HTML approved, WP rejected – needs "a ton of work"

@Siddharth

I always appreciate your willingness to give more insight into the review process. I’ve seen you post before that killer features in the backend can make up for a less-than-stellar design, or an amazing design can compensate for a light feature set.

@GlossyCat

Since the HTML version was already approved, the design is probably fine for TF standards. I think you need to add in a compelling enough feature set to make someone want to pay double for the Wordpress version rather than just buying the HTML version and working it into a blank Wordpress theme.

I don’t think so that your Item got rejected due to its Visual Appeal. Its Beautiful !

But possibly lacking in functionality. Try adding required features / Pages like duotive suggested.

Plus, I would also recommend adding some widgets to the sidebar .

EDIT : I think Siddharth have explained you ! [ I’m little lazy in pressing “Post a Reply” button ]

Moved to item discussion.

Good evening everybody!

Thanks to all of you who took the time and shared love for the theme, it is appreciated a lot!

I will sure add a lot of the functions you guys mentioned and you brought definitely a new point of view!
Thanks for your statement as well, Sid – I appreciate it! You really “softened” your rejection message One question: the point “better aesthetics” is referred to the backend? Do we need to style the backend?

Designers generally tend to underestimate the work that goes into making a theme truly user friendly and customizable, in the back end.

• You can basically change everything in the header via the backend. The “this is Jay Smith”, the description below, the link – it is all customizable via textfields.
• You can change the content of the downslider via widgets
• You can deactivate auto thumbnails on posts because it is better for the use of the portfolio
• You can en/disable the bottom box at the index.php
• You can change the portfolio welcome text via the backend
• The portfolio simply works by creating categories (which can be created automatically for you with one click via the installation tab that opens automatically after first installing the theme) and assigning posts with featured images to these categories.
• You can fill in every portfolio row/line title and description in the backend, as well as the cases section
• The three services can be filled with customized content in the backend, the price, up to ten features and the title.
• For the mail forms (which I admit I have to validate) you simply have to fill in your email address.
• You can change the copyright, footer text, ASAP text next to the button in the footer, and there are widgetized areas as well
• Plus as I already mentioned, we deliver demo content so the user does not have to go through the extensive documentation in order to set the portfolio or services page up. It’s all filled with content after installing the xml and ready to be adapted by the user.

This is just for the record, because it somehow made it seem like we just added a loop to our HTML theme and resubmitted it.

Of course there is always a lot of room for adding functionality but as far as the current version of the theme goes, each and every little thing is customizable via the theme options panel.

Anyways, I already opened a support ticket as Sid suggested and gladly wait for the suggestions and improvements. If it still seems like the journey of improvements will be a long and hard one we will have to rethink our themeforest-existence.

Thanks again for everybody’s support (also on Forrst, we got over 30 likes and 10+ comments in the few hours that I’ve posted the issue)!

All the best to all of you!

Mel for GC