Theme Switch and Preview Plugin
With this plugin you can switch to a totally different blog theme when you are logged in to your WordPress dashboard. It's great for theme development as you can tweak the templates online without breaking stuff for visitors. You can also use it for presentations, to show off various templates. I have added a widget to make this easier.
New in 0.6.0: This plugin has now three basic configurations:
- Only admin: This is useful for theme developers and to preview themes on live sites.
- Only with passkey: Send your clients preview links. They won't need an account on your blog for this to work.
- Everybody: Theme switching for everybody.
There is a shortcode that has two modes:
Text link cloud demo
{nkthemeswitch}
Screenshot link cloud demo
{nkthemeswitch}
Download the plugin from it's WordPress.org page.
WordPress plugin demos are disabled as I don't use WordPress on this site any more.
I just found out that a similary plugin already seems to exist, see <a href="http://www.prelovac.com/vladimir/wordpress-plugins/theme-test-drive/trackback/" rel="nofollow">this page</a>. Well, more choice is a good thing I guess.
I really love this plugin, but it would even be greater if you can set a date that the theme has to change automatically.
Thanks!
Hm, what would you use that feature for? The plugin is only intended for logged in users, so most of your visitors wouldn't see the effect anyway.
Hi - I would like to use this plugin however even when I activate the widget it does not get displayed in my sidebar (I am logged in as an admin). Other widgets work fine. Any idea what could be wrong?
Thanks
That's odd. What wordpress version do you use, do you have some sort of caching enabled? Have a look at the plugin's settings page as well, maybe "Who should see the theme switch widget" is not set? If not please report back.
Ok got it working - deactivated and reactivated everything and it worked! I had obviously done something wrong! Thanks
Great! :-)
Hey nicolas.. cool plugin - cheers.. maybe you got a little answer for me.. does the plugin change parts in the database?
Hi Romen. No, the plugin doesn't touch the database at all.
Hey.. thanks for the cool plugin its working like clockwork!
Hi,
Great plugin! I want to allow all logged in users the ability to customize the site by CSS style switching. Your widget would work perfectly but unfortunately do to the design of the blog I am not permitting any widgets. What code could I add to my header for example which would allow the same functionality?
Thanks a million!
Hi Pete, did you read <a href="http://www.nkuttler.de//2008/10/05/use-different-css-style-for-logged-in-wordpress-users/" rel="nofollow">this post</a>? That could be modified to check which $user_ID is the current one I guess.
Hi Nicolas,
i'm using 2.7.1 and when I activate the plugin Worpress doesn't works. Appears an error that says something like "you do not have permision to enter this page".
I hope you know how to solve this.
Thank you
That's odd. Can you paste the complete error? If you don't have enough permissions change them, your FTP client can probably do that.
Hello,
thanks for this plugin. I would welcome if visitors could switch the themes as well. I have a website with free WP templates and also it could deny some themes which I don't want to show because I am using WP MU platform.
regards,
Roman
nkthemeswitch works great except for one problem: When adding a new page, the template options remain those of the active template, rather than the one I am editing using nkthemeswitch.
Would be great if this could be fixed. Great plugin.
Thanks
Hi Derek, it's true that my plugin doesn't touch the admin area at all. Do you know of a free template that has options? I'd need one to test if I can implement your idea.
Roman, that's a feature I didn't want to add, but it makes sense for the kind of site you describe. I'll think about it.
Wondering if your plugin has the ability to use URLs to display a certain theme. I'd like to be able to send my clients to a URL that automatically displays the theme I've built for them. Can't figure out how to do it. I tried something like: http://www.mysite.com/demo/index.php?wptheme=Classic
But, it doesn't work. Any help you can provide?
Thanks!!
John
It would be useful to be able to have multiple themes for multiple user levels.
e.g.
Public
Subscribers/Members
Editors
Admin
Different widgets is another complication... maybe take a look for wp2.8+ as things are changing?
Good idea... maybe i can implement it this weeked... no promises though, rather busy lately.
Hm, the first suggestion sounds relatively easy to do, though I'm not quite sure if I see the need for it. Care to elaborate on a usage case?
Different widgets is probably not going to happen, that would get rather messy I think.
I wanted to say thanks for the plugin - I actually modified it to perform a browser check instead of a user level check to display a legacy template to IE6 users. Works like a charm!
Tucker, I like this idea. Would you mind sending me a patch? I'm sure it would be useful for other users.
