Current Theme Changes All By Itself

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Chazzer June 16, 2012 at 12:36 pm

Notice: this information was written when Microthemer version 2 was current. On Dec 26th, 2014 version 3 was released with a completely new interface. Some of the information may be redundant, but as much of the functionality remains the same in version 3 we haven't deleted this post.

I’ve just upgraded my local WP to 3.4 so I don’t know if these issues have got something to do with this.

1. Create a new theme then import blank Artisteer theme – currently active theme changes to blank Artisteer. Eh? I thought it was supposed to simply import settings to my currentlt active theme.

2. So I export blank Artisteer theme as New Theme, say. New Them is now currently active theme. Set something in visual editor and save. Currently active theme reverts to ‘custom configuration’!

Same thing in developer view. When I simply Save and view site or save without checking the export option – the currently active theme keeps reverting to ‘custom configuration’.

3. Also, there is no hint in developer view to say which theme is currently active. So I only find out that the theme has changed itself when I have done some editing and find I’ve lost them becasue they have not saved in the theme I thought was currently active.

Chazzer June 16, 2012 at 4:11 pm

That’s how it’s supposed to work, isn’t it?

When you save changes they are held in ‘custom configuration’ until you export them back into the desired theme.

It’s a bit counter-intuitive; ‘save’ normally means save changes back to the original and not to a separate place. But I can work with it now I know what’s happening.

Sebastian June 18, 2012 at 3:28 pm

Hey,

Sorry for the delayed reply, I was away over the weekend.

I think the answer is “Yes, that’s how it’s supposed to work”. But I do see your point about importing a theme and not necessarily expecting Microthemer to save and activate the theme you’re importing. I think it behaves the way it does because, for reasons I can’t fully remember, it seemed to make the most sense during development.

Here’s a summary of what happens when you save, export, import, or activate settings/themes in Microthemer (when reading the summary below it’s useful to know that whenever settings in the database are changed the active-styles.css stylesheet is updated):

  • If you import a theme into the Microthemer UI and choose “Merge” as the import method, the settings in the theme are merged with the current settings in the database. Logically, the currently active theme should be set to “custom configuration” (because 2 themes have been mixed together) but on inspecting this, I see that the imported theme becomes ‘active’. I will correct this. Note: that this is more of a reporting error than a functional one, the settings in the database do currently merge correctly.
  • If you import a theme into the Microthemer UI and choose “Overwrite” as the import method, the settings in the database get overridden and the Theme you import is set as the active theme.
  • Clicking the “Activate” link on the Manage Themes page has exactly the same effect as importing a Theme into the Microthemer UI with the “Overwrite” method.
  • When you click the save button in the Microthemer UI (without having the export to theme checkbox checked), the settings in the database get updated and the active theme becomes “Custom Configuration”.
  • When you click the save button in the Microthemer UI (and have the export to theme checkbox checked), the settings in the database get updated and the active theme becomes whatever Theme was selected from the dropdown menu. In addition to the settings being updated in the database, they are saved to a config.json file which can be imported back into the Microthemer UI if so desired.

If you can work with Microthemer now that you understand what is going on that’s great. I’m weary of amending the current functionality as it could cause confusion to other users who have become familiar with things as they stand now. Of course I’m open-minded. And if people submit their thoughts on this issue in this thread and the consensus is to make some changes I will honour that.

Regards,

Sebastian

Sebastian June 18, 2012 at 3:49 pm

PS to get Microthemer to behave a bit more conventionally in terms of saving the settings to the same place they were loaded from (i.e. back to the theme), you could try to make sure that the “Export To Theme” checkbox is always ticked and the correct theme is selected from the dropdown menu. Note however that the “Export To Theme” checkbox needs re-ticking if you leave the Microthemer UI page and then go back to it (and if you import something).

Chazzer June 18, 2012 at 4:02 pm

A visual reminder that the current theme has changed – and what it changed to – would be useful, especially for newbies like me.

Sebastian June 18, 2012 at 4:08 pm

Noted. I’ll have a think about how that could be implemented.

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