Take advantage of WordPress theme updates with this guide
Periodically we publish updates for our theme for WordPress platform. There are a number of different ways to upgrade a WordPress GK theme depending on your specific situation. Regardless of your situation, make sure you make backups of database and “old” theme files. Theme folders files are located here: wp-content/themes/. In this way, if something has gone wrong with the new version of theme, you’re just a few clicks away from getting things back to where they were.
Compare changes
Customized WordPress theme means you’ve made some changes in the original theme according to your requirements. If you did it, then the first thing you may want to do is see if the changes to the new version of your theme are extensive or not. I hope that you remember which files from theme have you edited? In most cases users as you, customize only override.css and theme images.
Good news: WP Theme options are stored in the database not the theme files. Your settings will be preserved.
Bad news: The more files you’d customized, the more things will break when you upgrade.
Luckily, there are programs you can get that will let you compare two versions of your theme (old version with your new upgrade version). If you use a Windows, WinMerge is a free tool useful for determining what has changed between file versions, and then merging those changes. Kaleidoscope (sorry, not free) is a similar program for iOS.
How to upgrade WordPress Themes
- Login into your Gavick account and go to downloads section.
- Download the theme into your computer.
- Locate gk-theme.zip and unzip it. Make sure your unzipping software do not create extra directory or change filenames.
- Using FTP/SFTP client you can replace files/folder directly from latest version of the theme. FTP program will give a warning that there is an existing with the same directory name, choose replace. In most cases you don’t have to replace folder with theme images, favicon.ico and override.css file.
- Second method (Recommended), simply rename the old theme folder first (for example from “RockWall” to “RockWall-old” , and then upload the new theme.
- In both cases (4) and (5) – the theme version will be changed to the latest, current version.
- Clear both cache & cookies in your browser, refresh your page.
- After upgrading the theme, ensure that all your plugins and widgets are working properly.
Child theme really helps
It is always advised to create and modify a child them rather than opting out for a main WordPress theme. By creating a child theme to keep all your customizations, you’re ensuring that your site design is upgrade-proof. Everything you changed is separate, meaning that WordPress will still look at the child CSS file(s) first before applying the changes from the new version of the original stylesheet.
Note: Before updating your WordPress to a newer version you should always check item description in Gavick to make sure your theme is compatible with the WP newer version. With major WordPress versions new features and other changes may cause the WordPress themes to not function as it should be. So please give us some time to give new updates to make them compatible with newer WP versions.
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