Loading new theme defaults to the existing one
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Hello, I am new to and installed WP a few days ago to create a Personal blog, but I can’t succeed to load the twenty sixteen theme.
When I select and apply the twenty sixteen theme it keeps applying my own personal test page as if my own work replaced the twenty sixteen theme.
How do I start my home page from scratch and make it accept the new theme?
Many thanks!
hbspThe blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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Some additional info. I successfully replaced my homepage with the Tu theme but when I then tried to change that to Twenty Sixteen my old homepage reappeared.
I must have preserved my homepage when I applied twenty sixteen for the first time and this corrupted the twenty sixteen theme.
How do I repair/restore the twenty sixteen theme? I really like that one.
Many thanks.
hbsp -
Hello there,
Many thanks for reaching out and happy to help with this.
To check, is this the intended homepage: https://lonesparrow.ca/the-lone-sparrow/ ?
If yes, this site would need to be made public, and then you should be able to set this as your homepage via Appearance > Customize > Homepage Settings > select “A static front page” and select The Lone Sparrow from the dropdown.
I noticed that most if not all posts and pages were set to private. I’d recommend setting these as public, and if you’d like to keep the site private as a whole, this can be changed via Settings > scroll to privacy > Select private or coming soon.
What are your goals or required features for the website? I’ll happily do my best to guide you in the right direction.
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Thank you for your kind reply!
I am an octogenarian and want to create a private blog to share photographs, highlights of my life, stories I write, travel experiences, etc., for family and friends only. I am not planning to go fully public or start anything commercial.
I didn’t know there was a global Private or Coming Soon option. I have changed this to private and made the other test pages and posts public, but I am still not able to apply the twenty sixteen theme with its original content so that I can modify that gradually as I learn.
Today I started the Udeme video course “WordPress for Beginners,” and I hope this will help me. However, it seems that going with WP.org instead of WP.com would have been a better choice :-( Is it possible to change from one to the other?
As I am completely new to all this, your help is greatly appreciated!
Herman -
Hi Herman,
However, it seems that going with WP.org instead of WP.com would have been a better choice :-( Is it possible to change from one to the other?
Respectfully, I’d disagree with Udemy, especially with your use case.
The big difference between the free software and our service is we take care of security, maintenance, support, hosting, etc, for you, vs just managing that on your own with the free software. We have different plan levels for different features, especially if you need to add outside plugins, since those make our maintenance service more complicated. WordPress.org can be a great fit if you’re up to managing all that on your own, and many businesses and web designers do just that. We’d still argue our service is great for those cases too; we dispel some common myths here.
But if you’re looking for a private site to share personal stuff with friends, you’d do well here. Our services include several popular plugin features, like sharing to social media, so you may not need any features outside the plan you have. And should you ever let your current plan expire, the free site would still be here for you and your close ones, just with ads and a free address. If you bought hosting somewhere and let that expire, that site would just be gone.
Plus, we’re here to help with any support questions. If you want your site to look more like this Twenty Sixteen demo, here’s what you’ll want to do:
1. Start here in your existing posts
2. Edit each post by clicking the three “dots” next to it.
3. Make each post “public” now that the site is private.
4. Here’s how to add a featured image to each post, too: this will get you a lot closer to the look of Twenty Sixteen.
5. Then, head over to your Reading Settings by clicking this link. Twenty Sixteen by default shows your latest (or pinned) blog articles, and it sounds like you’ll want your site to use the same settings, so pick Latest Posts, and save your changes.Then have a look at your site. I think you’ll find that’s what you’re looking for, but if not, send more details and we’ll help! Also, your plan includes direct support, so if you’d like, you can reach out here: https://wordpress.com/help/contact
Cheers! And if you have any trouble with any of the links we’ve shared here, please let us know.
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Thank you, these were very helpful comments. I will look for a course that uses the Personal Plan from the WP.com site. Any suggestions?
I tried your suggestions but can still not apply the twenty-sixteen in its original form, i.e., replacing all my current content. I want to start from scratch by loading the twenty-sixteen theme and modify this a little at a time as I learn.
Thanks,
Herman -
Hmm. Let’s try something different. Click on this link
https://wordpress.com/themes/twenty-sixteen
You should be able to select the blog that you want to apply the theme on. Let me know if that works.
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Thank you all, I appreciate everyone trying to solve my problem.
I can find the theme and can live view it from the Dashboard. The problem is that I cannot apply it to my site. I want the content of Twenty Sixteen to replace my content so that I can start editing its content bit by bit. I want my site to look like that in the last capture below.
Your link gives me a blank page in Firefox which changes your URL to: https://wordpress.com/themes/twenty-sixteen/lonesparrow.ca
In the MS Edge browser, it sends me to this page:
If I click ‘View the showcase’ and search for twenty sixteen I find the proper page:
And I keep trying :-)
Herman -
Ah! It looks like you are getting closer, but you deleted your posts, so the front page doesn’t show anything.
Can you try these steps?
- Go to https://wordpress.com/post
- Write a post (even if it’s short) and give it a featured image (here’s how)
- Publish the post. The site is private, so no one will see it but you, but it will show up on the front page of your site now.
- Go to https://wordpress.com/post again — repeat! :) You can pin one or two posts to the top if you’d like, otherwise, you’ll always display your latest post first.
If you want to add more to the sidebar and whatnot, we can help with that next.
Also, you asked about a course! We have quite a few options.
This one is great for beginning bloggers & will give you a great foundation:
And if you prefer written steps, here’s another tutorial about blogging.
We’ll be here when you’re ready for next steps, or you can also get private support here with your plan. Cheers!
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Thank you all for your help. I watched the videos and followed all your suggestions but nothing worked. I am still unable to load a theme complete with content to get me started. I have moved on and started designing my site from scratch.
THANK YOU again for trying to get me going,
Have a great day and best wishes for 2023!
Herman
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