Thanks for this plug, But only registered users ? I want anyone select the template in this plugin ?
Is there a way to get this plugin to order installed themes alphabetically in the drop-down?
Good idea, the themes are now sorted alphabetically. Thanks for the suggestion.
Attribute minimization is forbidden () it should say () this will help validating your code
Vincent, I can only guess that you mean the widget markup? Yeah, if we assume that everybody uses XHTML the code wouldn't be correct. I'll think about it.
Hi Nicolas,
can this plugin be adapted to display a different theme depending on the page template being used? I want to display a different theme for blogposts and keep the static part of the site under a different theme.
Thanks for a great plugin!
Hi Peter, it's certainly possible to modify the plugin to do that. But the plugin wasn't really designed to be used for all visitors, I'd have to test lots of things if they break, like caching etc... There's a comment above by Tucker and he says his modifications work, so there's some hope.
Oh, and you should probably look at <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Template_Hierarchy" rel="nofollow">this page</a>, it sounds like what you want is already possible in WordPress without a plugin.
Hi Nicolas, Thanks for your reply!
I did see Tucker's comment above - did he ever send a patch to you? He didn't supply a website, or a way to contact him. It sounds like his adaptation should work similar to what I'm trying to do.
What I'm looking to do is a bit different then setting a different template inside the theme directory that looks different form the rest of the site. I want blog posts to display using a theme that resides in a different directory. That would mean being able to check to see if the page is a posts page or not and based on that activate a different theme for that page.
Your plugin works fantastic for theme development btw, great find!
0.5.0 Does NOT work with child themes, in the theme selection dropdown all the child themes are listed using the name of their parent theme.
Hello DavyB, I changed the code that returns the theme name. Which parent theme do you use, I'd have to test it. Did this work in earlier releases?
Hi,
First of all, thank you for this handy plugin.
As John Morris asked above, having a link to a specific theme would be a fantastic idea. Is-there a way to do that?
Gérald
Salut Gerald,
that feature is already built in. Check the plugin options page to see all available switch/preview links. They are at the bottom of that page.
This is fantastic. Thank you very much. I found it finally - saddly, this function is not clearly indicated on the admin page - as it is an important feature.
Hm, do you have a suggestion what to change? I thought "Open theme in new window" was obvious.
Nicolas, this is really great job.
How to use the passkey feauture? www.domain.com/998464354984655416313ds3f318
So after the domain goes the passkey?
Hello Leg,
Thanks! There are preview links on the options page in the admin area as soon as you enable the preview links. They are at the bottom of the page. I'll have to think documenting that better I guess.
Hi Nicolas,
I'm looking for theme switch plugin that doesn't redirect the user to the index page of the new theme but keeps them where they are.
Is this an easy modification to your plugin? I'm a gold-certified copy-and-paster but not a php dev!
Also being able to exclude certain themes would be brilliant - as I think Wordpress' auto upgrade adds the default and classic themes back into the theme folder if they're not present.
Cheers, Gareth.
Ok - solved this myself by adding the links to new themes manually rather than via the widget (not using the _blank).
Do these still have the rules set in the options page applied to them eg. cookie setting and expiry?
Hi Gareth,
I didn't realize the new widget does redirect to the home page, I'll fix that as soon as I can.
Excluding themes sounds like a good idea, I will add it to the plugin.
Yes, the settings still apply.
I am interested in excluding some themes too, is this something you are working on?
I think I will add the option to exclude the default and the classic theme for the next release. I probably won't add fancy features like a selection which themes to choose from though.
Actually, the exclude option works now, you can get the development version of the plugin at http://downloads.wordpress.org/plugin/nkthemeswitch.zip
I will make a formal release as soon as the translations are ready.
Thanks Nicolas - stirling effort!
Made a new bugfix release, 0.6.1.1. Adding Status: unpublished to the header of a theme's style.css file will now exclude that theme from being shown in the theme cloud as well.
When I click on the click on the screenshot, the Theme does not change. It just links back to my actual site.
The URL in the address bar displays like http://domain.com/blog&theme=Theme1
Hm, can you provide a little more info? Are permalinks enabled and on which page did you have the theme cloud? It would be great if I could reproduce the problem.
@melanie says :
i undstand, you can open file : Plugin/inc/themeswitch
at line :169
$r .= '&';
Change it to : $r .= '/?';
demo : http://www.templatelib.com/demo/?theme=WordPress+Default
Well, that would break on the next plugin upgrade as this code won't change for now. I see it could be wrong if a blog has a static frontpage, the cloud is on that static frontpage, and the blog doesn't use permalinks. It would be great if melanie could comment.
