Previewing new themes for my blog
-
I’d like to “test” out what my blog would look like with a new theme without having to activate it. Each time I try to preview a theme on my own blog, it changes it entirely, deleting my cover photo and menus along with it. ARG!!
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
-
Hi there,
You can preview themes under Appearance > Themes in your blog’s dashboard. You can search for a theme there, and then click the “Live Preview” link.
You will be taken to a screen where you can preview your blog with that theme and change the theme settings. When you are done, you can click the “Cancel” button in the bottom right to go back without activating the theme on your blog.
Please let me know if you have any questions about that!
-
Hi and thanks for the quick response. Thing is, I have tried that and it keeps activating or at least messing up my blog format every time I do. Arg. I’ll keep trying…
-
One thing to keep in mind is that your live preview may not automatically show all of your customizations. For example, you may have to select your custom header and menu from the customizer in the live preview to see how it will look.
You can read more about how the customizer works here: Customizer
If you continue to have trouble with it, please let me know and I’d be happy to help further! If there’s a particular theme you want to preview, please tell me the name of the theme and I can walk you through the process of doing the live preview.
-
I’m currently looking at Adventure Journal. I want to be able to have my menus and also just a brief snippit of the entries beginning with the most recent at the top, with the option to click “more” at the end of the snippit, and also showing the date of the entry next to it and maybe a small photo. It has been a few months so I’m a little rusty. Thanks for the help!
-
This is definitely possible, but some of what you want to do with the design actually comes from how you write the post, rather than your theme’s settings. Here’s what you can do:
To preview Adventure Journal with your menu, you can go to Appearance > Themes in your dashboard. Search for “adventure,” and under the Adventure Journal item click on “Live Preview.”
From there you’ll see a preview of your site, with the customizer on the right. Look for “Menus” in the customizer and open that section. Then, select your custom menu from that dropdown list. This is what it should look like: http://cl.ly/image/0y1p2s2o2L27
To set up your posts show they show a snippit of the entries, rather than the full post, you can use the More Tag in your posts. When you write or edit a post, you can insert the more tag at the end of the snippit you want to show on your blog. Everything below the tag will be hidden, and visitors can click through to read more.
Please let me know if you have any questions about that.
-
You are awesome! Could you just come over and sit next to me while I redesign this? Hahaha! thanks for the help….I’ll play around with this. :)
-
You’re very welcome! :) I hope you have fun playing around with it, and let me know if you’d like any further help!
-
Okay, sorry. I do have one more question. I’m trying to figure out how I can show a “like this” bar and “share this” bar at the bottom of each post like I have seen on others. I have looked through tutorials and because I can’t figure out what it’s called, I know I’m missing it. Thought it might be a widget of some kind but I have worked my way through most of those and none of them do that. How can I add that feature? Thank you!
-
No need to apologize! :) These are called the Like and Sharing buttons, and you can manage them under Settings > Sharing in your dashboard. We also have information about these settings here: Sharing
You can choose which buttons to enable and where you’d like them to appear on your blog from that settings page. Please let me know if you have questions about setting those up!
-
-
Okay, I did that but when I go to my own blog, they are not showing up. Hmmm. What IS showing up is all of my tags.
-
-
Well shoot. Me again, sorry. And now it’s no longer showing. How does that happen? I saw it once but not sure which way I accessed it to check it. But now if I just go directly to the link just like another person would do, the “like” and “share” stuff isn’t showing up. So strange…
-
Right now, you have the like and sharing buttons enabled on your posts and pages. That means that when someone views an individual post or page, they’ll see the buttons. Here’s an example: http://bringiton23.com/2013/08/15/feet-on-the-ground-and-ready-to-fly-again/
However, those buttons aren’t enabled for your blog’s front page, so when someone goes to your front (home) page, they won’t see the buttons below each post. You can enable that option under Settings > Sharing in your dashboard, by going to the “Show buttons on” setting and checking the box next to “Front Page, Archive Pages, and Search Results.”
Let me know if you have any questions about that! :)
-
-
- The topic ‘Previewing new themes for my blog’ is closed to new replies.
WordPress.com Forums 