Last month I was talking to my friend Zac Johnson about theme switching plugins for WordPress. For years I used the plugin Theme Test Drive to allow people to change the WordPress theme being used. Unfortunately, Vladimir Prelovac hasn’t updated the plugin for 18 months and it doesn’t work very well with the latest versions of WordPress.
Try Theme Switch and Preview Plugin
Eventually, my friend found a good theme-switching plugin called Theme Switch and Preview. Ironically, the plugin is even older, haven’t not been updated since the Summer of 2010, though it still works.
What is Theme Switch and Preview
The plugin lets you choose who can switch themes. You can restrict this to admin, give a special passkey to certain users or allow theme switching for everyone. It comes with a theme switching widget too, which allows you to place your ‘change theme’ link anywhere on your page.
Shortcode
Theme switching links can also be placed in posts and pages using the ‘nkthemeswitch’ shortcode. You can either display a list of links or show a list of thumbnail previews for each theme. This is a feature that few theme switching plugins have ever offered.
Despite the plugin not being updated for around two years, Theme Switch and Preview still works great. It’s a useful plugin for anyone who want to make some changes to their theme in a live environment or offer visitors different theme designs (e.g. different colour schemes or theme demos).
As always, if you know of a good alternative solution, please feel free to share it in the comment area with fellow WP Mods readers 🙂
Good luck,
Kevin
Link: Theme Switch and Preview
* Kudos to Zac Johnson for bringing this plugin to my attention 🙂
