Multiple Themes

With the massive rewrite of Theme Selection logic in Version 5 of this plugin, it should now work with all Paid Themes and Plugins. But we have only tested the few Paid Themes whose authors have provided us with permission to use, without charge, their themes for test purposes. Elegant, for example, allows us to accept copies of its Themes provided by its customers who require assistance with the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin. On the other hand, some other Paid Theme authors have simply ignored our requests, despite our stated willingness to sign a non-disclosure agreement.

We do encourage you to contact us if you run into problems when using the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin with a Paid Theme, as the problem may not be unique to the Paid Theme.

To state the obvious, the cost of purchasing a license for all Paid Themes for testing purposes is prohibitive for an Open Source plugin such as this one.

For the Active Theme, nothing changes when using the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin. For other Themes, selected using this plugin, changing Theme Options is explained, in detail, on the Theme Options tab of the plugin’s Settings page.

For the Current Theme, nothing changes when using the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin. For a Page or Post where another Theme is displayed, as selected by this plugin’s Settings, specifying the Template to be used is explained, in detail, on the Theme Options tab of the plugin’s Settings page.

That functionality, to directly specify a Theme for a Category on the Settings page, is being investigated for a future version of the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin. But there is already a solution based on Permalinks:

1. In the WordPress Admin panels, go to Settings-Permalinks
2. Specify a Permalinks structure that begins with /%category%/
3. Push the Save Changes button
4. Go to Settings-Multiple Themes plugin
5. In the Section “For An Individual Page, Post or other non-Admin page”, select the Theme for the Category of Posts
6. Enter the URL of the Categories page, e.g. – http://domain.com/news/
7. Click the checkbox “Select here if URL is a Prefix”
8. Push the Save Changes button

WordPress includes a built-in Theme Editor. Select Editor in the Admin panel’s Appearance menu items on the left sidebar.

By default, the style.css file of the Current Theme is displayed. You can edit other Themes by selecting them in the “Select theme to edit” field and clicking the Select button.

Alternatively, you can edit any Theme on your own computer. If your computer runs Windows, NotePad++ and FileZilla run very well together, using FileZilla’s View/Edit feature to provide a Theme Editor with syntax highlighting and other advanced features.

If one or more of the Active Themes have their own Theme Editor or other type of Theme Options panels, such as Elegant’s epanel, please read the next FAQ.

Nothing changes for the Current Theme. epanel can be accessed just as it would be without the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin, simply by selecting the WordPress Admin panel’s Appearance submenu item titled Theme Options preceded by the name of your Elegant Theme.

To make changes to other Active Themes that you will be specifying with the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin:

1. Deactivate jonradio Multiple Themes
2. Install the Theme Test Drive plugin found at https://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/theme-test-drive/
3. Activate the Theme Test Drive plugin
4. Go to Appearance-Theme Test Drive
5. In the Usage section, select an alternate Theme you will be using with jonradio Multiple Themes
6. Push the Enable Theme Drive button at the bottom
7. Click on the Appearance menu item on the left sidebar of the WordPress Admin panel to refresh the submenu
8. Click on the submenu item titled with your Elegant theme’s name followed by “Theme Options”
9. Elegant’s epanel will now appear
10. Make all the changes for this Theme, being sure to push the Save button
11. If you have more than one alternate Theme with Options you wish to change, repeat Steps 4-10 for each alternate Theme
12. Deactivate the Theme Test Drive plugin
13. Activate jonradio Multiple Themes
14. Changes to the Options for the Current Theme can now be made normally, just as you would without either plugin
15. Both the alternate and Current Themes should now display all Theme options properly when selected through the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin

Thanks to Elegant for allowing us to test copies of any of their Themes provided by their customers.

Although it depends on what kind of change you make to your Permalink structure, you should expect to have to replace (delete and add) all of the plugin’s Settings that specify a URL.

You should have seen an explanatory error message after hitting the Save Changes button.

You will need to delete the entry and add it again, with the new Theme specified.