How to Add Display Options to a Thesis Skin

Display Options add serious flexibility to a Skin by giving users the ability to show/hide certain Skin elements or functionality.

Unlike typical Skin API components that involve only a single property or method, Display Options (and also Design Options) must be implemented in three different stages:

  1. Declare options
  2. Acquire user-selected options
  3. Implement selected options

The Thesis Skin API includes a Display Option component for each action listed above:

  1. display() — declare items in the Display Options form on the Skin Content page
  2. $display — acquire user-selected Display Options
  3. display_elements() — automatically implement Display Options

Given the nature of the display_elements() method, you likely won’t need to reference the $display property in your Skin. That said, the property is there if you need it for implementing non-standard Display Options.

Pro tip: Check out the Classic Responsive Skin’s skin.php file for examples of non-standard Display Options that are implemented by referencing the $display property (look for $this->display in the code).