April 8th, 2008

The best way to test new WordPress themes

WordPress, by Donncha.
  1. Download the Theme Tester plugin for WordPress, install and activate it.
  2. Download themes from http://themes.wordpress.net/ (or maybe not, see Adam’s comment below!) and try them out without annoying your visitors by changing themes on them.

My new Theme Tester plugin allows you to change themes and view the results without the visitors to your blog seeing any changes.
There is one cavaet. Your visitors may notice some changes if your current theme uses blog options that a new theme overwrites. This could happen if for example you’re testing a newer version of your current theme or testing a theme based on the same engine as your current theme. The K2 theme springs to mind here because it’s the base for several other themes but YMMV.

I used the plugin already when I trawled the themes sites and the archives at Weblog Tools Collection for a new theme for this place. As you can guess if you’re a regular visitor, I haven’t changed theme yet, but I found a couple of very pretty designs that may make an appearance here eventually.

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Responses to “The best way to test new WordPress themes”

  		1.

    You can also use my User Level Themes plugin to test a new theme on your site. This plugin is less invasive than the Theme Tester plugin as it is totally transparent from a visitors perspective (only site admins will see the new theme).
    Keith at April 8, 2008 1:28 pm Reply

  2. This is exactly what I have been wishing to do since 2.5. This is perfect, and I’m downloading it now. Thank you very much for this!
    elf_fu at April 8, 2008 1:44 pm Reply

  3. Your new plugin allows you to change themes and view the results without the visitors to your blog seeing any changes, except when they do see changes?

    Your post is titled “The best way to test new WordPress themes.” I submit that the best way to test new themes is on a mirror of your site hosted locally.
    Carson at April 8, 2008 1:53 pm Reply

  4. Neat plugin, thanks. I’ve been wondering about trying some new themes out; and this will help considerably.

    Cheers!
    ...paul at April 8, 2008 2:03 pm Reply

  5. Nice plugin.Thanks for this.
    Yang at April 8, 2008 2:37 pm Reply

  6. Looks like a fab’ plugin I can see myself using! Thanks a mill’… this is a very useful tip for the future! Wow… Could I have done with this little gem a week ago!!!
    Patrick James at April 8, 2008 3:36 pm Reply

  7. Good Job My Friend. I have been looking for just something like this.
    Bankans at April 8, 2008 3:43 pm Reply

  8. 1) it has been months since themes.wordpress.net has been available. DO NOT download themes from there, there have been major security flaws in the wild since then. ONLY download themes from the author’s site, or their approved mirrors.

    2) what does this plugin do that Theme Test Drive doesn’t?
    adam at April 8, 2008 4:13 pm Reply

  9. Adam – thanks. TBH I hadn’t come across that plugin before and judging by comments here, neither had others!
    Donncha at April 8, 2008 4:19 pm Reply

  10. I use theme test drive.
    Jenny at April 8, 2008 4:37 pm Reply

  11. I use Theme test drive Plugin, is very very good!
    Matteo at April 8, 2008 4:40 pm Reply

  12. I haven’t used, but I’ve heard a lot of good things about Theme Test Drive too.

    As a plugin author myself, I’m always a little worried that I’ll release a plugin that’s already been done! Still that’s the way it goes – it’s bound to happen sometime.

    At the end of the day it means more choice for the average user, which has to be a good thing (well except for choosing a code snippet plugin – I’m looking at 9 different plugins at the moment!).
    Stephen Cronin at April 8, 2008 6:01 pm Reply

  13. Nice release. At this time, works great!
    Diseño Web at April 8, 2008 7:43 pm Reply

  14. Donncha, this is a great plugin! Especially with WP 2.5 breaking a lot of themes…this makes it much easier to try out new ones without taking the blog down. Nice work!
    WebGeek at April 8, 2008 8:04 pm Reply

  15. Donncha – thanks for the edit.

    I didn’t mean it as a knock against your plugin. I’ve used theme test drive plenty, but the cookies are, er… unreliable. I’ll give yours a try, since I’ll assume it’s a little better.
    adam at April 8, 2008 10:54 pm Reply

  16. Thanks! Now let me have fun with some more themes..
    DavidTan at April 9, 2008 11:41 am Reply

  17. @Adam: Where shall one ‘find’ themes if not on http://themes.wordpress.net/?
    Author pages are a bad idea, since one needs to know them in advance.
    Matthias Pospiech at April 9, 2008 5:58 pm Reply

  18. I found it just easy when writing my new theme to install wordpress on my PC and edit both style and graphics on the fly before I ever uploaded it to the server.
    Brad Hart at April 9, 2008 9:44 pm Reply

  19. Hi Donncha,

    I use Theme Tese Drive as well, but I’d switch to your plugin *if8 it’s completely WP-SuperCache safe. For Theme Tese Drive I have to completely disable Wp-SuperCache to prevent users accidentaly getting the new theme.
    Jean-Paul Horn at April 9, 2008 11:26 pm Reply

  20. Grrr .. the really tiny textarea font in Safari/Mac makes it really hard to see my typos :-( Sorry for the spelling errors in my previous comment.
    Jean-Paul Horn at April 9, 2008 11:28 pm Reply

  21. I use XAMPP Lite on a flash drive. It fits rather well on a 1 gig flash drive and you can simply copy the WordPress 2.5 installation to the flash drive and then test all plugins and themes there. That’s what I did before I installed 2.5 on my blog. The added bonus is that I can develop new themes and/or plugins on the test site on a flash drive – all I need is a Windows computer with a USB port for WordPress development.
    BillH at April 10, 2008 1:06 am Reply

  22. Awesome idea! Thanks so much. I’m constantly looking at new themes, and I know my visitors must think they’ve entered the twilight zone LOL
    Dawn @ Coming to a Nursery Near You at April 10, 2008 1:47 am Reply

  23. Yes, themes.wordpress.net has to get their act together. They haven’t updated in so long, a lot of functionality on the site is broken. You have be careful where you download themes, a lot of third party sites will embed their own codes into themes authored by others. I agree with the above comments about testing WordPress locally, or on a totally different “non production” site…
    Leland at April 10, 2008 2:42 pm Reply

  24. Great plugin, I have used it for tesing some new themes, feeling great!
    Franca Richard at April 10, 2008 10:21 pm Reply

  25. huwaaa.. Thankyou very much. so long to find this plugin :) then i find here.
    Freddy Hernawan at April 11, 2008 3:24 pm Reply

  26. Isn’t it easier to test themes on localhost?
    rick at April 13, 2008 7:45 am Reply

  27. I agree with rick.. but it can be applied only for them who have localhost / local server in their computer, such web programmers. but they who just know how to blog, they will need this plugin. I my self, used to use wp themes without testing. if there are any troubles I can switch back to the previous. cmiiw
    rienarry at April 13, 2008 10:39 pm Reply

  28. Well, since we have installed and what I have to remove when I modify the design changes are only if I change the theme. It is as if assets continue despite deleted.
    Sirenon at April 14, 2008 7:55 am Reply

  29. This is a nifty way to check new themes indeed!
    Eric at April 28, 2008 10:14 pm Reply

  30. Hi excellent articles for a wordpress theme developer. this question arrived for every theme developer. I created a testing blog with all the posts and pages with different content. and i test all the themes on this wordpress blog installation. it is better to check on local server than directly on the live server.
    neel at February 14, 2010 3:26 pm Reply
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