Replying to myself :-) Yes, this is the scenario where the bug occurs. Will release a fix later today.
1. I'm new to wordpress
2. I have a custom theme that worked before being modifying to wordpress - it now has been modified to wordpress
3. the dashboard > new themes > upload loads the zip file but there are problems
3. I downloaded your themeswitch plugin to see if I can identify the error but I don't know how to use the plugin -- could you possibly advise (is it typical to get such problems or is it just me?)
Thanks
Sorry, I have no idea what you're talking about.
Nicolas,
Thanks so much for this plug-in. I LOVE IT!
I would like to comment on a small thing that I noticed with it. I use it as a WIDGET on the side panel ... not with images of screen shots ... Just the drop-down selecting tool.
Here's the small problem I noticed. If I'm currently viewing the base URL of my website and switch to a different theme, then the plug-in makes the theme switch alright, but it throws me at a particular article only location ... it doesn't make the switch at the base URL that I was at before the switch.
I also noticed that if I'm viewing a specific category and use the plug-in to switch the theme, then it again will switch themes, but leaves me at a randomly selected article ... not viewing the category I was at when I made the switch.
For me, this is only a small annoyance, and I still LOVE THIS PLUG-IN. I'm also only 3 months into WordPress as well and love it as well. But it would be great if I could have the plug-in make the switch and be viewing exactly the same content afterwards as before!
I have not tinkered with any of the code for Theme Switch ... but have done extensive customization in other places. Let me know if it's possible that this may be on my side and not occurring with anyone else. I also have Elegant Box as my default theme ... which itself has several optional styles that are selectable ... could it be possible that this is interfering with the Theme Switch Plug-in not matching the exact URL during it's use?
I certainly do not want to you to spend an enormous time on this ... it's not THAT important to me ... hopefully this might be a quick fix. :)
thanks again for the time and energy spent contributing this plug-in to the community,
best regards,
Hi Richard, thanks for the report. I'll look into this ASAP!
Finally found a few minutes, I'm uploading the fix right now. Thanks for reporting this Richard!
Hi Nicolas,
Thanks so much for your efforts; however, the fix does not seem to be working for my site.
Is Version 0.6.1.3 the latest version?
I tried a clean install by deleting the plugin and re-installing using the WordPress automatic install wizard.
I have settings set for allowing anyone to switch the theme. Still, the main problem is that if you are at the BASE URL of RichImages.net and perform a switch theme request, then you will be thrown to a particular article ( looks to be the oldest article for the current month ).
Again, if this is an easy fix, greatly appreciated. If not, then it can be placed very low on my priorities.
best regards,
Richard
Oops. It looks like I made the release without including the bugfix, sorry about that. 0.6.1.4 should fix that, uploading right now.
Thanks ... works great ( hate to run you through version numbers :) )
Base URL works perfect through a switch, ... so does viewing an individual article; Switching will from the base URL or a particular article will maintain consistency after the switch.
( Testing Feedback: Viewing or and switching themes throws you at some particular post ... but I doubt 95% of viewers will ever notice this, as they probably switch themes some time before selecting a category or monthly archive! )
Thanks for the updated version!
Oh right. This is because wp thinks it's on the page that shows the first article when you're on any list page. This is quite annoying. It's fixed now, hopefully for good :-) Thanks for reporting it!
By the way, both fixes were basically one-liners, so no worries :-D
Thanks ... works Great!!!!
This is quite an improvement for those that make this plug-in available to all viewers for their personal preference!
Glad both were one-line fixes as well!
Hi, thanks for great plugin. It helps me many times.
I've made Ukrainian translation - http://wordpress.co.ua/download/plugins/theme_switc_uk_translations.zip
Thanks again!
Hi AzzePis, this is great, thanks a lot! I will include your translation in the next release.
Hi Nicolas - Okay, here's a weird one. I installed your plugin (0.6.1.5) into my personal blog (running 2.9.1) and it activated okay and switched between my installed themes without a problem. However...(isn't there always a however?)
When it's activated and I attempt to add a new theme via "Themes/Add New" and click "Install" on any theme I wish to try, it opens up the install pop-up box for "Nice Wee Theme" only rather than the theme I want to install (yup, "Nice Wee Theme" is listed in the WP themes directory, BTW).
