Opened 11 years ago
Last modified 20 months ago
#30 new enhancement
Make better theme test data for display in the theme directory.
Reported by: | whyisjake | Owned by: | |
---|---|---|---|
Milestone: | Priority: | high | |
Component: | Theme Directory | Keywords: | has-patch ui-feedback needs-refresh 2nd-opinion |
Cc: |
Description
Often, themes are bundled with functions that allow for custom display; featured posts, carousels, and more. These themes often look broken on the theme repo, because they haven't been setup correctly. Would be nice to bundle some xml or something to show what a setup theme looks like.
Attachments (5)
Change History (84)
#4
@
11 years ago
Agree with data, basically, in addition to the content, we see featured images, and some dynamic image sizing to match the varied sizes that different themes could have.
#5
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11 years ago
Dynamic image sizing won't be much of a problem, I can use Photon for it or something like that.
#6
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11 years ago
- Cc mordauk added
Better data would help a lot. I always have a really hard time getting a good sense of what a theme looks like with the current data.
#7
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11 years ago
- Keywords needs-patch added
Marking this as needs-patch, because honestly, we can't make this data set alone. Make a test site, create some data. Give us an import file. :)
#8
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11 years ago
@otto42 Is the setup for the theme repo preview documented somewhere? I would like to take a stab at something for this, but don't want to have to spend too much time reverse engineering the theme repo for my test site.
#9
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11 years ago
There's no "setup" to document. It's a normal WordPress single-site install with some custom plugins by us for doing the theme trickery. If you create a normal WP base install, and put a bunch of content on it, then we can use the data from a normal WP data export from that.
#12
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11 years ago
The content we have in there now is kinda crap. I think it started out as an old version of the theme unit test data, and has had a few minor things added to it.
You could start with the latest theme unit test data, but that's geared towards trying to break things, not make them look good or normal.
Think outside the box. What content should a preview site have? Obviously what we have there now is bad, so starting with that is kind of a bad idea, seems to me. I'd start by making a fresh site, and sticking a bunch of various lorem ipsum posts on it, then seeing where you can go with it.
Oh, and I'll be putting a picture of a boat in the first post. Maybe a different boat, but there has to be a boat. Tradition. :)
#14
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11 years ago
- Summary changed from Allow sample content to be loaded into themes for display in the theme directory. to Make better theme test data for display in the theme directory.
#15
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11 years ago
- Cc jcastaneda added
Clearly we should at least be using some post formats. A recent check showed me that there are about 290 themes that have post format support.
We could use different boats as featured images on some posts.
#17
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11 years ago
Also, this a really, really easy one to do. Somebody make a test site. Invite the theme review community in. Make a bunch of posts. Lorem Ipsum test posts. Stick some content in there. Argue about it. Make changes. Fiddle with it and stick tons of themes on it for playing with.
I'm actively paying attention to this ticket. When I see good demo data, rest assured, I will steal the heck out of it and redo the preview site with it from scratch. I am waiting on the community for this, and it sounds awesome to me. Anybody can do it. It takes almost no effort. :D
#18
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11 years ago
Otto. Working on it! (based on the things below)
Here is my thoughts in. Personally, I would like to see the themes were classified by default ”categories”. It should not be confused with the theme tags, but rather be a marker for what kind test data to be used (read on).
(Screenshots at the end of the post).
Example:
- 1. New recommendation for theme developers: Add theme data classification when submitting a theme. This is used for what type of data test the theme defaults to.
- 1.1 Themes submitted before this, is classified ”Standard” in the backend (using the ”Standard” test data).
- 2. Theme Classifications is a fixed set of theme data categories.
- Standard v1
Description: The standard classification (!)
Theme data: The theme units test and all post formats (also sliders as this will be a standard feature in Twenty Fourteen). *In addition to this, a ”Data Test chooser” should be accessible for the user with all the other data tests selectable.
- Standard v2
Description: The standard classification (!) part 2 (what!?)
Theme data: Same as v1, but with data more like real world use.
- Accessibility (Note. Themes choosing this classification should be presented to a secondary theme classification as fallback. This because it only should be themes allowed to use the ”accessibility-ready” tag to be classified with this. When the accessibility-ready review is done and passes, the secondary (used when the theme passed the regular theme review) classification is disabled.
Description: ”Special” Classification (special as in don’t yet know how, or if you can set a classification for this subject).
Theme data: Don't yet know what type of test data that should be included, or if this is even valid).
