Choosing and Changing Themes with WordPress

By now you should have WordPress installed on your server as well as a new theme and child theme in development. In this article, Linda shows how you can change themes on a whim, as well as how to alter them within WordPress (WP).

More Ways to Choose and Change Themes

WP has added a new option where you can change themes in the backend. Go to "Appearances" and click on the "Add New Themes" link. You'll see this page:

The image above shows what is called a "Theme Filter." This filter can help you find themes easily and without surfing around the Web. I'll try some options to show you what happens.

First, I'm going to use the drop-down menu at top, which offers a way to search themes by "term," "author" and "tag." Using the Tag option, I look for a three-column layout. The options showed up like this:

In all, I had a choice of nine options for a three-column layout. But, maybe I don't like any of the options. Instead, I'll go back and pick some other design elements to view my new choices.

I'll warn you up front that the more choices you pick in that theme finder, the less luck you will have in finding a new theme. Basically, the radio boxes build keywords for that theme, so pick just one or two to begin and then build upon those choices. In this instance, I chose, simply, "blue" and "three-column," and my choices are shown below:

In total, I ended up with twelve choices. Say I want to take a closer look at the first option on the top left. I can click on the "Details" button to learn more about this particular theme:

According to the details, this theme is the first version created by 'xuziyang.' It was downloaded over 8,000 times, and it has high ratings. However, I looked at the last time this theme (remember that it is the first version), and realize that it has not been updated for almost two years. I decide to pass on this theme simply because I don't want issues down the road with the compatibility of this theme with any WP upgrades.

With that said, also remember that – although these themes are available through WP – the theme may not be adaptable with widgets or some plugins. Additionally, while WP is offering these themes, they distance themselves from the theme viability. So, don't blame WP if something is buggy with your theme choice.

Uploading

Now, if you decide that you do want to upload and use a theme from WP's backend, I would suggest that you click on the "Preview" shown below before you install that theme:

The preview will show on your screen exactly like it did with your installed theme; however, it will show a different page than yours, because you have not installed the theme. If you want to install the theme to view a preview, simply click on the "install" link shown above and you'll see this window:

Click on the "install now" button, and bingo – you have a new theme in your themes' folder. Now, you can click on the theme preview to see how that theme looks with your existing Web site.

If you do not want to install the theme immediately, you can return to "Appearances" and click on the Themes link to view that new theme in your theme folder:

In this case, the new theme is shown above in my theme folder. All this accomplished without FTP. You also can delete themes from this page with the "delete" link listed with each theme.