How To: Optimize Your Theme for WordPress Plugins

A couple of months ago I talked about some ways to adjust your WordPress plugin code to avoid having plugins break your blog. That post was designed to show people how to easily adjust the PHP setup for the calls for their plugins to not fail if the plugin is deactivated. I also think more theme authors should use that method to make their themes compatible with a variety of plugins out-of-the-box.

Along those same lines, there are some simple checks you can do to make sure that your theme has the best chance to be compatible with a plugin. The WordPress Expert recently posted some simple checks to verify that your WordPress theme is plugin-friendly. John recommends you verify your theme uses the following:

<?php wp_head(); ?>
<?php wp_meta(); ?>
<?php do_action('comment_form', $post->ID); ?>
<?php wp_footer(); ?>

If your theme isn’t, some plugins may not operate properly. Great post John!