customizing Forward theme while old wordpress theme stays customer-facing

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URL to the page in question: http://http://parkinsonsfitness.org/
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  • February 15, 2016 at 11:10 #35477
    Jennifer Gonyea
    Participant

    I just purchased the Forward theme and want to adjust and tweak content and layout behind the scenes before it goes “live”. How do I do that without activating it?

    February 15, 2016 at 11:40 #35478
    Bill Robbins
    Moderator

    Hi Jennifer,

    Excellent question. There are three different ways you can go about that. Here’s a quick rundown on each of them:

    Theme Test Drive Plugin (https://wordpress.org/plugins/theme-test-drive/). This plugin allows you to install a new theme and make it only visible to people who are logged in. It can be a good way to get things set up. The only catch is content changes you make will still be rendered in the original theme. So if you change your navigation menu for example, it will also be changed in the original. If you swap out a picture on your about page, the new picture will be visible to visitors of the old theme. Does that make sense?

    Those changes may not make a difference in a negative way, it’s just something to be aware of if you go this route.

    Install WordPress in a sub-directory on your server. You can then use the export/import screens in the tools section of your WordPress dashboard to copy your content from your current site to the new one. Then you can set up the new site with the new theme out of view from your visitors without affecting your current site.

    This option is a little more technical than the first one, but it has the advantage of not affecting the existing site at all until you’re ready to go live with the new one. I do offer setting this up a service for $50. It covers both the initial setup and the changes when you’re ready to go live.

    Staging site with your web host. Some WordPress web hosts have what are called staging sites. It’s a lot like the sub-directory option above, it’s just automated for you. They copy everything over to a new, secret URL and from there you can set things up. Then when you’re ready you push a button in your dashboard to copy the staging site to the live one. But you do have to have a host that supports this.

    If you have any questions, just let me know.

    Thanks,
    Bill

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