I read that Kookaburra isn’t compatible with the WP Theme. That’s unfortunate. I can’t consider the new Kookaburra option if it means giving up WP Theme. I had once gone through the problem of attempting to integrate WordPress with my own theme and Backlight. The WP Theme was a simple and easy solution. I depend on WordPress to manage my site. So, Kookaburra is a non-starter then. Sad.
Can, or will, Kookaburra ever be compatible with WordPress?
I’m not committing to it, but neither will I say never. It’s not a priority for me right now, and I’m not particularly interested in digging back into the WordPress ecosystem. If it happens, it will be towards the tail-end of my list of things to do for Kookaburra.
I might also want to look at the lifetime sales for the WP Theme Add-on to see if it’s worth spending time on. The people who use it have really appreciated it, but it hasn’t be a huge winner from a financial standpoint, and demands a disproportionate amount of time and complexity to maintain.
I can appreciate the effort/return question. When I tried to do this myself, before the release of WP Theme, I struggled for a couple weeks to integrate Backlight and WordPress. Basically I had to treat it like two different sites. The main one was controlled by WordPress. Then I reserved a directory for Backlight. In WordPress I created a fake menu to the Backlight directory. Once the user went there, Backlight took over. Then in Backlight I had to fake the WordPress menus.
The integration challenges involved things like the page layout (e.g. headers, footers, body). Depending on the WordPress theme, this can be complicated. Then I had to create a custom CSS for Backlight that duplicated the one from the WordPress theme. It never worked perfectly, but I mostly got it close enough few would noticed. Some things I couldn’t get working, and gave up by hiding the element. Backlight’s headers/menus and the typical ones in WordPress themes were the main problem.
I can’t give up WordPress. If Kookaburra looks interesting enough, and a new WP Theme isn’t released, I’ll have to go back to integrating Backlight myself. If/when that happens, one thing I can remmeber to make this much easier is an abilty to compeltely replace the Kookaburra headers and menus. I’ll have to inject that by copying it from what ever I do in WordPress. I generally look for pure HTML solutions and avoid JavaScript. So this shouldn’t be all that difficult, but I haven’t looked into Kookaburra.
At some point, depending on Kookaburra features, I would be willing try integrating with WordPress again. I’d probably run into some issues, and would give you feedback on how it might be done easier. I’d also write up some instructions on how to go about it.
That all sounds fair. As for replacing headers and menus, PHPlugins should allow for that, without the use of JS.
This is all noted and will factor into any future decision-making around a new WP theme. There are many factors to weigh, though, and not enough time in the world to do everything I wish that I could.