Theme Switcha – Easily Switch Themes for Development and Testing

Installatie

Getting Started

1. Upload the plugin and activate
2. Visit plugin settings and check the box to “Enable Switching”
3. After clicking “Save Changes”, scroll down to view available themes
4. Click on any theme thumbnail to switch privately to that theme

Important: Please read this support topic!

More info on installing WP plugins

Usage: Switch Themes

After activating Theme Switcha, visit the plugin settings page. There you can enable theme switching via the “Enable Switching” option. After that option is enabled, a menu of all available themes will be displayed on the settings page. From there you can click any thumbnail to switch privately to that theme. While you view the switched theme, your regular visitors will continue viewing your normal active theme. To verify this, visit your site in a different browser (with clean cache and cookies).

Tip: In the plugin settings, a thumbnail menu of all available themes will be displayed after you enable the “Enable Switching” option. Otherwise if that option is disabled, no theme thumbnails will be displayed.

Usage: Display Menus

In addition to switching themes via the settings page, you also can display a menu of switchable themes. In order for any theme-switch menu to work, the plugin setting “Allowed Users” must be set to “Everyone”. So all visitors can enjoy your site using their preferred theme.

Theme Switcha provides several shortcodes for displaying theme-switch menus:

Display themes as list of links:
[theme_switcha_list display="list"]
// display = (list or flat) format of the list

Display themes as thumbnail links:
[theme_switcha_thumbs style="true"]
// style = (true or false) include default CSS

Display themes in select/dropdown menu:
[theme_switcha_select text="Choose a theme.."]
// text = for the default option

Display plain-text link for theme switch:
[theme_switcha_link theme="mytheme" text="Switch Theme"]
// theme = theme name, text = link text

Deze shortcodes kunnen in elk WP Bericht, Pagina of ondersteunend widget (b.v. de standaard “Tekst” widget die bij WordPress meegeleverd wordt) gebruikt worden.

Als je liever een thema lijst in je thema wilt opnemen, kun je de volgende template-tags gebruiken:

<?php if (function_exists('theme_switcha_display_list'))     theme_switcha_display_list(); ?>
<?php if (function_exists('theme_switcha_display_thumbs'))   theme_switcha_display_thumbs(); ?>
<?php if (function_exists('theme_switcha_display_dropdown')) theme_switcha_display_dropdown(); ?>

Als alternatief kun je shortcodes gebruiken in je thema-template door gebruik te maken van do_shortcode.

Usage: Theme-Switch Links

Theme Switcha also enables you to create theme-switch links that you can share with others. To begin, follow these steps:

1. Determine the slug/name for the theme (should be same as name of theme directory)
2. Choose any URL from your site, and append ?theme-switch=mytheme

Bijvoorbeeld als je een thema hebt met de naam “Mijn Ongelooflijke Thema” die zich bevindt in een map genaamd /mijn-ongelooflijke-thema/, kun je een thema switchende URL op deze manier maken:

https://example.com/?theme-switch=my-awesome-theme

What happens if you enter that URL in a browser? Well, that depends on the plugin setting, “Allowed Users”:

• If Allowed Users is set to “Everyone”, the URL will enable anyone to switch to the specified theme
• If Allowed Users is set to “Only Admin”, the URL will enable any logged-in admin-level user to switch to the specified theme
• If Allowed Users is set to “Only with Passkey”, the URL requires a passkey in order to switch to the specified theme

We’ll look at how to make a Passkey Link in the next section. For the other two options, “Everyone” and “Only Admin”, you can either share the URL as-is, or make it a clickable hyperlink such as the following example:

<a href="https://example.com/?theme-switch=my-awesome-theme">Switch to My Awesome Theme</a>

Usage: Passkey Links

Passkey links are a great way to enable private theme switching without giving the user access to the WP Admin Area. To make a Passkey Link, follow these steps:

1. Bezoek de Thema Switcha instellingen pagina
2. Enable the “Enable Switching” option
3. For the “Allowed Users” option, select “Only with Passkey”
4. Save changes

After saving changes, thumbnails will be displayed for each available theme. So to get a Passkey Link:

1. Right-click on the thumbnail image for the desired theme
2. Selecteer “Kopieer linkadres” om de URL naar je klembord te kopiëren

Done! You now have a Passkey Link ready to paste wherever. It will look similar to this:

https://example.com/?theme-switch=my-awesome-theme&passkey=1234567890

So you can either share the Passkey Link as-is, or make it a clickable hyperlink such as the following example:

<a href="https://example.com/?theme-switch=my-awesome-theme&passkey=1234567890">Switch to My Awesome Theme</a>

Here are some notes about Passkey Links:

• Passkey links work for logged-in users and logged-out users
• Passkey links must include the theme name and valid passkey
• The theme name must be the theme slug (e.g., “my-theme” not “My Theme”)

Here is an example of proper passkey format:

https://example.com/?theme-switch=THEMESLUG&passkey=PASSKEY

Here you would replace “THEMESLUG” with the slug of the theme you want to preview, and “PASSKEY” with the current passkey (provided via the “Passkey” setting). Here is an example showing how to make a clickable link from the Passkey URL:

<a href="https://example.com/?theme-switch=THEMESLUG&passkey=PASSKEY">Switch Theme!</a>

Important

This plugin should not be used together with WordPress features such as Gutenberg Block Editor, Theme Customizer, Widgets, Menus, and other theme-related options. Doing so may result in private changes being made public on the current active theme. Learn more.