This is a question that could raised over at Make WordPress Accessible. But the main purpose here is to the test the theme accessibility. This EVEN if the theme is not labeled as ”accessibility-ready”. This could utilize tests (such as WCAG 2.0, things like: http://www.accesskeys.org/tools/color-contrast.html etc) or simply show a Accessibility score based on WCAG 2.0 criterias). Also, the user should have the option to turn all CSS and JavaScript off.
- ”Visual/gallery/media” (Don’t know what to call it yet).
Description: Themes using ”alternate” post display, such as some photo themes and Masonry-style themes.
Examples (all in the themes directory): Snaps, Visual, Snapshot
Theme data: Even if most of this type of themes uses the post-thumbnail we use a set of more ”real world use” like data (skipping stuff like very long titles, 40 menu items and so on) as the user could check everything else with the ”Standard” Theme Data. Also higher resolution on original post image data (covering some themes with full screen views and wide content width)
- RTL
Description: A Right to Left classification
Theme Data: Uses the ”Standard” data with RTL enabled. Could be a option in the ”top menu” also (more about this a bit below)
- ”P2/front end posting” (Don’t know what to call it yet).
Description: Themes with P2 functionality.
Theme Data: As this is a type of theme using ”live” content, we use test data showcasing the special functionality of this type of theme. It could have the front end posting forms displayed, but without posting functionality (this should also be stated).
- Minimal
Description: Minimal content
Theme Data: No post formats, post-thumb functionality, galleries, photos or any other feature. Just text content (ipsum no. Project Guteberg, yes.).
- Others: BuddyPress, WooCommerce, WP E-commerce etc.
As these type of themes uses plugins, or the plugin just adds functionality to themes we do not add special theme data for this. However, when a user is testing a theme tagged with i.e. BuddyPress or stating in the theme description it’s a WooCommerce (or other) theme, the user will in some way ”warned” about this when pressing ”preview theme”.
3. Add a button/link below ”Preview” or in the description (styled) with ”Preview on Theme Author Site” (or something like that, but shorter). When clicking that button, the user will be taken to a static page stating that the user is leaving WordPress org and *input legal stuff about 3rd party links* nor can WordPress org not protect against scary mutant kittens that may or may not be on other sites. Sites like Deviantart does this what i can recall. Also (not on topic) a more ”plugin”-like theme page. I know that some personal branding ala premium theme sites gonna increase the popularity amongst theme developers and users alike.
4. *Instead of show the theme preview in a modal (that one does not always work optimal), we just link to the preview and using a top menu bar like most ”premium” theme sites do, but better. This top bar could be include the menu for the data tests, download link, link to the theme author homepage and a ”back to the theme info” link (and a disable button). It should’t be in the way or conflict with the theme functionality.
5. Theme Classifications should not increase the workload for reviewers or theme authors.
I believe this could really set the standard. Also, it should also ”lure” more people looking for free WordPress themes. I know people (not fact, just observation) that don’t use WordPress org for themes because ”the themes sucks!” solely based on the theme preview. The test XML-files could also be posted just like the Theme Unit Theme Test Data.
Note that the ”classifications” (or whatever it should be called) listed is just examples. It could be less, or it could be more (Video, audio etc).
I haven’t thought about the actual technical implementation, just the ideas.
Cheers! And keep up with all the good work everyone!
Screenshot 1 is here (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17959832/screenshot-2.jpg).
Screenshot 2 here (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17959832/screenshot-1.jpg).
And at last Screenshot 3 (nevermind the styling, it’s just concept) (https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/17959832/screenshot-3.jpg)
#19
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11 years ago
- Cc contact@… added
- Keywords has-patch added; needs-patch removed
Thanks @Anderton for putting this great reply together. I think that ultimately going in a similar direction would be the ideal case.
However in the mean time, everybody is still stuck with the old data, so here's an XML with some new one. That can make things a little better right now.
#20
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11 years ago
This is on hold for a little while until we can deal with some security issues surrounding it, handling https issues, etc. But it is being worked on.
This ticket was mentioned in IRC in #wordpress-meta by Otto42. View the logs.
11 years ago
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #meta by obenland. View the logs.
10 years ago
#29
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10 years ago
I have a test site set up with the new data, and I'm working on it now. Need to figure out some additional database configuration though. Also looking at the plugin that powers the change to see if we can solve some other issues with it too.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #meta by obenland. View the logs.
10 years ago
#31
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10 years ago
How about taking the lead WordPress(com) does?
