As you can see, I’ve added a theme switcher widget to my side bar.
Now, if you don’t care for my default theme, you can pick a different one to view my site in.
This widget is a wrapper around Ryan’s Theme Switcher Plugin. Please see the plugin page for more info.
to reply to your comment: I won’t use it. I just don’t like how you are using it as a complete theme switcher rather then a style switcher because it’s your blog and you designed a perfectly good theme that represents you. Where-as the other themes aren’t anything like what you have in Oasis. I love style switchers but theme switchers are lame IMO without some kind of uniformity.
I also wish you would have used UDASS. Now I’m going to have to figure it out in order to get my style switcher working. I guess I could just simplify it by using your theme switcher but I really only want to switch the main css file not everything.
I see the attractions of a style-only switcher, but there are obvious limitations as well, so it’s just a matter of tradeoffs. I just prefer the additional flexibility of full theme changing support, it shows off more of the power of the WordPress platform.
I do also like my theme a lot; that’s why it’s the default. But I also value giving people choices, especially in this case if they really don’t like my theme for some reason.
I’ve actually always planned to add style switching capability within my Oasis theme as well, but just haven’t gotten around to it yet. I think there is room for both types of functionality.
I would hope people would see the power of wordpress before they realized that it does theme switching. I get your point though.
Why not include your old theme too?
Because I don’t like it anymore. This one is really kind of just an evolution of that idea, anyway, so I don’t think I’d want to have both of them.
I have installed theme switcher on my site. I am having trouble with a couple different types of themes – 2 column and 3 column themes that are giving me some grief. Is there a way to keep the sidebar widgets set up on one theme okay while changing the set up for a different theme? Everytime I switch for one it doesn’t allow me to have a different set up for another theme. Any help?
Yeah, I think it has to do with the underlying implementation of the widgets plugin in some themes. The kubrick based widget themes seem to be quite a bit different than the “official” widget plugin (by Automattic), but I haven’t had a chance to test that too thoroughly. Perhaps I will be able to soon.
Hey thanks. The culprit theme is Citrus. I am trying to use it with connection reloaded among others. You are welcome to see it on my site. I just can’t seem to get them to load the sidebar on both types. It gets stuck on the citrus one because there isn’t a theme switcher coming through. Anyhelp would be great. I’ve tried even adding manually the theme switcher but that hasn’t seemed to work.
Thanks for the widgetized version that actually works with ease, it’s well appreciated. I’m no code warrior and prior to this I could not get theme switching to work, so much thanks.
I’m getting the following error message:
Fatal error: Call to undefined function: wp_theme_switcher() in /wp-content/plugins/themeswitcher.php on line 42
Any ideas?
You mention a file called “themeswitcher.php”, but this plugin isn’t distributed by that name, so I’m wondering if there’s a possible conflict there. Perhaps you have the original theme switcher plugin installed along side this one?
How can I keep the Theme Switcher from showing the WordPress Mobile Edition plugin (by Alex King)?
That plugin does not support widgets (and probably should not, as it allows for viewing on a PDA), so when someone selects it, it doesn’t give them the option of changing back (because your I have used your swithcer as a Widget, and since the Mobile Edition doesn’t support widgets, there is no way for the person who selects it to return to a normal theme).
Thank you
I’ll probably have to add a configuration option to allow omitting certain themes from the list of choices.
Hey, I’ve had this plugin installed for awhile, but just decided to try to play around with it a little. I don’t know much PHP, but I wanted to know how to define something for $before_title? I want to have little icons show up beside each theme in the list on my sidebar?
Thank you much, Jared. If you could email me when you’ve updated your great switcher to not show selected themes I would appreciate it.
Some people have actually visited my site for the sole purpose of seeing the switcher in action. But I can’t continue much longer with the Mobile Edition plugin disabled because I have a lot of high-tech viewers and they sometimes like to view the site on their PDAs.
Thanks.
Thanks for a really useful plugin. I was looking for something which acts as a persistent accessibility widget so that the end user can control the appearance of a site, something along the lines outlined by Paul Sowden’s AListApart article.
FYI I’m using WordPress 2.3.1 and everything works as intended.
Excellent!
Thanks for the great widget! This is exactly what I needed, it lets me add the ability for users to switch themes without having to add a section in the sidebar to each theme, which can be a real pain.
WP 2.5.1 and so far, so good – thank you for a great widget. A slight twitch is, however, an occasional theme doesn’t show up. The theme is definitely in the directory, and can be accessed/activated from within WP from the ‘Design’ tab. The style sheet header and the other files seem pretty much as normal. Is there a file that needs to be present for the switcher to be able to find the theme? Other suggestions?
I am a Japanese. Please allow for a sentence to be strange.
Twice and a theme are not changed by the theme that does not support a sidebar in this plug in when I change it.
I can evade it if I stop the use of the plug in, but become the same phenomenon when I validated it again.
Big thanks. Your widget works like a charm!
Best regards from Bosnia