Theme Test Drive WordPress plugin allows you to safely test drive any theme on your blog as administrator, while visitors still use the default one. It happens completely transparently and they will not even notice you run a different theme for yourself. Best part is you can even set the testing theme options (if it has them) in the Admin panel while you are testing the theme.
Since version 2.0 Theme Test Drive features instant theme preview using a website thumbnail service.
You can also preview any theme by adding "?theme=xxx" to your blog URL. For example http://www.myblog.com/?theme=Default (theme name is case-sensitive!)
For all questions about the plugin please visit my WordPress forums.
Download
Installation & Usage
- Upload the plugin folder to your /wp-content/plugins/ folder.
- Go to the Plugins page and activate the plugin.
- Use the Options page to set the theme you want to test drive.
The selected theme will be visible only to blog administrator. Other visitors of the site will always see the default theme.
Note: if you use WP-Cache plugin, you might need to disable it (or setup to exclude pages)
Changelog
v2.6: Added user access level
v2.0:
- Instant theme preview using a live thumbnail preview
- Added "?theme=xxx" to your URL's to preview the desired theme. Example http://www.myblog.com/?theme=Default
Nov 29th, 2007 v1.0
* Initial release
Visit my other interesting WordPress Plugins or my WordPress theme Amazing Grace.
If you are looking for WordPress consulting services feel free to contact me
278 Comments
Is there any way to make this work on pages other than the home page? When I navigate off of the home page, the current theme is applied as opposed to the one I'm trying to test.
You can add the theme parameter to the URL.
Awesome plugin! But I found a little bug - ?theme=xxx didn't work if index.php in theme is empty - I'm using only home.php
Regards
One of my main job is creating WordPress theme, and I have to test (switch) between themes. I've used Theme Switcher plugin, but not very satisfy with it. I'll try your plugin. Thank you very much for sharing.
Superb plugin but it is causing me logging in difficulties on 2.9.2. Resolved by moving plug into another directory by ftp, logging in and then copying back.
Just tried to use the plugin in WordPress 3.0 beta1, with no luck.
I like this plug-in and have found it very handy it simply applying a slightly different stylesheet to tell when I'm logged in at a glance. However, I just discovered that somewhow, it wreaks havoc with page templates. Both my dev theme and the default themes are essentially identical except for some CSS, but with this plug-in enabled no page templates are available, and in some cases the existing settings for them are even ignored... including for normal users!
The WordPress Development Team at Xieno has acquired a growth along with the growth of WordPress itself. Our team is capable of providing almost any kind of solution, possible, in WordPress. Despite of its powerful Bloging opportunity our WordPress portfolio is consist of eCommerce Solutions, Photo Gallery, Social Networking, Link Directory, CMS enabled Informative Portal etc. Our team members are so efficient and quick, that can deliver any of such solutions in an unexpected short span of time and with an extra edge quality.
I have found this plugin to be virtually indispensable for theme development, included this plugin in my article
I am using WordPress 2.8.6. When I try to activate the plugin, I get the following error:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp_get_current_user()
Any idea how I can fix this? Is the plugin not compatible with 2.8.6? Thanks!
I am using it on my 2.8.6 installation so that should not be a the problem
Thanks for your efforts..
just wanted to check - this plugin will allow me to basically build another theme with all relevant content, photo's links etc on my existing domain name/site; and then once ready activate it and cancel the older/current theme? I'm really looking to swop my themes, but to keep the settings/content similar.
Thank you for any suggestions
I had the same problem as Sonia. Any ideas as to how to fix this?
It would be cool, if the theme could be selected from within the admin area, so that the URL would not need to be funky. That way, one could pick specific themes for posts or pages. I would very much like to be able to do that...suggestions?
Best,
Dainis
I have tried to install the Theme Test Drive and the moment I did activate it I lost access to all the sections of my wp-admin, the message was (by clicking any of the sections the same: you do not have permission to access this page) the only way back was to go to FTP and simply delete the plugin from the plugins folder.
