Need help? Check out our Support site, then


WordPress.com Forums » Themes

Premium Themes - Advice and Help

  1. thebeerroad
    Member

    I'm happy with my current free theme, but have decided it is holding me back from doing many things that I want to do. Therefore, I have been looking at other themes, especially some magazine style premium ones. However, I do not know how to code hardly at all, and am curious how much I will need to know to use most premium themes. I cannot for the life of me seem to find an answer to that question. Is there one that's easier to use than another based upon that alone?

    The blog I need help with is thebeerroad.com.

  2. timethief
    Member

    You do not need to code to purchase and use a premium theme. When you purchase a premium theme what comes with that purchase is support directly from the theme designer in the Premium Theme Support Forum. A link to the specific Premium Theme support forum will appear under Appearance -> Themes in your blog’s Dashboard, but do note that the premium theme must be active and you must be signed in as the user who purchased it in order to see it.

  3. timethief
    Member

    To view the various premium themes avaialble, read the theme descriptions for them and use the live demo sites for each of them click this premium themes link.

  4. thebeerroad
    Member

    Thank you. How well do the current pages and widgets that I have created with my free theme tend to transfer into another theme, such as one of the premium themes?

  5. timethief
    Member

    I have no personal experience with this however, changing themes is never a big deal here at WordPress.com. Provided you don't change to a theme that has a smaller maximum displayed image width in the blogging space for pages and posts you will not have to resize them. In most cases the widgets we used previously appear in our sidebars when we change themes. If they don't then we go to > Apearance > Widgets > Inactive widgets and replace them where we want them to display.

  6. thebeerroad
    Member

    Would that typically happen if I am switching from a theme that has one column for content and one sidebar to one that has two sidebars? How difficult is it then, to "resize" them?

  7. timethief
    Member

    Would that typically happen if I am switching from a theme that has one column for content and one sidebar to one that has two sidebars?

    It depends on the theme. Each theme is different.

    How difficult is it then, to "resize" them?

    It takes time to resize images and that's all it takes. There are free image editing software programs that do resize images in batch mode or singularily. So all I can say is: "It's not dfifficult. It's only time consuming and the time spent all depends on how many images you have to resize."
    http://en.support.wordpress.com/media/image-optimization/#image-editing-software
    http://onecoolsitebloggingtips.com/2009/11/28/ten-free-online-image-compression-and-optimzation-programs/

  8. thebeerroad
    Member

    Again, thank you for your answers. One last question if you don't mind. I know the theme showcase has the "demo" version of the theme, but is there any resource to see examples of (especially the premium) themes that have been put in use by actual websites? That would give me, I would think, a much better idea of which to truly start looking at seriously and perhaps choose.

  9. timethief
    Member

    Do note that no demo is exactly 100% accurate as the themes we use here have been adapted to run on our software. You will find that in the sidebar of the theme descriptions in the Themes Showcase there are links to blogs using each theme. If you wish you can visit them.

    Also note that you have a 30 refund period to try out any premium theme. Pricing for each theme can be found under the Premium tab in the Appearance → Themes page of your dashboard. Premium themes are priced per blog, for the lifetime of that blog. If you would like to use the same theme across multiple blogs, you’ll have to purchase the theme for each blog.

    Note: Premium Themes are customized for WordPress.com usage only, and cannot be transferred to self-hosted WordPress.org sites.

    That's the extent of the help you can receive on this peer support forum, where we Volunteers answering questions do not have access to premium themes and have no experience using them. Best wishes with your theme search.

Topic Closed

This topic has been closed to new replies.

About this Topic

Tags