Tempted to change theme BUT…
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I am currently using Sundance theme but I am tempted to try Oxygen instead. The thing is, I have quite a lot of content on my blog and it’s bilingual, so I have e.g. category pages for each language, front page directing you to the language you want, lots of CSS moderations… and I am afraid if I change the theme it will only bring a huge amount of extra work to get everything in place. When I am previewing the Oxygen theme, it looks like not many things actually change automatically (e.g. category pages). Could it be that the preview is not showing all the features or is it really so that I have to configure everything again if I try another theme now? What are the features which don’t get transferred automatically if I change the theme? A part of me wants to satisfy as my blog is now, just because it’s easier, but I think with Oxygen theme I could maybe make my blog look more professional and nicer… Thanks for any advice.
The blog I need help with is: (visible only to logged in users)
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All your posts/pages/categories/etc will be maintained when you switch themes so most of your site will function exactly as before.
If your new theme has different widget areas then some of your current widgets may get de-activated, but you can always drop them back in where you want them to appear (see here)
CSS is a different matter as the code you use is dependent on the underlying theme, I would recommend completely removing all your custom CSS when you switch (you can always go through the revision history and switch back – so don’t worry). Then, if there are still changes you want to make, you can try adding rules back in one by one, seeing if they still correctly target what you want (I would imagine a lot of them won’t) and then modifying them should you need to. In many cases it might actually be quicker to start writing the CSS from the beginning using your old declarations as a guide.
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Thanks for your quick and clear reply. Yeah I already copied all my current CSS and saved them to my computer so I can then copy and paste them back if needed. You encouraged me enough to try changing the theme so I think I will start working on it now when I have time! :)
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Actually… I tried it but freaked out and switched back to my original. None of the posts appeared on the category pages, even if I defined the custom menu again. If posts don’t appear on category pages, they don’t appear anywhere. So I panicked and quickly changed back. Maybe I just try to keep on improving my current one! :)
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Are you sure? I’m not sure what would cause that apart from not removing your custom CSS – all the WordPress.com sites run on the same set-up so if it works for one site it should work for the (many millions of) others!
If you preview/activate your site briefly in the new theme and then view one of the category pages (like this one) then do you see some posts, starting with your “Bucket list” one from yesterday?
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No I don’t. Not even if I click any category on the preview mode, they don’t seem to work at all. Clicking tags it worked.
That’s why I asked about it in my first post in this thread, that could it be that everything doesn’t show properly on the preview mode. Even after activating the new theme (and removing all CSS), if I cliked e.g. “My blog in English” category page, only the page title was showing and nothing else. Like I mentioned in my previous comment, I defined the category pages again on custom menu but it didn’t help. So that’s why I changed back to my original theme. Neither did my header image, for example, appeared on the new theme but that is easy to fix! :)
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I’ve tagged this conversation for a member of staff to take a look at as I don’t think this is something where I can offer much assistance without asking you to switch your theme and leave the (broken) version public for a while so I can investigate.
If you’re happy to do that then just let me know and I’ll take a quick look then you can switch it right back!
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Let’s wait a while in case the person you tagged could help. Thanks very much for your assistance.
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Hi Saana,
Right now, your blog is using a custom menu that has links to your category pages. However, when you preview a theme, it shows you the site’s default menu (which doesn’t have the correct links to your category pages). You’ll need to reactivate your custom menu on the new theme first.
While you’re previewing the theme, you can go to the Menus section in the Customizer. There, for the Primary Menu, you can choose your custom menu called “My menu.” That will activate that menu.
Then, you can click each of the links in your menu — those links should all work, including your category pages.
Please let me know if you have any other questions about that. :)
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Thanks for your reply, that really was the problem. Wouldn’t have realized it by myself. When I tried activating the theme earlier I even redid the custom menu but didn’t realize it wasn’t activated! Oops! :)
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Oxygen is a configurable theme. You will have to fart around setting a Featured Image for each post and so on.
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I created a private test blog for me to test the features of Oxygen theme. I tried a few others but can’t help it that I like Oxygen the best! :) My question is: is it possible to have two different showcase pages with different sticky posts on each showcase page?
I have a bilingual blog and I have used category pages for English posts and Finnish posts. With my Oxygen “test blog” I set my home page as a showcase page with English posts. Is it possible to have another showcase page but only with Finnish posts? Or would I need to have two separate blogs in order to do that?
Thanks a lot in advance, I hope I explained my question correctly! :)
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Hi Saana,
No, it isn’t possible to have different sticky posts show up on different showcase pages. You’re welcome to set up more than one page with the showcase template, but the posts that appear there won’t be different.
Instead, I’d recommend setting up two different blogs for your English and Finnish posts, and link between them. (That’s the third method recommended in our guide for setting up a multilingual blog.)
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Thanks for your reply @rachelmcr
Two separate blogs would indeed be the easiest solution, but isn’t that correct that in order to do that I would need to purchase another domain and another custom design upgrade? If there is a way around all that, I would definitely like to do that. But at least when I created a private test blog just to test new themes, I wasn’t able to use my paid custom upgrade for that. So I guess the upgrades are per blog, not per account? -
Hi Saana,
Yes, upgrades are per blog, not per account, so if you have two separate blogs you’d need to purchase the upgrades you want on each blog. If you prefer to keep everything on one blog, you’re welcome to do that, but in that case you won’t be able to have completely separate showcase pages for each language. It’s up to you. :)
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Thanks for confirming that. I have now two separate home pages, sort of, the “official” home page for English sticky posts and another page called “koti” for Finnish home page, where at the moment I just show 4 latest posts in Finnish. On the “official” home page, which is my showcase page, the sticky posts are English only, but below on “recent posts” section also Finnish posts appear. Is there a way to exclude a category (I have categorized my Finnish posts with category “Blogini suomeksi”) so that the Finnish posts wouldn’t show on the recent posts section at all?
Thanks once more for great help.
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You could try using the display posts shortcode in a text widget which lets you specify categories or tags to include or exclude.
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Hi Saana,
The recent posts section in the showcase, like a regular blog page, will always show all of your recent posts. There isn’t a way to exclude certain posts or categories from that page. If you want to keep the posts totally separate I’d recommend using Category Pages, instead.
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And there is no way to have a post slider on a category page, I suppose? :) I guess I really need to start thinking about separating the blogs… Thanks for your help anyway. This forum really is like a lifeline! :)
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