To clarify, when "Theme Switch and Preview" plugin is activated, no matter what new theme I try to install via 2.9.1's add new theme function, it always pops up the install dialog box for "Nice Wee Theme" without exception.
Note: I can't actually install "Nice Wee Theme" though as hitting the Install button takes me to a "Are you sure you want to do this" page with a "Try again" link that takes me back to the same page.
Disabling the plugin via it's options doesn't solve the problem but deactivating it returns everything to normal and I can add new themes as usual.
Just to make sure I installed 0.6.1.5 on an online test site also running 2.9.1 and had the same results. All my error logs are clear so no info there.
Any ideas?
Hi Kirk, not really, but thanks for the detailed report. I'll try to reproduce the problem.
Hi Nicolas,
Just upgraded to the latest and am having the following problem:
I have no widget to drag to the sidebar to allow users to switch themes.
Thanks,
Wow, thanks for the report. I wonder how I could miss that... uploading the fix right now.
Nicolas,
Thanks for the speedy fix! Your dedication speaks volumes!
best regards, sir,
Hi Nicolas,thanks for your contribution.
Do you know a french traduction of this plugin ?
Hi great plugin. Glad to find it!
Totally newbie question with this, but can something like this plugin be used to develop not only a different theme (ie look and feel) but a completely different site with new content, areas etc?
In other words, I have a very basic default theme currently live that amounts to a basic information page and that a new site is coming. Using your plugin, can I be developing this new theme with a new look and feel as well as all new pages, areas, page templates. In other words I want to hide the new content as well as the theme. Is that possible with this plugin? Or will I have to make pages/posts active/inactive as I go through development in conjunction with the theme switcher plugin?
Sorry for such a basic question, but trying something I haven't done before and hoping this plugin can help. Many thanks for any help!
Hi. Hmmmmm. There are various ways of doing what you describe. The easiest would be to hide new pages/posts as you say.
I would probably make a second WordPress install, create the new site there, and then move it to the live site.
The WordPress 3.0 release will make all of this much easier, as you will be able to have multiple blogs in one install. I think it's scheduled for release in march.
Salut! Sorry, I think I missed your comment earlier. There is a tool called poedit www.poedit.net that you can use to translate the plugin. If you send me your translation I'll include it.
I am trying to add this great plugin to my tabs on my homepage. I have to call it, but I don't have any clue how.
[nkthemeswitch] doesn't work. It has to be php. What code can I use?
Thanks
Okoth
I think calling nkthemeswitch_shortcode() should work.
just to report that problem described by Kirk M reproduces very well on all my 2.9.1 WP and latest plugin installs... theme offered for Install is different, though :-)
Yeah, didn't have the time yet to look into it, sorry about that.
Hi Nicolas:
Ran into a potential small bug ... I'm using WP 2.9.2
When I try and install a new theme using the internal WP auto install, Wordpress always gives me the very 1st theme "vermilion" no matter what I chose.
As soon as I deactivate "Theme Switch & Preview" everything works fine
Hmmm, installing new themes doesn't work for me at all, with or without my plugin. No idea, I'll need to look into this.
I think I had to shut down my browser, clear it's cache after deactivation your plugin - then new themes download and install worked.
Hello,
I'm trying to use this plugin with little luck. Every time I go here:
http://www.iansherr.com/clips/?theme=default
To preview/switch to WordPress Default 1.6 with little luck.
My WordPress installation lives in iansherr.com/clips
Any idea what might be happening? I have SuperCache turned off, and your plugin settings set for everyone.
Any ideas on what to do?
Thanks.
Hi Ian,
there are theme switch links on the settings page of the plugin. Do they work?
Hello Nicolas,
Thanks for your speedy reply. The answer is unfortunately no.
I have "exclude default themes" disabled. Yet, buttons such as
http://www.iansherr.com/clips?theme=WordPress+Classic
I tried different permutations of that just to see if perhaps there was a weird bug. So, I tried:
http://www.iansherr.com/clips?theme=WordPress_Classic
and
http://www.iansherr.com/clips/?theme=WordPress+Classic
and
http://www.iansherr.com/clips/?theme=WordPress_Classic
do not work either.
I tried another theme switch link off the plugin page as well:
http://www.iansherr.com/clips?theme=jQ
which also does not work.
I've also tried activating a different theme and then trying the theme switch links again with no success.
So, I know it's not any customization I did with the theme.
Hello again Nicolas,
I found the problem. I'd set the cookie expire for 999999 seconds. When I brought it down to a more reasonable time, like 2 hours, it suddenly worked.
