of a Core issue, since the fundamental checks will happen there. If anything is needed from the API or the theme repo, please open ticket(s) on ​http://meta.trac.wordpress.org.

[chriscct7]

Duplicate of #28574.