How to switch between 17th Avenue themes

If you're currently using a 17th Avenue Genesis WordPress Theme and would like to switch to another one of our Genesis themes, this is the guide for you! (Switching from Genesis to Kadence? Click here).

Before we begin, let's go over what will be COMPLETELY SAFE when you switch to a new theme:

  • Blog posts
  • Images
  • Comments
  • Pages
  • Navigation menus
  • Plugins and their content

The things that you  MAY LOSE/CHANGE when switching themes are:

  • Your homepage widgets
  • Navigation menu locations (depending on which themes you're using)
  • Size of featured images
  • Color customizations
  • Genesis theme settings, including header/footer scripts
  • Any changes you've made to your existing theme's Style.css file

Before you begin

There are a few things we suggest doing in preparation for a new theme (in this order):

  1. Create a backup. It's always a good idea to make a full backup of your website prior to making any big changes on your website. Some hosting providers offer backups, or you can use a backup plugin like UpdraftPlus or VaultPress.
  2. Update WordPress software. Our themes are updated to stay compatible with the newest versions of WordPress. If you install an updated theme on an older version of WordPress, this can sometimes cause issues.
  3. Update Genesis. Go to Appearance > Themes and make sure Genesis is updated to the latest version.
  4. Update your plugins. And/or perform a plugin audit.

Step 1: Remove Previous Widgets

Complete this step before uploading your new theme. If you're concerned about removing widgets from your live site, put up a temporary coming soon page.

Most of our themes use the same widget area class names (i.e. front-page-1), which means if you switch to a different 17th Avenue theme, your previous widgets are going to transfer to your new theme. For the most part, you don't want this. It will make setting up your new theme more difficult since you'll have widgets from both your old theme and your new theme.

So, the first step we recommend when switching themes is to go to Appearance > Widgets and remove ALL widgets from ALL of the widget areas. It's particularly important to remove widgets from the "Front Page" widget areas, but removing as much as possible will make the setup for your new theme much easier.

Step 2: Upload Your New Theme

Now it's time to upload your new 17th Avenue theme.

  1. Before you begin, be sure to unzip the theme file you received after purchase. 
  2. Go to WordPress > Appearance > Themes.
  3. At the top, click Add New, and then Upload Theme on the next page.
  4. Click Choose File. Select the child theme file that came inside your theme folder. The child theme will be an all-lowercase file, such as clover-theme.1.2.zip.
  5. Click Install Now and wait for the theme to install. Activate the theme.
Note: You don't need to upload the Genesis Framework again. That should already be installed on your site.

Step 3: Install Recommended Plugins

After your theme is activated, follow the prompts at the top of your dashboard to install AND activate the recommended plugins for your theme. For a complete list of recommended plugins and instructions on using the easy plugin installer, refer to the Theme Documentation for your theme. 

Step 4: Regenerate Thumbnails

Each 17th Avenue theme calls for different image sizes. You'll want to regenerate your thumbnails to ensure your images display correctly in your new theme.

Step 5: Import New Widgets

This step will set up your new theme with all of the homepage widgets from the demo. Don't skip this step – it will make theme setup go significantly faster! Please refer to the Theme Documentation for your theme for instructions on importing the demo widgets.

Step 6: Assign Your Navigation Menus

Most of our themes use the same navigation menu locations. But if you need to change where any of your menus are positioned in your new theme, go to Appearance > Menus > Manage Locations.

Step 7: Add your own content to the homepage

This will differ depending on which theme you have, so you'll want to refer to the Theme Documentation for instructions on adding your own content, images, etc. to the homepage widgets.

Step 8: Everything else

The instructions for any other miscellaneous theme features – Instagram landing page, offscreen menu, contact page, etc. can all be found in the Theme Documentation for your theme.

Questions?

As always, if you have any questions, feel free to submit a support ticket and we'd be happy to help!