Thanks for your help and cheers.
- ian
Hi Nicolas,
I really admire your work but I have a problem with the plugin I am using wp 2.9.2 and the switching works ok while I am logged as admin and just I choose the theme I want from the drop down menu it changes but if I am not logged in when I choose a theme the page refreshes quickly and nothing happens I have to reload the page manual in order to theme changes .
please Nicolas could you help me fast cause really need it to work.
thanks for you time
Hi Ian, I think the initial value might have been too high for browsers to handle it properly. I'll check the specs and do some validation. IIRC a value of 0 means forever, not sure though.
That's odd, can you post a link to your site?
hello,
this the link : http://imegyptian. com/blog/
I don't know what is the problem I reinstalled, deactivate and reactivate it.
thanks
Hard to tell without access to the server. Looks odd indeed. You should probably try to reinstall the plugin. IIRC the plugin modifies the http headers to do the redirect itself, maybe your server config doesn't allow that... I'm kind of clueless here.
Nic, I found something weird.
I got 2 themes.
When I set theme A as default, the plugin works well. But if I set theme B as default, no matter admin or user with passkey the page always redirect to theme B, no more theme A
Thanks Nicolas, but the redirect happens only when I am logged in but if a visitor it does what you sow.
This is a very good plugin. But there's one problem: it isn't compatible with WP's theme editor, it gives error when I try to save the edited theme files. I have to deactivate the Theme Switch plugin, then the theme editor works, and reactivate the plugin.
I hope that you can fix this in the next version!
Hi Lizzy, yes, this is at the top of my todo list. I hope to be able to fix this soon.
Hello, can you tell me how to display the mode screenshot in a template? I tried but it doesn't work. Thank you, Martina.
Hi Martina, the shortcode to do that is [nkthemeswitch mode=screenshot]
Thanks, Nicolas,
I'd like to show it in the footer.php, not on a page or post, is that possible somehow?
(wordpress took my code out of the last comment, I used: nkthemeswitch_shortcode( 'mode=screenshot' )
<code>
$option = get_option( 'nkthemeswitch' );
$cloud = nkthemeswitch_cloud( $option, '', false, false, true );
</code>
should do the trick I guess. If not have a look at the nkthemeswitch_shortcode function.
Thank you so much, that works like charm!
themeswitch makes problems in wp 2.9 :( i can't edit themes in admin-panel. maybe global var $dir is used?!
relativ:
/themes//.php
absolut:
/usr/www/users//blog/wp-content/themes//.php
Have just installed this great plugin on www.mywordpress.co.uk .
When using the widget there is no widget title .No settings in the admin area or in the widget admin.
Any help would be appreciated
With this plugin, can you change around the css styling without visitors seeing the changes?
Well, you'd need to create a copy of your theme first. So, not out of the box.
That's right, there is no title yet. Will be added in the next release. For now, you could simply put a text widget above the switch widget.
Hoping you fix that Edit Themes glitch soon!
Thanks for a great Wordpress plug-in.
I've just made a release that should fix this issue. I hope it works for everybody.
I'm just uploading a new release that allows to set a widget title. Thanks for the suggestion!
Hi
Have just upgraded to Version 0.7.3.1 .I see now that the default themes are now excluded.
Now what I was wondering is would you be able to incorperate a way to select what themes to exclude rather then it being hard coded?
On my site I have modded your code so I can exclude the BuddyPress theme .
Hopefully this makes sense.
Hi, you can try what's described in the FAQ (see readme.txt). I'm not sure though if setting the theme to unpublished will have other effects as well.
My theme doesn't use widget and I was wondering if you can provide me the template code?
I think that <code></code> should work. Didn't test it though.
Greetings from Turkey!
We've installed Wordpress into /wordpress/ directory. And your Theme Switch plugin doesn't working now.
How i can run Theme Switch plugin on our blog?
Thanks in advance.
Hello Fatih, the plugin works flawlessly for me, doesn't matter where I install wordpress.
@Nicolas: Did you ever tried Theme Switch plugin on which blog Wordpress installed on different directory?
Yes, and it works for me.
Hi there, I've been using this for a while and I've developed a bit of a bug and I'm not sure if it's just my code or something else, but if I go from theme 1 -> theme 2 and then back to theme 1, the page will refresh but the theme won't have changed. Going theme1 -> theme 2 -> theme 3 -> theme 1 works though. The site in question is http://designtest.techgremlin.com/
To be honest, I have no idea what could be going on on your site. Does the problem happen in different browsers? Do you have an other theme-related plugins? Or ones that do redirects?
