Developing WordPress Theme with plugins installed?

There really isn’t a way to “bundle” plugins with your theme. You would need to require the user to download and install the plugins separately.

Alternatively, you can reverse-engineer the plugins… and add them as part of your theme. You can manipulate the code… run it from your themes functions.php file.. and then it will be a part of the “bundle”.

I don’t know of any other way to “bundle” plugins with a theme. Other than making the entire thing a .zip file.. and providing instructions to the user to place the theme in the themes directory, and the plugins into the plugins directory.

Thanks for the info Josh, I think the best way for now is reverse engineer the plugins like you mentioned. Hope wordpress will look into this and develop a better way to add plugins into our theme.

Agreed.

I see a lot of theme developers use a metabox or sidebar widget on their admin pages to list “recommended plugins”, or “required plugins”. Perhaps this might be an option for you in the meantime??

Also, you can generate an admin notice after theme installation… prompting the user to then ‘search and install’ the suggested plugins.

You could keep the admin notice on the screen (along with a button to dismiss at anytime, of course) until the user has installed all the suggested plugins.

Just thinking out loud here… ??

Thanks again for the tips :), I think for core plugins like ‘advance custom fields’ or ‘Buddy Press’… I will try embed into my function theme.If it gets too problematic then will just leave a required plugins notice for them. Other non essential plugins like slider or social networks button will leave it as a recommended plugins.