Redesigning Your Wordpress Theme? Do It Behind The Scenes With This Plugin
If you hadn’t noticed, I love my Wordpress Plugins. Whenever I see one I think looks even somewhat relevant to my blog, I jump on it. Some day soon I’ll post all the ones that I’m running, but for now I’m just going to point and talk about some of the best in detail. The big one I’m going to talk about today is called Preview Theme.
If you’re a somewhat regular reader of my blog, you’ve noticed massive change over the past few weeks, as I work myself into becoming a regular blogger. One problem when changing code and modifying the look of your Wordpress theme, is if you make one slip of the keyboard, you can completely screw up your entire blog for you and all of your readers. That’s where the Preview Theme plugin comes in handy. This plugin allows you to work with a 2nd theme uploaded to your server, while your default theme maintains it’s pretty look. This allows you to mess with your fonts, your header, your sidebar plugins or anything else you want to modify. Break something? No worries, you’ve still got your original intact.
Due to limited details on the plugin’s site, here are the detailed instructions:
1. Download preview-theme.zip
2. Extract the zip file and upload the folder into /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
3. Activate the plugin
4. Download your theme to your local computer and rename the folder to a shortened name that you’ll remember(i.e. preview)
5. Open the style.css file in the theme folder that you just renamed, and change the theme name on the top line, to the same name as the folder you just created.
6. Upload the new “Preview Theme” to your themes folder.
7. You may now go to your theme editor and modify your new preview theme to your heart’s content.
8. Type in your appropriate address:
http://www.listikal.com/?preview_theme=your_preview_theme_name/
There you are, work behind the scenes on your Wordpress theme, without your readers EVER knowing.
Interesting Thoughts
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Share This | Posted: June 14th, 2007
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June 14th, 2007 20:40
This is a great find, I am creating a new theme for which I would like to use this before deploying to live.
Even then I run a identical wordpress installation on my local machine to test out everything before I can shift it to the live server. This is a better approach since you are not even doing anything with your live site.
June 14th, 2007 21:54
This sounds great. I’m going to be using this plugin a lot for sure.
June 14th, 2007 23:47
Great find. I’m designing a WP theme and this would come in handy for sure. Thanks for sharing.
June 15th, 2007 05:42
Great that you mentioned it! Im going to try it out…
June 15th, 2007 05:58
I was looking for something like this since I was testing out for a new theme lately..
I sure will try this out.
June 15th, 2007 06:54
Very interesting. As always, you’re on top of the plugins. Personally, I still have to upgrade to 2.2
June 15th, 2007 07:39
Glad you guys like the plugin, because I know I did. Once you start using it, you’ll find improving your theme to be so easy, you’ll start doing it regularly. Although, I really have to get off my theme mod addiction and just begin writing good content.
June 15th, 2007 15:16
great find buddy, quite useful plugin.
i will test my designs in my machine itself before going to live. i will try this one next time.
June 15th, 2007 16:27
Thanks Ram…That’s what it’s there for.
June 15th, 2007 17:40
This is a interesting find. It is always good to test it live before getting promoted. Thanks for sharing.
June 15th, 2007 23:37
That’s good plugin… I currently use easy php which runs a local wordpress blog in my local computer and i work on all the themes and new plugins in local computer and then upload it to the server.
June 16th, 2007 07:56
That’s a great idea Shivar. A local installation would be very helpful.
June 16th, 2007 11:41
Great find man . This will come in handy . Currently i use Xaamps to test the themes locally .
June 17th, 2007 11:01
[...] - Redesigning Your Wordpress theme? Do It Behind The Scenes With this Plugin One problem when changing code and modifying the look of your Wordpress theme, is if you make one [...]
June 17th, 2007 11:45
This is pretty cool. I’ve seen and tried others that simply put up a “maintenance mode” message, but I like this method better so people can continue to view my blog. Thanks!
June 18th, 2007 07:01
Yep, thanks a lot. I too use XAMPP to test themes. But this one’s really cool. Thanks
June 19th, 2007 23:44
XAMPP? Haven’t heard of that one. Some type of offline Wordpress emulation tool for Windows? I’ll check it out, Thanks
June 20th, 2007 06:26
XAMPP is actually a standalone server like EasyPHP and others. I just use a local installation of WP and try things out
July 8th, 2007 06:23
Thanks for the detailed info on this plugin. Unfortunately, even with your steps to using it, I can’t seem to get it to work.
I followed your steps, but when I go to preview the theme, I still get the same theme that my blog is using.
I’m wondering if I am missing something. This is the link I am using:
http://www.parallelmvmt.com/?preview_theme=version2
And the new theme I am trying to preview is named Version 2.
Any ideas on what I’m missing?
July 13th, 2007 07:25
@a girl named Rock
Have you had any luck getting it working yet?
July 18th, 2007 01:14
Listikal,
I’m also not able to test this using preview theme. Its loading the default theme.
July 18th, 2007 06:54
@Nirmal
Two things to make sure:
The preview theme is renamed in the CSS file to the same as the folder you’ve renamed via http://FTP.
July 18th, 2007 07:36
I found out the issue. Its not accepting any spaces between the theme name. Further why should I change the theme name first of all? I didnt get that idea.
September 17th, 2007 00:11
[...] Detailed instructions: Redesigning Your Wordpress Theme? Do It Behind The Scenes With This Plugin [...]
December 6th, 2007 19:29
Now that’s what I call an idea!
April 9th, 2008 14:22
Didn’t work for me either… Found a few similar plugins I will try.
May 4th, 2008 13:58
IpPreviewTheme v1.0 - a Wordpress Plugin…
Short: Use this wordpress plugin to preview your own theme when comming from your IP:
This is a wordpress plugin to allow viewing the selected theme when comming from your own Ip, logged in and have over 8 in user_level. Usefull when developing a new t…