For example: https://espieddemo.wordpress.com
#32
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10 years ago
I have created a test site using the data provided by Frank in this ticket. You can find it here:
http://ottodestruct.com/democontent/
If anybody wants to help flesh it out before we make a switchover, PM me on Slack and I'll give you a username and password.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by melchoyce. View the logs.
10 years ago
#34
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10 years ago
I've made some updates:
- More featured images
- An audio playlist post
- A post with a tweet embedded (do we want more embeds previewed?)
- Updated a post to show headers and paragraphs together
Some suggestions for further improvement:
- Display a primary menu (right now the menu in the sidebar is part of the monster widget, not a menu)
- Create a "social" menu with facebook/twitter/g+/whatever links and show it if a theme has a social menu area
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by greenshady. View the logs.
9 years ago
#36
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9 years ago
I find lots of themes that look great, but as soon as you install one and activate it, it looks awful. Changes are needed.
#38
follow-up:
↓ 55
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9 years ago
http://ottodestruct.com/democontent is still available for anybody who wants to help contribute content. I have not had many people ask for access to help out with it (only two, to date).
If we're happy with the current content, then we could push it into the previewer as is.
#39
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9 years ago
May be it could be pushed as is- it looks much better than current live data-set.
In the future if there's more people interact and give feedback based on the push, may be there could be another live update.
#42
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9 years ago
Okay. This will need to wait until I return from WCUS, but it's on my shortlist for next week.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by greenshady. View the logs.
9 years ago
#44
follow-up:
↓ 46
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9 years ago
It looks like the site has only one comment at the moment. I think it should include some nested comments and pingbacks too.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by poena. View the logs.
8 years ago
#46
in reply to:
↑ 44
@
8 years ago
Replying to ocean90:
It looks like the site has only one comment at the moment. I think it should include some nested comments and pingbacks too.
Good idea.
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by poena. View the logs.
8 years ago
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #core-themes by poena. View the logs.
8 years ago
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by frankklein. View the logs.
8 years ago
#50
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8 years ago
We should make sure that TwentySeventeen looks somewhat good, that probably means adding a Video Header to the data too.
@Otto42 Can you try trialing TwentySeventeen on http://ottodestruct.com/democontent/ ?
Would it be possible for you to create a wxr
export of the content too?
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by poena. View the logs.
8 years ago
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by poena. View the logs.
8 years ago
#53
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7 years ago
Is this still the direction we are going in or are we going to allow theme authors to include their own demo data, as briefly discussed during WCEU?
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #meta by tellyworth. View the logs.
7 years ago
#55
in reply to:
↑ 38
@
7 years ago
Replying to Otto42:
http://ottodestruct.com/democontent is still available for anybody who wants to help contribute content. I have not had many people ask for access to help out with it (only two, to date).
If we're happy with the current content, then we could push it into the previewer as is.
@Otto42 when you get a chance, would you mind doing that?
This ticket was mentioned in Slack in #themereview by poena. View the logs.
7 years ago
#58
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6 years ago
Any chance this can be refreshed and added in time for the new editor and the new default theme?
#59
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6 years ago
- Keywords needs-refresh added
Looking back at this for contributor day at WCUS 2018.
#60
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5 years ago
In case it's useful, I've attached the XML for the Twenty Nineteen theme demo. 👍
Demo: https://2019.wordpress.net/
XML: twentynineteen-demo-data.xml
#61
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5 years ago
https://themepreview.home.blog/
The demo site is missing the comments, and wordpress.com strips all the form elements for some reason.
#62
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5 years ago
- Priority changed from low to high
We have two repositories (which @poena maintains atm)
https://github.com/WPTRT/preview-content
https://github.com/WPTRT/theme-unit-test
The end goal is maybe to have the ability to switch between multiple layouts based on the tags in the style.css and/or readme.txt (if the theme says it supports shop there could be a dropdown for choosing this layout).
We would also like some input from the design team about the layouts (some examples of layouts built with core editor would be great).
I've also created a user stories that show what are the problems faced and the acceptance criteria needed to resolve this
User story no. 1
As a web site owner, that is running on WordPress CMS, I would like to easily get the same demo data on my site as is on the previewer on wordpress.org, so that I could get inspirations on how to structure data on my site.
Acceptance criteria
Create a demo data with good generic layout (.xml file)
Set up that demo on wordpress.org previewer
Offer that demo on theme review team's github repository
Link to that repository in theme review team's pages (blog, handbook and theme development handbook) so that user can find it
User story no. 2
As a user looking for a WordPress theme, I would like to see different layouts applied on themes I'm browsing, so that I can choose the theme that best suits my needs.