I think I fixed it, there was a bug in my server configuration that caused expires to be set to 30 days on everything.
Hi Nicholas, I installed the plugin, enabled theme switching but don't see any tool or control for switching themes. Where would I find that?
Hello Cameron, you need to use the widget or the shortcode to display the cloud.
Thanks. That's working now. But I have one other problem. Even though I am logged in as admin in WP, I can only see the widget when it is set for "everyone" to see. I only want admin to see it while I do some theme customizing. Any idea what might be the problem?
Are you sure you are logged in as admin, not an editor?
Hello Nicolas,
How would I set a cookie that never expires?
Thanks in advance
Hi Michelle, that's not possible. I don't know off-hand what the maximum cookie expiration time is, just set it to one year or so.
60*60*24*365 = 31536000
I guess that should be enough.
Hi, great plug-in! Can not figure out though how to style the cloud created with shortcode. I see that a filetr creates a stylesheet but? In my theme it shows up as very tightly spaced links which is a bit hard to read. What can I use for CSS-styling? Would prefer a list when using for testing - showing others different styling.
Hi Helen, you should install <a href="http://getfirebug.com/" rel="nofollow">firebug</a> for firefox. Then, right-click on the element you want to style and at the bottom right you can see where the styles are defined.
I'd guess your theme is responsable for styling them.
Thanks Nicolas! I had searched poorly for the classname.
Found .nkthemeswitch-cloud-text and styled it in the theme style.css with no problem. Only, to make a list of the links instead of cloud have to do some kind of sorting/array not in the css. But after styling I thimk it´s good enough anyway. Makes my life easier showing different styles to co-workers/clients.
Hi Helen. Hmm, I'm not sure what you mean, what kind of sorting do you need?
I would like to display the different theme-links as an ul list instead of a "cloud" for greater clarity. Have put Themeswitch in its own page while testing/showing/developing and some of my visitors seems to be the very stressed-likes-powerpoint-types ;D
But I think even those should be able to see the different links now with colored backgrounds and lots of spacing (margin/padding).
To make a list instead I would have to getin to the code instead I guess? Or any options for that?
Oh, you're totally right. I just had a look at the code and the plugin doesn't produce a list, which it obviously should :-?
I will update that code asap and make the list markup an option. I will probably make it the default choice in a future release.
Btw, as a quick fix you could probably do something like <code>blah { display: list-item; }</code>.
But of course! Tried it earlier, but in the wrong place so I thought it didnt work. I am too short of time to think these weeks, must stop and breathe slowly... Thanks :)
That would be perfect! It would make Themeswitch complete, for my purposes anyway. There is the widget with dropdown but it doesnt seem to work for all users and havent had time to figure out why. Sometimes I dont want it in all sidebars either but maybe on a protected page that I can remove easily and also have comments on for direct feedback.
Thank you Nicolas, that worked like a charm :-)
Other than that, is there also a possibility to switch also "just" between style.css's?
Hm, I'm not sure. It could probably work with child themes, but I've never tried that myself. You can read about how to make a child theme <a href="http://codex.wordpress.org/Theme_Development#Child_Themes_style.css" rel="nofollow">here</a>.
Thank you for the upgrade! Now it´s perfect with the choice of cloud or ul. Very easy to use.
hii Nicolas
I installed the plugin and it said plugin activated but i cant see anythin...must hav done sumthin wrong...i m usin wp 2.9...pls reply
Hi Aniruddha. You have to use the widget or shortcode, or simply switch theme from the plugin's options page. Settings->Theme Switch I think.
Hello Nicolas,
installed the plugin running WP 2.9.2 - all is working fine. Maybe for further versions, there could be a normal formating the widget as elements. I'm using this plugin for switching just two styles, and so the tags are not ideal to be styled with css. So is there yet an option or code-snipet for calling the switch, with links to the themes?
Thanks for short answer, sincerely Zwille.
Hi Zwille, I'm not sure I understand what you mean? If you just want the links to switch have a look at the links on the plugin options page.
Hi nicolas,
I love and use your plugin, but I have one sugestion.
Using screenchots with the names of the themes will be great and usefull.
What do you think about it? Can you add this in nexts upgrades??
Thank you!
Hi Chris, good idea! I'll add that feature as soon as possible!
