Theme Switch and Preview

Allows admins or all visitors to switch the blog theme. Has a restricted preview mode for your clients and includes a widget.

Contributors: nkuttler, Nicolas Kuttler (de)
Donate link: http://www.nkuttler.de/wordpress/donations/
Tags: theme, themes, template, templates, switch, theme development, admin, plugin, widget, widgets, preview, theme preview, wpmu, multisite,
Requires at least: 2.7
Tested up to: 3.0
Stable tag: 0.9.0.1

Description

The plugin is great for theme development as you can tweak the template online without breaking stuff for visitors. You can also use it for presentations, to show off various templates. There is a widget and a theme cloud shortcode to make this easier.

This plugin has three basic configurations:

Usage

The easiest way to use this plugin is to drag the widget into one of your sidebars.

There is as well the shortcode [nkthemeswitch]. Examples:

  1. [nkthemeswitch] This displays the theme switch cloud as text links.
  2. [nkthemeswitch mode="screenshot"] This displays the switch links with screenshots.
  3. [nkthemeswitch mode="screenshot" addname="yes"] This displays the switch links with screenshots and the theme name.

Using the switch cloud in your theme

You can call the function nkthemeswitch_cloud() from your theme to get the theme switch cloud. Example:

if ( function_exists( 'nkthemeswitch_cloud' ) ) {
    echo nkthemeswitch_cloud( $target = '_blank', $passkey = false, $screenshot = false, $addname = false );
}

Parameters:

My plugins

MU fast backend switch: Switch between your MU blog backends with one click

Visitor Movies for WordPress: Did you ever want to know what your visitors are really doing on your site? Watch them!

Custom Avatars For Comments: Your visitors will be able to choose from the avatars you upload to your website for each and every comment they make.

Better tag cloud: I was pretty unhappy with the default WordPress tag cloud widget. This one is more powerful and offers a list HTML markup that is consistent with most other widgets.

Theme switch: I like to tweak my main theme that I use on a variety of blogs. If you have ever done this you know how annoying it can be to break things for visitors of your blog. This plugin allows you to use a different theme than the one used for your visitors when you are logged in.

Zero Conf Mail: Simple mail contact form, the way I like it. No ajax, no bloat. No configuration necessary, but possible.

Move WordPress comments: This plugin adds a small form to every comment on your blog. The form is only added for admins and allows you to move comments to a different post/page and to fix comment threading.

Delete Pending Comments: This is a plugin that lets you delete all pending comments at once. Useful for spam victims.

Snow and more: This one lets you see snowflakes, leaves, raindrops, balloons or custom images fall down or float upwards on your blog.

Fireworks: The name says it all, see fireworks on your blog!

Rhyming widget: I wrote a little online rhyming dictionary. This is a widget to search it directly from one of your sidebars.

Installation

Unzip, upload to your plugin directory, enable the plugin and configure it as needed. If you want to add the developer widget do that in your dashboard's Design section.

Frequently Asked Questions

Q: I need the plugin to work for everybody, not just logged in users.
A: This is possible since 0.6.0.

Q: The preview links don't work!
A: Please check if you have some cache activated, that will most likely prevent the preview links from working. WP Super Cache only works in HALF ON mode.

Q: The previews look broken!
A: Do you use a complex theme with theme options? Some themes need to be activated for real at least once before they work.

Q: How do I exclude themes from being shown in the widget or the cloud?<br/> A: Add Status: unpublished to the header of the theme's style.css.

Q: I use a >= 3.0 multisite install and don't want inactive themes to be shown on certain blogs. Anything I can do?<br/> A: Add define( 'NKTHEMESWITCH_LOAD_MS', true ); to your install's wp-config.php. Careful, this might break on upgrades as I had to copy stuff from wp-admin/ into the plugin. Not very likely but possible. I'm not sure I'll continue to support this in the future. I probably won't test it, so report any bugs.

Q: My site went blank when I used your plugin, what should I do?<br/> A: Deactivate the plugin in the admin section. Remove the plugin files from your server if that doesn't work.

Screenshots

  1. The configuration menu, including preview links for you or for customers (if passkeys are allowed).
  2. The text theme cloud. No default CSS included in the plugin. See the demo at the theme switch and preview plugin site.
  3. The screenshot theme cloud. The screenshots won't be resized or anything. See the demo at theme switch and preview plugin site.

Changelog

0.9.0.1 ( 2010-07-16 )

0.9 ( 2010-07-14 )

0.8 ( 2010-06-12 )

0.7.4.1 ( 2010-05-27 )

0.7.4 ( 2010-05-12 )

0.7.3.1 ( 2010-04-04 )

0.7.3 ( 2010-04-02 )

0.7.2 ( 2010-03-24 )

0.7.1 ( 2010-03-17 )

0.7.0.1

0.7.0

0.6.1.5

0.6.1.4

0.6.1.3

0.6.1.2

0.6.1.1

0.6.1

0.6.0.1

0.6.0

0.5.0

0.4.2

0.4.1

0.4.0

0.3.6

0.3.5

0.3.4

0.3.3

0.3.2

0.3.1

0.3.0

0.2.1

0.01

Upgrade Notice

0.8.0
Incompatible change in nkthemeswitch_cloud() parameters. If you call this function from your theme you'll need to update your code.
0.7.1
Fix theme editing.
0.7.0
This is a maintenance release with one big internal but no big visible changes. Priority: Low.