Questions on changing themes

Friday, August 13th, 2010 at 8:22 am

Changing themes can be stressful. It is relatively easy to change it in the dashboard by clicking on it but some of the tweaks can drive you crazy.

I have a question about upgrading your blog to a new theme. I have a new theme and I have set it up pretty much like I want it on a different website. Example my blog is http://JohnFWagner.com and my new theme is setup on http://JohnFWagnerTest.com. The theme is from the same source, Multiple Streams, even though they look similar they are a lot different under the hood in the way the ads are set up. I am almost ready to change, but I am not sure how to do it quickly while the other blog is still running. When you change themes do you have to redo everything, just the ads, or what. There must be a way to do it with the least amount of work. How would you do it?

First there is no one way to do this easily. A lot depends on how the themes are constructed. The Multiple Streams theme that I use has a lot of buttons and tweaks but they are all hard coded.

One of the things I did not like was that it was not set up to use widgets and why I give people a manual that will show them how to make that available easily.

If you hard coded the test theme (edited the actual theme files) it would be an easy fix. Download the edited theme and upload it to your main site and apply it and it will be set.

The real problem in changing themes is where there is a huge difference in the designs and you are using widgets.

Because widgets are not hard coded but kept in the data base any additions you made on a test site would not transfer to your main site. The only way to make that work would be to transfer the data base elements too and that is not something the average blogger will want to get involved in.

Now this is an advantage when using similar designs. If you currently have a single sidebar and you change to a new theme with a single sidebar your widgets would be the same and your sidebar would not change.

Compare that to switching the theme on this blog that has multiple sidebars – top, left and right to a single sidebar theme. Now I would have to rearrange the widgets. There also might be size problems because my top sidebar here is over 300 pixels but the left and right are 180 pixels and 120 pixels respectively.

Now if the new sidebar was at least the same as the larger one it would not be a problem with dragging and dropping but it could cause some of the widgets like my Facebook widget to look goofy in a wide sidebar when it was configured to fit a narrow sidebar.

For me when I change themes and I am considering doing it here in the next month or so I will do it live. Install and set up the new theme. Start making any necessary changes and just get it done.

If I can’t do this in one sitting fairly quickly it is quite easy to just click back to the old theme and leave it in place until the next time I have a chance to tweak it to the way I want it to look.

Because there is no single answer for doing this I have given you multiple ideas.

Your questions and comments are always welcomed and I would love to hear from you.

About the author

Mike Paetzold got started blogging in 2003 and has become an expert on using WordPress. He has become known as The WordPress Guy.

After being an under ground niche marketer using his blogs he has surfaced to share some of the ways he uses blogs to enter various niches profitably.

If you would like help in building your business check out my coaching offer.