Feature added, the new release will be available in a few minutes. I had to modify the <code>nkthemeswitch_cloud</code> function, so test the new release if you use that function in your theme.
I added documentation on how to use that function to the readme.txt as well.
Upgraded to v0.8.0 and now new theme doesn't display - looks like it's not reading the CSS file.
Please be more specific. Which mode do you use, how do you switch, etc.
Hi,
Love your theme switch and preview plugin.
Did you ever get the chance to work on the ability to use URLs to switch themes?
That has been working since... forever :-)
Oops, sorry about that.
What shoud I put in the URL?
thx.
You can go to the plugin settings page, there are links to all the themes you have installed at the bottom. Basically, url?theme=theme_name.
That's it! It does exactly what I want...
Thanks.
Having a hard time understanding how the passkey preview links work. I have two generated links there already. What steps do I take to provide my client a link to see the unactive site being worked on?
Hi arron, all switch links with passkeys are at the bottom of the plugin's settings page. you can just copy them from there and send them to your client.
Got it. Just "Copy Link". Thank you for the work you've put in to this plugin.
nice plugin..planning to use on the site
voteup india.com
Weiterhin super plugin! Nur konnte ich nicht herausfinden was folgende Option bewirkt (nach der ich dachte gesucht zu haben ;o):
Das Umschalten von themes im Admin-Bereich aktivieren (für theme-spezifische Optionen)?
viele Grüße und bitte weiterhin WP bereichern...
ODL
If the theme has an options page you will be able to access it if this option is enabled. Likewise for sidebars.
Hi Nicolas, i tried to use your nice code in a multisite wordpress, but nkthemeswicth insist to show all the themes installed instead of alloweds ones.
in multisite you can enable a theme globally or locally (is some tricky but it work, see http://wordpress.org/support/topic/417996) so when you use nkthemeswitch it show more themes that appear in one blog menu appeareance/themes (theme.php).
may be it's needed to use get_ALLOWED_themes(); instead of get_themes();
i try to change it but i get a error and i don't know what's missing. have you any idea?
pd:
here from messi land, we hope a nice and fair play to saturday game.
(nice, to us)....
Hi pescadito, interesting, I'll look into this asap. Thanks for the report.
perhaps you could check this:
http://wordpress.org/support/topic/419554?replies=1
Thanks a lot! I've been too busy to fix this yet, but will in a few days.
I'm just uploading a new version. Please check the FAQ on how to enable the get_allowed_themes() on a multisite install.
cool plugins,,,
I really wish it didn't pull every theme but just the ones enabled for the blog that the plugin is activated on, I've got some themes that I just don't want people seeing.
Secondly, I might be missing it, but on the front end is there not an option to go back to the previous (original) theme? That would help if you're using the plugin to display available themes to potential clients
There are various ways to exclude themes, see the FAQ. I'm not sure what you mean by go back? You can pick the default theme from the widget or the tag cloud. Or set the timeout.
Thanks, sorry hadn't read the FAQ.
But on the second question, I swear on Twenty Ten after selecting a different theme in the widget drop down there was no way of returning to the original theme or selecting another one except by just waiting for the timeout and refreshing the page.
Hm. I'd guess you checked the "exclude default themes" option? That would hide 2010.
firstly,this is really a wonderful plugin,but how can we change the place but the widget
Hello Sky, I'm not sure what you mean?
Hi Nicolas.
No requests or questions here.
Just wanted to let you know that your plugin is great!
I took this day to find me a plugin that showcases the themes on my site. So I reviewed 9 different plugins, and yours is by far better and simpler to use than the others and it simply does the job it's supposed to do.
Great job!
Hey Amit,
thank you :-)
Hi again, Nicolas.
After using your great plugin for a few days I do have a few requests :-) :
I'd love it if the looks of the theme cloud was configurable.
What I mean is instead of showing all the themes in one long column it would be nice to be able to present them in a matrix of rows and columns and to define how many themes will show in a row, and let it automatically set the number of rows.
So, for instance, if I'd like to present 16 themes, and I defined 5 themes in a row, than what will be shown is 3 full rows and a forth row with just one theme.
Another thing that can make an improvement is defining the spacing between the themes.
Now when there are two adjacent themes with similar colors it's hard to spot where one stops and the other begins. A bigger space will solve that easily.
If you could do these additions sometime it would be great and if not the plugin is still great and I'm still using it :-)
Cheers.
