Instigator Blog - Latest Comments in 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

eve — Tue, 11 Dec 2007 10:04:56 -0000

great post! I always forget the stats code!

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Ben Yoskovitz — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 09:50:28 -0000

Dave - That's true, a number of my suggestions aren't WordPress specific, but others are. For example, WordPress is very plugin-focused, whereas other blogging platforms don't work the same way.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Dave Nofmeister — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 18:39:54 -0000

Much of what you've said can also apply to "regular" blogs.

Any reason why you targeted Wordpress?

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Chris Gray — Wed, 18 Jul 2007 16:24:26 -0000

Ben,

When I first started using WordPress I got burned a few times by #2 (forgetting to re-apply stat tracking code). After changing themes a couple of times (and forgetting to add my stat code back in) I decided I had enough...and wrote a plug-in that does it for you.

The plug-in takes the code mods that you typically make to the header, sidebar, and footer and stores them in the WordPress database. Now, when you switch themes you no longer have to reenter your stat code (because it is pulled from the db instead of the theme itself). Check it out if you are interested: http://www.nmediainteractiv...

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Mark — Wed, 02 May 2007 00:18:18 -0000

Very comprehensive info, thank you

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

lola — Tue, 01 May 2007 07:51:49 -0000

Excellent clause, thanks for work.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

South Carolina — Mon, 19 Mar 2007 21:12:18 -0000

You have a great website. Keep up the good work.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Ben Yoskovitz — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 09:34:54 -0000

Chris - that's a great way of tackling these sorts of things. Not everyone can set that up but many people can and definitely should.

Thanks for stopping by and commenting.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Chris — Thu, 15 Mar 2007 08:04:41 -0000

Very good tips.

What I did was setup a test blog for this purpose, made sure everything worked, got my readers to visit the test blog, made note of their feedback, made necessary changes etc. and only then did I implement the template change on the main blog.

Went off without a hitch :-)

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Peluang Perniagaan — Mon, 19 Feb 2007 09:26:25 -0000

A very good tips indeed. Thanks!

p/s: Although for the moment I would like to avoid the hassle of changing themes, I will definitely make a mental note for your tips.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

voip calling — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:49:24 -0000

thanx

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

king game — Sun, 28 Jan 2007 20:48:34 -0000

thank you!

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Ben Yoskovitz — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 06:02:35 -0000

A backup is a great idea, no question about it. Thanks HART!

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

HART (1-800-HART) — Mon, 22 Jan 2007 04:59:58 -0000

Ben .. don't forget the backups of the old template, before you switch. I like to create a directory in my /themes/ for every "version" template that I use, in case I ever wanted to go backwards.

Also .. I use WS_FTP_LE as my FTP .. but, it's available on many other FTP programs. It's a good idea to set a "start" directory when you log in , so when you log on you go directly to the theme directory online and on your harddrive backup copy. But - when you change themes .. don't forget to change this setup, otherwise you might FTP copy the old theme's sidebar overwriting the new sidebar with all the revisions!

However, in that case - you would have a backup as mentioned in the 1st paragraph to re:copy over the overwritten files :)

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Ben Yoskovitz — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 09:03:11 -0000

BabyGotMac - you're right. I'm about to look at upgrading some WP installs in the very near future, who knows what'll happen...but in the past I haven't had many issues.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

McDev — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 06:46:08 -0000

Good article. Tweaking themes can also make upgrades a little iffy. Nothing worse than a minor WP upgrade causing a plugin (and subsequently a page modification) burst into flames.
:)

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Tim — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 13:06:29 -0000

An easy way for finding out how your new design looks like in different browsers is to use BrowserShots.org.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

tamar — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 10:21:26 -0000

Nice article, Ben.

I'd add that you could check different screenshots of your blogs using browsershots.org. AOL isn't on that list, but a bunch of other browsers are.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Ben Yoskovitz — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:22:13 -0000

Bret - I didn't test in AOL. I can't remember what browser AOL uses anymore, but I doubt many people test using it, although there are still plenty of AOL users out there.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Bret — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 09:16:20 -0000

Great tips. I'll have to make a note of these suggestions for whenever I get around to a redesign of my new site.

Also, did you bother to check your design for AOL browser compatibility? Was wondering if anyone even bothers with that check. I'm completely out of the loop on how some AOL users browse the web but recently learned that AOL can really butcher a site that looks great in Firefox and IE. Was wondering if there is anyway to check a design for AOL compatibility without signing up for AOL.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Ben Yoskovitz — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 06:46:06 -0000

Thank you to everyone who commented, very much appreciated!

For people confused by ptfrance's comment, he was trying to recommend using the Optimal Plugin, which I also recommended in the post. Here's the link:
http://elasticdog.com/2004/...

Steven -- if you've got plugins that solve some of these issues email me when they're ready so I can take a look.

Venu -- Setting up a local install is a very good idea, but I think that's for more advanced users. Some of the points I mention above are for less technically experienced WordPress users. It's the same reason I recommend copying your sidebar contents into a text file, some people may not even be sure how to get to the old sidebar.php file, or might be scared off by seeing php, etc.

When I launched this site I used a blog I have online that I don't really use; made a great deal of tweaks there before going live. But lots of newer people to WordPress just upload a theme and turn it on...

Great advice though.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Venu — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:34:05 -0000

One of the other things you need to do is setup wordpress blog in your local machine

Whenever I shift to a new theme, i backup my blog, restore the contents on my local blog and start working on the new theme. Once everything is in place, all you need to do is upload and activate the theme :)

Regarding point 1, I am not sure why you ask to copy the sidebar contents, it will anyway be there in the sidebar.php of the old theme !

Agree on all the other points :)

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Steven Campbell — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 00:05:43 -0000

Some of these things I've covered in plugins I made. One adds all external Javascript (i.e. Mint tracking), and another updates the sidebar. The ad colors for Google AdSense are extracted from a colorscheme.txt file in the theme (which holds all the main colors used in the theme).

I should release that plugin sometime.

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Tony — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 23:40:09 -0000

Great tips ... congratulations on getting dugg ;)

Cheers
t

Re: 10 Things You Must Do When Changing WordPress Themes

Mike — Mon, 15 Jan 2007 18:35:50 -0000

Good ideas. Changing a theme takes a lot more time than one would imagine.