WordPress Theme Detector, the free online tool used to detect the theme(s) and plugins used by WordPress sites, has just been released with a new look and enhanced with new features.
The whole WPThemeDetector.com site has been completely redesigned, including the blog and the Top statistical reports. But what may be most noticeable to the user is the new interface used to display the detection results, which now include a lot of details never provided before.
The New Theme and Plugin Detector
In fact, the detection tool offers so much information now that its output had to be arranged into several collapsible sections (child theme, parent theme, theme providers, plugins, etc.). This will be specially appreciated by users checking WordPress sites that use a combination of child theme plus parent theme and many plugins (as in the case of WP Mayor). By clicking on each section title, you can hide or show the contents of that section, making it easier to concentrate on whatever interests you most.
Instead of a table containing the data extracted from the stylesheet plus a list of plugin names with uncertain links, now you will get a full report about the analysed site including updated real time information, popularity of themes, plugins and providers and stats. The tool will also say in most cases whether a theme or plugin is free, premium, freemium or even custom.
For example, in the case of WP Mayor, WPThemeDetector shows that the child theme developed by Jean is a custom theme, and therefore warns you about that theme not being available for use in other site:
As for the parent theme, the tool tells you that Prototype is a freemium theme (it is actually free but you can get support and additional documentation by paying a subscription) and provides links to the author site and to the theme download and demo:
Then the details of the theme provider are shown on a new section. In the case of WP Mayor only the parent theme provider is displayed, the child theme being a custom theme. Since Theme Hybrid happens to rank #48 in WPThemeDetector Top Theme Providers stats, details about the popularity of this provider are also displayed:
After the theme(s) and the provider(s) sections, it is time for the information about the detected plugins. A lot of new details have been added in this release such as an image for each plugin, its description, information about the plugin being free, freemium or premium, or plugin popularity. The βDownload Pluginβ button now takes you directly to each plugin, except for some plugins still unrecognized by the tool, for which that button will take you to a Google search (however, it should be pointed out here that this tool gets wiser everyday):
A new section about the analysed site itself has also being added to show some information extracted fromΒ historical data coming from previous analysis of that website, along with popularity information. Finally, the tool will indicate if the site uses CDN services or if it is hosted by a specific service specialized in WordPress hosting in order to improve its speed and performance. For example, WP Mayor uses MaxCDN and is hosted by WP Engine:
The detection code has also been improved as new detection features were added to the tool, which now also takes advantage of some APIs and uses some specially developed scripts to get real time information about themes, plugins or website popularity. However, there’s still information that can’t just be automated.
For instance, in most cases there is no way of automatically knowing whether a particular theme is free or premium, not to mention descriptions or even plugin images. That means that a lot of behind-the-scenes manual data checking and data entering operations are needed for WPThemeDetector to be able to provide that kind of information.
The New Statistical Reports
With the data gathered from thousands of searches, WPThemeDetector also produces statistical reports for top themes, plugins and providers.
All these renewed reports show the evolution of rank positions and statistics, and include images and screenshots as well as descriptions, basic pricing information (free-freemium-premium), statistical data and some other features (for example, if a theme provider offers frameworks or if they have a theme club pricing scheme). This information is displayed for each report as shown in the following images:
Top WordPress Themes
Top WordPress Plugins
Top Theme Providers
Go Check It Out
If you’ve used WordPress Theme Detector before but haven’t seen its new face and features yet, give it a try now and tell us what you think about the changes. If you haven’t visited it yet, what are you waiting for? It’s a free resource.
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2 Responses
wpslug.com detects parent and child themes, one of the best wordpress theme detectors hands down.
Cool product! But it currently doesnβt detect parent themes when a site is running a child theme. That should be as easy as reading βTemplate: [ ___ ]β in the child themeβs style.cssβhope they implement that soon.