Changing theme…

• 

  fictionfanakaff · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 4:24 pm

  • Copy link
  • Add topic to favorites

  Hi

  I’m currently using the Titan theme, which I love, but am a bit bored and would like to change. However I believe Titan has been discontinued and I wondered – if I change away from it and then decide I preferred it after all, would I still be able to change back?

  Thanks.

  The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)

• 

  noebiewan · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 5:26 pm

  • Copy link

  I haven’t seen recent info on this, but as of last summer retired themes were still enabled for WordPress.com sites that had previously used them.

  I just successfully reverted one of my old blogs here to the Mistylook theme, which has been retired for awhile, as a test.

  Titan is listed as retired but enabled at this link.

  https://theme.wordpress.com/all-retired/

  Maybe somebody else has more up to date info than me, but I think you should be okay to change and switch back.

• 

  fictionfanakaff · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 5:33 pm

  • Copy link

  Brilliant – thanks, noebiewan! I’ll play about over the holidays then, and hopefully start New Year with a new look… :)

• 

  noebiewan · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 5:38 pm

  • Copy link

  You can also preview a new theme without committing to activate, if that’s any help.

• 

  fictionfanakaff · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 5:59 pm

  • Copy link

  Yes, I’ve been previewing them for ages, but have never plucked up the courage to press that activate button. It would be so awful if all my deathless words were lost to posterity… ;)

• 

  noebiewan · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 6:06 pm

  • Copy link

  I totally understand. It’s like skydiving. You can always change your mind, right until the moment you jump from the plane. :)

• 

  timethief · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 6:07 pm

  • Copy link

  If you have previously used a retired theme on a site you can use it again. Why would you though when themes are retired because they do not support all wordpress.com features? The recommendation is to switch themes and that’s easy to do.

  Themes are just “skins” on WordPress.COM hosted blogs. You can quickly and easily change themes on any WordPress.COM hosted blog to another one found here http://wordpress.com/themes/ and no data will be lost or negatively affected by the change. The only time you may have to do some work is if you are changing to a dramatically different theme and have done any CSS editing.

  Provided you are logged in as Admin under the same username account that registered the blog go to Dashboard > Appearance > Themes, Browse themes until you find one you like and click the “activate” or the “preview” link, or type in the name of the theme you want to use when it appears.

  The theme customizer https://en.support.wordpress.com/customizer/ provides a preview function for exactly that purpose ie. so you can view what a theme will appear like prior to changing one.

  Note that every theme will have a detailed theme description page with set up instructions and a live demo site page that you can consult. Here’s an example:
  https://theme.wordpress.com/lovecraft
  http://lovecraftdemo.wordpress.com/

  Why don’t you try previewing one of these themes? https://theme.wordpress.com/themes/features/responsive-layout+two-columns/?sort=free

• 

  noebiewan · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 6:14 pm

  • Copy link

  I figured you’d have the latest lowdown on it, Timethief. Thanks for the definitive word.

  Also, it’s important to note that many, if not most, of the retired themes are not mobile responsive, which is increasingly important nowadays.

• 

  timethief · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 6:18 pm

  • Copy link

  @noebiewan
  Hi there,
  You’re welcome and I agree 100% with what you said about responsive themes. They are the gold standard. I run only responsive themes these days.

• 

  fictionfanakaff · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 6:35 pm

  • Copy link

  Thanks for that, timethief! The reason I stick to Titan is because it automatically changes top categories into menu items on the top toolbar which makes it easy for people to navigate around the old posts. Being a book review blog, if I change themes I’ll have to put a lot of work into indexing old reviews, unless I could find a new theme that does the same as Titan. But I’ve looked often and never found another one that works that way. (I don’t think I’ve explained that very well, but a comment I get a lot is how easy it is to track down specific posts on my blog, and that’s to do with the way Titan organises and displays categories.)

  Thanks also, noebiewan – I hadn’t realised that about the mobile thing. All the more reason to try something new… haha! I hope it’s not quite as scary as skydiving!

• 

  fictionfanakaff · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 6:38 pm

  • Copy link

  Oh, so meant to say – that’s why I’d like to be able to change back… I suspect I might see a drop in views when people can’t ‘wander’ around the blog looking up old reviews as easily as they do now. But if my views stayed at the current level then I’d be happy to stay on a newer theme – lots of them are more attractive to look at than Titan.

• 

  timethief · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 6:44 pm

  • Copy link

  There isn’t single feature in Titan that isn’t found on other themes here. What you are describing is a horizontal custom menu bar and any themes have horizontal custom menu bars. So you choose a responsive layout theme with a horizontal custom menu, and what you have now will be under “menu” in the customizer for you to select on the previewed them. Changing themes is not a big deal. Moreover, worrying about follower loss due to theme chnage isn’t substantiated by any empirical evidence.

• 

  timethief · Member · Dec 10, 2015 at 6:45 pm

  • Copy link

  edit for missing letter (my eyesight is bad today)
  and many themes have horizontal custom menu bars.