Acceptance criteria
Create multiple different layouts with different images (business, travel, construction, health etc.)
Set up the previewer so that a drop down appears from which a user can select different layout
Offer those demos on theme review team's github repository
Link to that repository in theme review team's pages (blog, handbook and theme development handbook) so that user can find it
User story no. 3
As a WordPress theme developer, I would like to have the ability to upload different demo data, so that I can see how my theme will look like on the wordpress.org previewer.
Acceptance criteria
Offer those demos on theme review team's github repository
Link to that repository in theme review team's pages (blog, handbook and theme development handbook) so that the theme developer can find it and use it while developing
User story no. 4
As a WordPress theme reviewer, I would like to have the ability to upload different demo data, so that I can confirm that the theme will work properly while set up locally and on the wordpress.org previewer.
Acceptance criteria
Offer those demos on theme review team's github repository
Link to that repository in theme review team's pages (blog, handbook and theme development handbook) so that the theme reviwer can find it and use it while reviewing the theme.
We should plan actions, and open a new ticket to resolve all the issues regarding these stories.
#63
follow-up:
↓ 64
@
5 years ago
- Keywords 2nd-opinion added
At the triage meeting, we learned that the problem of the current previewer is a bit bigger than what we initially thought.
We'll have to put this ticket on hold for a bit until we decide what the next steps are.
One option is to build a new previewer, but we need to consolidate on this and make a concrete proposal.
#64
in reply to:
↑ 63
@
5 years ago
Replying to dingo_d:
At the triage meeting, we learned that the problem of the current previewer is a bit bigger than what we initially thought.
Has this been resolved in comment:18:ticket:395? What are the remaining obstacles here?
#65
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5 years ago
The remaining obstacle is that the reviewer is located on a different server, and from what we know it's not on svn and we have no access to it. Also, the way it's set up is totally custom so we'd first have to know what and how it does what it does and only then could we try to work with a new setup.
Since TRT has no access to systems whatsoever we really have no way to influence this 🤷🏼♂️
#66
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4 years ago
I'm revisiting this in the context of 5.6 and Twenty Twenty One - could we possibly consider a combination of starter content (the core feature) and the existing theme unit test data (with room for more later)? I don't think we'd want to have just starter content, as that should ideally be a much more limited amount of content pieces, but unifying somewhat would help with the overall goal of aligning the demo with what users can actually accomplish on their sites.
For the immediate term that probably needs to be turned on selectively, as I imagine the theme review team would want to take some time to make sure any guidelines and processes related to starter content in themes are polished up before broader implementation.
#67
@
4 years ago
could we possibly consider a combination of starter content (the core feature)
The main obstacle there currently is that AFAIK, Starter content requires it to be inserted into the database in order for it to work, and the way the Theme Previewer is currently implemented (badly) is a shared posts table for all. Work to extend it to allow something like this (What would effectively be a multisite-site-per-theme) will most likely require the underlying hosting to be changed completely.
There's absolutely no technical barriers to updating the demo content for all themes though, other than having someone login and do it.
The underlying code for the current platform is pretty bad, but this github branch of mine from last year is basically a reimplementation of it, cleaner and able to be run on any local development environments. For those who want to make changes to the way it works, taking that and building off that would probably be a good start IMHO.
#68
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4 years ago
[10449] missed this ticket.
Theme Directory / Theme Previews: Add support for using starter content as the base for Theme Previews. This is currently limited to the 3 default themes which support starter content while evaluating how well this works, and finding what this doesn't work with. Props dinhtungdu, dd32.
TwentyTwenty and TwentyTwentyOne required some hard-coded require's as they don't load starter content in a way which is accessible to the theme previewer, but other than that, with some tweaks to some code supplied by @dinhtungdu I was able to get this working very well for https://wp-themes.com/twentyseventeen/, https://wp-themes.com/twentytwenty/, and https://wp-themes.com/twentytwentyone/
Thanks @dinhtungdu!
#70
in reply to:
↑ 69
@
4 years ago
Replying to aristath:
What is stopping us from allowing that on ALL themes?
As stated in the commit:
This is currently limited to the 3 default themes which support starter content while evaluating how well this works, and finding what this doesn't work with.
Testing that it works properly, and the fact I had to do hackery to make it work for 2020/2021.
