I’ve been doing a bit of updating to the site lately and I’ve decided this blog needs a make-over. I think, as usual, I’m going to start from a pre-made WordPress theme and modify the crap out of it.
In the past when I do a WordPress overhaul I used to just modify the site from the front end. Now that I’m seeing between 170-380 unique visitors a day I know I can’t just mess with the front end of the site I’m going to have to modify the theme in a development environment to get all the bugs out first.
Setting up a Development WordPress Theme
{googlead}
I use the WordPress plugin theme switcher reloaded and a little WordPress magic to only display the switcher if someone is logged into the WordPress admin.
This already exists in my functions.php file:
PHP
<?php
if(!function_exists('is_preview_mode')){
function is_preview_mode(){
if(is_user_logged_in()){
$result = true;
} else {
$query = $_SERVER['QUERY_STRING'];
$pattern = '/(((p=([0-9]*)&)?preview=true)|(p=([0-9]*)))/';
$result = preg_match($pattern, $query);
}
return $result;
}
}
?>
So after installing the theme switcher plugin all I had to add to my current WordPress theme’s footer.php file was:
PHP
<?php
if(function_exists('is_preview_mode') && function_exists('wp_theme_switcher')){
if(is_preview_mode()){
wp_theme_switcher();
}
}
?>
REMEMBER
While you are testing be sure to turn caching off on the blog so no one sees your cached version of a page using the new theme!
And tada! I, when logged into the WordPress admin I can switch to my test theme and get that all wrapped up before pushing the new look live.
One of my new favorite tricks!
This site runs on the Thesis WordPress Theme
If you're someone who doesn't understand a lot of PHP, HTML, or CSS, Thesis will give you a ton of functionality without having to alter any code. For the advanced, Thesis has incredible customization possibilities via extensive hooks and filters. And with so many design options, you can use the template over and over and never have it look like the same site.
If you're more familiar with how websites work, you can use the fantastic Thesis User's Guide and world-class support forums to make more professional customizations than you ever thought possible. The theme is not only highly customizable, but it allows me to build sites with a much more targeted focus on monetization than ever before. You can find out more about Thesis below:
