Changing a theme takes less than 1 second. Your visitors won’t even notice until the change is completed.
WordPress has an inbuilt “live Preview” option in Appearance > Themes so you can test and tweak the new theme before activating it.
I’d recommend installing MAMP=MAC or WAMP=PC.
Build your theme locally to get everything correct, then upload your new finished theme to your WordPress Site.
Yeah, I got the live preview part and the “takes less than a second” part. But how do I do it? The live preview only lets me make a few little changes – none of which allow me any real personality and detail. When I activate it my website is complete chaos
That’s difficult to answer because it all depends on your individual website, what theme you are using now, what theme you want to change to, your sidebar setup, what things you want/need to change etc etc.
If you have a well established website, switching themes can involve a bit of work and theme customisation to make it all look good again. Consider setting up a local site to get everything correct before switching the live site as suggested above.
premiumwp –
I do have a well established website and I’m prepared for it to be an involved process but can’t afford to have my site unavailable while I make the changes. I like the idea of a local site. Can you direct me to the starting point of creating a local site?
thank you
