Question about homepage widgets

[Carolyn Komerska]

Hi there, and Happy New Year!

I installed the Epic theme about a year ago and all has been great – the homepage had a nice slider widget, plus widgets for upcoming events, a link to the company’s PayPal account, etc.

When the newest update for the Epic theme was released (~2 months ago), the update wiped out all the CSS and left the site looking like a shell. I’m fairly new to WordPress, so I suspect I did something wrong, and was told that I should have perhaps created a parent/child theme to avoid what happened.

Either way, I decided to start with restoring the previous files prior to that update, and everything is back up on the site except the home page. The styles are there but the widgets will not display on the home page at all, and I have a feeling (and a hope!) that this is a relatively simple fix? Any input or suggestions you have would be much appreciated!

– ck

[Bill Robbins]

Hello Carolyn,

Sorry for the trouble there. Most likely the update was actually for a free theme from WordPress.org called Epic. When I released our theme, there were no themes called Epic in the directory and WordPress didn’t handle theme updates.

Since that time, the WordPress core added support for updates for themes that are in the directory. That’s great and all, but it only checks the theme’s name. So it pulled the other Epic’s update and gave it to you.

Since version 2.0 of our theme, we’ve had updates built in. If you’re using 2.0 or higher you can update in the future. If you’re not, then don’t update.

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Here’s what to do for your home page. First edit it. Then look in the right hand column for a box labeled attributes. It has a drop down menu labeled templates. Choose the home template there and update your page.

That should bring up the home page layout with the slider and widgets for you.

If you have any trouble, let me know.

Have a great weekend,
Bill

[Carolyn Komerska]

Hi Bill,

Thank you for your explanation re: the theme update with the same name – I thought I was losing my mind!

I’m wondering if I have some sort of mash-up of your theme and the WP Epic theme going now, because when I go to the Home page in the Pages section and look at the Attributes, there is no option for a home page template there (see attached screen-grab). Either that, or I’m not looking at the right page. In Settings > Reading, I have static page chosen, Front Page: Home (if it helps to know that, too).

I appreciate you writing back, I wasn’t expecting to hear back until Monday since it’s a holiday for many.

Best regards,

Carolyn

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[Bill Robbins]

Carolyn,

Unfortunately that “update” caught about a dozen folks. No fun at all.

Let’s do this since “Home” isn’t listed as a template. Go to the Settings section in your WordPress dashboard and choose Reading. At the top, select to have the front page display your latest posts and update your settings.

Let me know if that doesn’t do the trick,
Bill

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