After activating this plugin I'm greeted with the message "insufficient rights to view this page" trying to login to wp-admin. I have to delete the "nkthemeswitch" folder from plugins via FTP to regain access to the admin-area. Running 3.0.1
Hm, that's very odd. I'll try to reproduce, but insufficient rights is an indicator that you tried to run some admin action, not simply log in.
Hi Amit,
hm, I think you can do all of this through CSS?
Yes, I tried to log in as admin. When logged in as admin and then activating the plugin, when I click on another link within the admin panel I get the same message.
Ok. Do you use any plugin that has to do with user/group permissions? I doubt I'll be able to reproduce your problem here, but I hope I'll get the time to look into it over the weekend.
Hi, thanks for looking into this. I have disabled all other plugins (none of them related to users/groups), but the behavior persists. But only after clicking one of the "Open theme in new window"-links. As soon as the other window is opened (still default theme though, not the one I clicked), I'm locked out of admin and have to delete the nkthemeswitch-directory via FTP to regain access. Strange indeed!
I wouldn't know, I don't know CSS.
Is there a specific file I'm supposed to edit?
Sorry for the newbie question.
Update: I did a clean install of wordpress 3.0.1 and your plugin worked just as announced, so I guess the problem lies elsewhere. It's probably a good idea to do a clean install from time to time anyway!
Thanks for looking into this in detail :-)
Hi Amit, here's a list of sites that can help you:
http://wsc.opera.com/ , www.htmlhelp.com/ , http://css-discuss.incutio.com/ , www.brainjar.com/ , www.htmldog.com/ , http://css.maxdesign.com.au/
Also, install Firefox + Firebug. Good luck!
You probably want to edit your theme's CSS file.
Nicolas, Thanks a lot.
Hi Nicolas,
I've been using your plugin for two months now with FireFox and it's great.
But today I entered my site with Internet Explorer for the first time and noticed that the themes don't change when I click on them.
Have you ever encountered this before?
Is there a solution?
Hello Amit,
no I've never heard of such a thing. I can only guess it's a temporary problem with your IE.
Hi Nicolas
This looks really great. I'm going to download and give this a try! I'm working on my first theme so I don't have more than one at the moment, I was wondering...
Is it possible to have this work as a "demo bar" at the top of the screen like you see on many premium theme sites like WooThemes? You know, where there's a dropdown menu or similar as opposed to the sidebar?
If your plugin already offers this, I apologize for not checking but if it doesn't, would it be easy-ish to create something like this with CSS do you think?
Many thanks for what looks like an awesome plugin :)
Scott
OK, solved it.
I was using a cache plugin.
I can do without it.
Thanks.
Ah yes, that is a known limitation and mentioned in the readme. Not IE-specific though. :-)
Hello Scott,
hmmm, yes I guess you could display the theme cloud at the top through CSS. I haven't built such a feature for the plugin though. If you don't want to depend on the widget or shortcode you could write a short plugin that hooks into wp_footer() and always injects the switch markup there. Basically, add_action( 'wp_footer, 'your_callback_function' );
Hi, great idea for a plugin. However, when I activate the plugin, I get nothing but a blank screen.
I went back to the dashboard by entering the wp-admin link directly in the address bar, and the dashboard works fine.
Theme Switch's settings can be accessed. However, if I try to go to the Plugins page, again, I get a blank page.
That's very odd, no, I have no idea what's going on. Maybe you could try to deactivate all other plugins temporarily, maybe one of them interferes with mine. Just a guess.
Hi Nicolas. I've discovered the plugin that's conflicting. It's the Wordpress.com stats plugin, here: http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/stats/
The stats plugin is excellent, as is yours. I'd hate to lose one over the other. Any idea what the problem might be?
I'm using the latest version of WP.
Thanks for the update! I'll try to have a look in the near future.
This plugin looks promising. :)
I'm trying to customize a complex RocketTheme theme on my live blog, but I'm not sure how to switch themes in the admin area. I can switch the theme on the frontend, but it results in an error message (Fatal error: Call to a member function displayHead() on a non-object in /wp-content/themes/rt_kinetic_wp/index.php on line 13) which I assume would go away if I could "activate" the theme in the backend.
Is there a switch in the backend, or is it supposed to automatically switch in the backend once switched in the frontend? If the latter is the case, then I suspect that the RocketTheme theme is just too complex for this plugin. :/
Hm, I guess I'd have to look at the theme source. I just checked and it seems to be a paid-for theme? Or can it be downloaded?