This can be enabled for other themes, but the priority was to get the WordPress themes looking good first, ironing out the bugs, and then enabling for other themes as it's proven to a) work and b) not require specific-theme hacks. I don't have the time right this instant to verify that enabling it for every theme won't cause immediate problems.
https://wp-themes.com/twentytwentyone/ (edit: The 2021 preview isn't yet available, since the theme's not on the Theme repo yet, but it looks great!)
That now works, I added some logic to load it from the Core SVN checkout rather than from themes.svn when a default theme isn't found.
#71
@
4 years ago
@aristath I'm working on a post about this to explain what's going on and reassure theme developers they're being thought of, hopefully will get that done today.
#73
follow-up:
↓ 74
@
4 years ago
Hi guys,
With my new theme in repo (Michelle) I've just noticed that a theme starter content is displayed in theme preview. Great decision, by the way! :)
However, I've noticed some issues with how starter content is displayed in WPORG theme preview:
- Page templates are not honored.
- Menus don't honor menu item title but gets title from pages themselves.
- Options are not applied (such as custom logo image, which would be understandable, but others don't work either).
- If I understand correctly, first sentence of a theme description (from theme header in
style.css
) becomes a tagline? This is usually too long and breaks/uglifies header display.
- Permalinks structure is honored but doesn't work in the theme preview. When set to
'/%postname%/'
in the theme starter content, it produces error 404 for posts in theme preview on WPORG.
Here is a screenshot of the issues mentioned: https://easycaptures.com/fs/uploaded/1386/0868464321.jpg()
Could you please check and fix these issues? Thank you!
Best regards,
Oliver
PS: I went ahead and mitigated for issue 2. and 5. in my theme starter content with a theme update, but those issues still persist.
#74
in reply to:
↑ 73
;
follow-up:
↓ 75
@
4 years ago
Replying to webmandesign:
With my new theme in repo (Michelle) I've just noticed that a theme starter content is displayed in theme preview. Great decision, by the way! :)
However, I've noticed some issues with how starter content is displayed in WPORG theme preview:
Thanks for the feedback! Due to how starter content works, some things were handled in a custom manner and may have been skipped accidentally (Just as we didn't know it was an issue). I'll answer the points I can right now
- If I understand correctly, first sentence of a theme description (from theme header in
style.css
) becomes a tagline? This is usually too long and breaks/uglifies header display.
That wasn't starter-content specific, but yes that's the case.
It uses the first 30 words from the first sentence.
30 was chosen as it's long enough that it works with both themes that expect a longer description, and themes that don't expect it to be set at all - A theme should gracefully handle a long tagline IMHO.
- Permalinks structure is honored but doesn't work in the theme preview. When set to
'/%postname%/'
in the theme starter content, it produces error 404 for posts in theme preview on WPORG.
Themes should not define a permalink structure, at all, and will not be honoured. Please remove that from the theme..
#75
in reply to:
↑ 74
@
4 years ago
Replying to dd32:
Thanks for your reply @dd32.
Re site tagline:
I personally haven't seen such long site description/tagline used in the wild. WordPress tagline input field length actually suggests it should be something short such as a website slogan or something. That's why I'm pretty confused about 30 words long tagline in theme preview.
But I get your point that a theme should handle such long tagline text too. Lacking a personal experience is not a reason not to do so :)
Re permalinks structure:
I've removed that from starter content settings already, like I've mentioned in my original comment. I just used what's possible in starter content functionality and having was basically suggesting using SEO friendly permalinks. That's what starter content seems to be: a content and settings suggestion.
But I get your point and won't set this in starter content any more.
#76
follow-up:
↓ 77
@
3 years ago
Would there be support for at least replacing the existing content with the block equivalent?
#77
in reply to:
↑ 76
@
3 years ago
Replying to poena:
Would there be support for at least replacing the existing content with the block equivalent?
+1 for this.
#78
@
2 years ago
I have uploaded the xml file with the current content converted to blocks. I also replaced a link to the codex with a link to the developer resources.
#79
@
20 months ago
Looking for help to test the theme test data, https://github.com/WPTT/theme-test-data/pull/73
How about a more standardized set of preview data instead?
A theme should have sane defaults, and it always is annoying to me when I see a theme demo that looks good, but then you install it and it looks terrible without that pre-made setup.
If the theme-reviewers want to get together and make a big set of previewer-data, then we can load it in there and get it going. But having this on a per-theme basis seems rather unlikely to be useful to users, in the long run, because they won't get that when they install the theme.
What we show in the previewer should be a reasonably accurate reflection of what the user actually sees after installing the theme. If you make the theme look good as a fresh install, then it will look good in the previewer too, since it essentially is a fresh install.