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Previewing a new theme on a live site

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I have a hefty website that I'm building a new theme for.

I need to test the new theme online. I thought about creating a mirror version of the entire site to do that, but the site comes with a lot of data, both in the filesystem and in the database, and I'd like to avoid that.

Is there an elegant way to view a site with a different theme - and allow colleagues to do so - while for everyone else, everything stays the same?

I tried hand-crafting this approach:http://jeremeclaussen.com/blog/2009/10/9/concrete5-and-magical-them... which uses a cookie to switch themes, but it doesn't work well: it overrides the back-end theme too, making it unusable.
pekka
 
shondy replied on at Permalink Reply
shondy
You didn't mention if you were using 5.6 or 5.7, but you can apply a them to a particular page, or multiple pages if you want. In 5.7 you have to put the page in edit mode, then click the settings button and choose "Design", and use the expand link below the current them to choose another. You can also apply different page types, but you probably know that.

I know 5.6 isn't too far off of this method.

From your post I realize that you want to be able to have users re-skin the whole site, so this would only solve part of your problem.
pekka replied on at Permalink Reply
pekka
Thanks! I use 5.6. Actually, I want to be able to switch themes on a live site but for specific users only, e.g. myself and a few colleagues. It's to test-run a new theme without having to create a complete mirror site, which is a huge pain.