Plugin Options

Theme Switcha provides three basic configurations via the “Allowed Users” option:

• Admins only – useful for theme developers to work on themes on a live site
• Passkey only – useful for sending clients preview links to new templates
• Everyone – allow everyone to switch themes (required for shortcodes)

Other options should be self-explanatory. If you have any questions, feel free to post in the Theme Switcha Support Forum. I usually respond very quickly 🙂

Opmerking: het is een goed idee om de Sleutel periodiek te wijzigen om toegang tot alternatieve thema’s te voorkomen (alleen noodzakelijk als de “Alleen Sleutel” configuratie wordt gebruikt).

How It Works

If you’re still scratching your head at this point, here are some points that may help to clarify how theme-switching works:

• Your site always will have a default active (primary) theme
• The primary theme always will be visible to regular visitors
• If you enable Theme Switcha, you can privately view other themes
• So you can switch to a theme that only is active for YOU only
• You can also enable visitors to switch themes on the front-end
• You can even send a private theme-switch URL to friends, etc.

So while you re viewing and working on a switched theme, all other users will continue to see/use the default active theme. When you are done working on your switched theme, you can disable theme switching via the plugin settings. Upon doing so, you will be viewing the default active theme like everyone else.

Also keep in mind that theme-switching is browser-specific (via cookies). So if you need to view the theme in multiple browsers, the easiest way is to use the passkey link. The passkey enables you to quickly switch themes by simply entering the URL in your browser’s address bar. See the next section for details.

Because Theme Switcha is browser-specific, you can easily test theme-switching functionality by simply visiting your site in a different browser (with cleared cache and cookies). For example, in one browser you can be logged in to WordPress and switch to some other theme. While in the other browser, you are not logged in and thus viewing the site as a regular visitor, so you will be viewing the default active theme.

Going Live

Here are the steps to “go live” with your switched theme once you are ready to do so:

1. Visit the plugin settings and disable the option “Enable Switching”.
2. Visit Appearance > Themes to activate the theme for the world to see.

After these steps, the active theme will be visible to you and everyone else.

Thema’s Uitsluiten

Om een thema uit te sluiten van thema switchen open je het style.css bestand en voeg Status: private of Status: unpublished toe aan het begin van het bestand. Of om het thema alleen voor bezoekers uit te sluiten voeg Status: admin-only toe.

Hier is een overzicht:

Status: private     = theme excluded from theme switching
Status: unpublished = theme excluded from theme switching
Status: admin-only  = theme available for switching only by admin-level users
Status: publish     = theme available for switching by all users (depending on settings)
No Status header    = theme available for switching by all users (depending on settings)

Je kunt op elk moment de Status file toevoeging verwijderen om het thema beschikbaar te maken voor thema switchen.

Foutherstel

Als thema switchen voor je niet werkt dan zijn hier enkele zaken om te controleren:

• Controleer of je meer dan 1 thema geïnstalleerd hebt
• Make sure there are no other plugins interfering
• Controleer of er geen .htaccess regels invloed uitoefenen
• Controleer of er slechts 1 thema switch plugin geactiveerd is
• Controleer of WP_DEFAULT_THEME niet gebruikt wordt in wp-config.php
• Controleer of je thema de WP API gebruikt voor instellingen enz.
• Probeer een andere browser en/of schoon je cache en cookies

Dit zijn de belangrijkste zaken om te controleren. Als thema wisselen nog steeds niet werkt op je site dan is het meest waarschijnlijk dat er iets interfereert met de normale werking. In dat geval kun je enig basaal probleemonderzoek uitvoeren om de veroorzaker te identificeren.

Current active theme

Theme Switcha provides a function that returns the name of the currently active theme:

theme_switcha_active_theme()

This can be used just like any other WP function, in plugins and theme templates.

Like the plugin?

If you like Theme Switcha, please take a moment to give a 5-star rating. It helps to keep development and support going strong. Thank you!

Inactiveren

Deze plugin ruimt de rommel zelf op. Alle plugin instellingen worden verwijderd uit je database als de plugin geïactiveerd wordt op het Plugins scherm.