Having Problem with the Theme

Customizing the theme

[elvang]

Hi everyone,
i have bought a wordpress theme. When i imported it to my wordpress, it said "theme is successfully imported". But when i go to the website i couldnt see the main menu at the top. And i wrote this problem to the developer and he wanted wordpress admin panel's user name and password. Is it safe to share those information with him and what kind of security precautions can i take?

Or should i try to fix the problem myself with elementor? what do you advice?

thank you.

[not2easy]

Hi elvang,
After you import a new theme to WordPress you will need to log in to your Admin account and go to the Appearance area where you can see all of the themes you have available. From there you can add, delete and activate or de-activate the theme you wish to use.

Simply importing the theme does not necessarily install or activate it. So if you go o the Appearance page and do not see your new theme installed you will need to install it. It is an automatic process, all you need to do is know the location of the theme and tell WP to add that theme, then activate it.

If you have already gone through those steps, then you can use the Customize page to make changes. I would not share the login credentials with others. You can create a temporary account with limited privileges if you absolutely need to do that. Even so it is not a good practice.

Is the Theme you bought available through the WordPress Themes? If not then it is an additional reason not to share a login. You should be able to find answers at wp.org about installing themes.

[TorontoBoy]

If this is a purchased theme then there are no guarantees of quality. Before you buy a theme ensure they have a bug fix forum, where you can check if others are having issues and that bugs are actually being fixed by the theme developer. I've ha very spotty luck with purchased themes that customers have bought and then sent me.

Please do not give your ID and password to the theme developer, or anyone else. You do not know who they are and you could lose control of your site.

[elvang]

thank you TorontoBoy and not2easy. I think i will customize the theme myself. I paid for that theme and i think i will use. Actually before buying i searched a lot and lots of people bought it. Actually i was not aware of bug fix forum.
Thank you.

[not2easy]

The bug fix (and support) forum is for themes listed at https://wordpress.org/themes/ where they offer nearly 10,000 free themes and also paid themes. Personally I would not use a paid theme which is not listed there because it is free to list there. They only require that themes be offered by people who support open source, WordPress, and its GPL license.

A paid theme NOT listed there should be able to tell you why they are not listed there. It may be that they did not know they could list there but that is not likely if they are capable of offering a commercial theme. I look at paid themes not listed at WordPress as not the safest containers, and they may not have a bug-fix forum to warn people. Because they asked for your login information I would not feel safe using their theme and consider the fee as an educational expense. Some commercial theme businesses will have their own site for support, but there should also be a support forum at the WordPress site.

[TorontoBoy]

Just because many people have supposedly bought it does not mean the theme is easy to use. Apart from scamming the vote numbers, there are also paid upvoters.

People may have bought the theme because of visual appeal (eye candy), but more important to a developer like myself is how robust is it, Do others encounter unexpected problems in installation or customization, are the developers helpful when you have a problem. Stability is also very important. You don't want a theme to break, or change your site whenever you re-edit it (this has happened to me, Gutenberg). By reading the theme's forum you can find out a lot about the maintainability of the theme, and the reliability of the developer. Some problems in a theme are not worth fixing because it would simply take too much time. Themes should fit your site design right out of the box, with only a minimum of CSS additions.

Also ensure the theme has been updated on a regular basis, or you might get a dead end theme.

[elvang]

I definatelly got the point. While i was buying that theme i paid attention to lots of things but i was not aware of checking if it was listed in wordpress. So now i am searching a new real estate theme for my website. It will have 2 languages and membership system for property owners. And there is a website " W3CMarkup Validation" . I am thinking to test the theme in this website to check the simplicity(in terms of codes, css etc.). Or if you know any other way to check the simplicity. Or can you advise a simple (but having the latest improvements (responsiveness, etc.)) real estate theme for me from the list in wordpress.Thank you.

[not2easy]

The " W3CMarkup Validation" site is not helpful for evaluating a theme. It may help you determine problems with "markup" which is related to metadata for structured data such as OG but it can only evaluate your use of markup, not related to the theme. There is a new post here about the value of structured data: [webmasterworld.com...]

You can validate (free) the HTML and CSS at https://jigsaw.w3.org/css-validator/ and you can get a report on any errors or things to fix. That does not evaluate the templates in a theme, only their output - the visible page that results. Validation is nice and can be helpful but it has little to do with the quality of the theme.

MANY WP themes have issues, even premium ones, but knowing the problems can allow you to fix some of them. Browsers are very forgiving on most issues and will figure things out usually so I would not necessarily use it for decision making on themes.

As for recommendations - we don't do recommendations or reviews of themes here because they are quickly filled up with drive-by promos. The WP Themes gallery lists thousands of paid and free themes, many with specialty features for specific types of sites. It takes a little time, but they offer filters so you can choose which features are important to you. Their user reviews are curated and more reliable than most theme reviews.

It helps to visit the theme's page and check out their support section to get deep information as to how long they have been around and how well they respond to support requests. You can check that themes are validated with the most recent update to WP and see how users like their features. Definitely, some are easier to use than others as you will notice in their support responses.

[elvang]

thank you not2easy

[tangor]

Themes do have a purpose and are helpful for those who do not routinely "code your own". However, over time, you will certainly need to do some coding to correct errors OR add functionality as needed.

As with all themes and plugins, it is possible that when WP had updates (and you should ALWAYS update!) your third party stuff might be affected, so keep backups of your installation on a regular basis. Always backup before you install anything new!

[elvang]

Thank you tangor. My hosting has backup service. I am thinking of using it. Or do you advice any other way for backups?

[tangor]

If you have host-level backups available, use them (counts against your site storage), or backup the site on local or dev machines (my choice). Whatever best secures your site is what you should use. If nothing else it is a copy of your current install!

[TorontoBoy]

If your purchased theme is based on another theme, ensure that the purchased theme is a child theme, and can then be auto-updated when the main theme has updates. Otherwise your purchased theme will be a orphan, and can quickly go out of date.

If you make code changes to a chosen theme, a possible option for you, then always create a child theme, and add your stuff on top. When the main theme updates, all your changes will be preserved.