Any ideas how can I solve this, it will be so handy to use such a tool to implement a new theme to my running blog !
I have the latest version of WordPress installed.
Many thanks !
Hi Vladimir,
Great Plug-in. Have a theme from Ithemes(Flexx) and when I view the page and look under attributes... I see Parent, Order. With the theme from Flexx there are additions to this box which include Template ie in the Attributes box when I turn off your plug-in I see Parent, Template, Order. With your plug-in, the Template function does not appear.
... otherwise I can globally change the page templates rather than specific page templates which this theme allows in the Attributes box.
Look forward to your advice.
Ed
I am afraid I did not understand your question
I have the 2.0 version of wordpress and I downloaded the amazing grace blue theme, I can see the banner
but I cant get any content uploaded to my blog, is the version unable to handle the 3.1 theme? What am I doing wrong?
Version 2.7.4, downloaded from the WordPress site
WordPress 2.8.4
Using ...?theme=xxx works, but I haven't found an "option" in the plugin admin area to select a test theme.
Hi thanks for this cool plug-in -- however: for newest version 2.7.3, I keep getting these types of errors when I try to extract (using betterzip for mac) "on many of the files:
ERROR: The file bg.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect."
I get the options to "ignore and go on" or stop. I keep choosing "ignore/go on" and keep getting more errors:
The file help.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file home.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file idea.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file more.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file p1.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file paypal.gif could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file rate.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file twit.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
and then all the above errors begin looping again and now these appear:
The file previewbubble.js could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file readme.txt could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file screenshot-1.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file screenshot-2.png could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file themedrive.chk could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
The file themedrive.php could not be extracted. The password may be incorrect.
I don't know what the problem is or why I am having it, thus apparently means I am not getting all the files extracted to its plug-in folder. Can you advise with the solution? Thank you!
Hey I love your Theme Test Drive plugin. I had an idea that I would like to see if you could implement. Currently the WP editor only edits the activated theme. I would like to see if we could get an editor for the theme being "test drove".
I love this plugin, it makes testing themes so much easier than any other way. I would really like to see one feature implemented though. Being able to install from a zip file URL is very handy, but having the ability to upload from a zip file on your own computer as well would make it almost perfect!!
Good job!!
Vladimir, I keep getting the following error when I activate it ... Fatal error: Call to undefined function wp_get_current_user() in /nfs/c04/h02/mnt/63403/domains/reelseo.com/html/wp-includes/capabilities.php on line 920 Any ideas what this could be about? Thanks in advance as Id love to use the plugin.
Hi, great plugin! But it would be really cool, if you could render the internal links the way, they have a "?theme=[themename]" also, if the page once was visited with this GET parameter. Hope, you understand, what I mean - my english is not the best, sry ;)
Hmm, is there a way to use this plugin as a "theme chooser" for specific pages or posts? That would be kinda cool. Right now, I am messing with "page templates," and I have a theme I would like to use, but it looks like I would have to do some serious copying and pasting of code to make an existing theme into a page template.
At one point, I found some kind of plugin that allowed me to create a custom field to choose which theme a page would use. I'd like to find that again or figure out a way to make ThemeTestDrive do this.
Wouldn't that be rad?
Best,
Dainis
Hi, I love this plugin, but unfortunately when trying to activate it in a 2.8.4 WordPress install I ran into problems. Is there any chance of updating what is such a great tool? Many thanks for your time and effort.
Hi, wordpress.org plugin list still tells that this plugin is not compatible with 2.8. Is that true? Could you update the information in the catalog if it is compatible?
i like it very good work man thank you very much. carry on.....
I saw some comments about Theme Test Drive breaking under WP 2.8 so I was reluctant. But today I went ahead and tried it anyway and it seems to be working ok.
I'm using the plugin on WordPress 2.8.1 testing out a fairly complicated theme with a lot of customization in the admin panel. All seems to be working.
Thanks for a great plugin!
Nice plugin..Thank u this share..=)