Themes: choose, preview, apply a look, undo

A theme only controls how the site looks. Modules, entries, mail, languages and permissions do not depend on it, so you can change themes freely: whatever you change can be undone.

Where themes are

“Appearance → Themes”. Every theme has a screenshot of the home page, a name and buttons. “Make active” leads to switching the theme, “Preview” opens the site in that theme for you alone, and “Customize” on the active theme opens colours, fonts and corner rounding.

Look first

“Preview” does not switch the theme: only you see the site in it, visitors notice nothing. A “Preview” bar appears at the top with “Switch on” and “Exit” buttons. The preview ends by itself after eight hours or when you close the browser.

The “Apply the settings of the theme?” window

If the theme has a ready look (home page block layout, colours, header and footer), a window opens instead of an instant switch. It shows:
- two screenshots side by side: “Now” and “Will be”. These are reference screenshots of the themes, not your live home page; to see your own site press “Preview first”;
- a “was → will be” list by group: home page layout, colours and fonts, header and footer, home and welcome. What does not change is not listed, only a line “Will not change: …” with the names remains;
- a choice of look, if the theme has several;
- four buttons: “Apply” (theme and look), “Theme only” (the theme with its earlier settings), “Preview first” and “Cancel”.

The window says what the engine guarantees: only the look changes. Modules, mail, languages, permissions, SEO and your content stay as they are. The site menu items are not touched either: the theme only sets the header layout and how many items it shows.

Why your look is not lost

Block layout and colours are stored separately for each theme. If you go back to the earlier theme, it looks the way you left it: nothing to set up again.

Restore the previous look

After a switch, the theme page has a “Restore the previous look” button. It brings back the earlier theme and the values the look changed. The engine remembers the last three switches: press the button several times in a row and you walk back through them in reverse order. The undo restores values as they were when the look was applied: if you also edited the layout by hand afterwards, that comes back too.

New themes

Other themes are in the “Add-on catalogue”, and you can install your own theme from an archive (see the article “Installing a module or theme from an archive”). A theme from the catalogue is installed switched off: you enable it yourself.