Compatibility with GeoCraft Paid Themes

Thank you for contacting me BEFORE you purchased the Theme, so that I can do my best to research the Theme’s compatibility with my plugin.

I have not yet been able to test that theme as this is the first question about it, and I cannot afford to buy paid themes for test purposes. I will contact the theme author immediately, to see if he will allow me to test his theme.

As I await a response from the Theme author, I should mention that there is an alternate solution to your “problem”. You could have two WordPress sites, avoiding the need for a multi-theme plugin such as mine. Either using WordPress Multi-Site (AKA a WordPress Network) or two separate installations of WordPress. Simply install the second WordPress in a folder (subdirectory) on the first WordPress’ home.

For example, if your first WordPress site is example.com/wp, then the second WordPress site could be example.com/wp/biz

The first site would have Twenty Ten as its Theme and the second GeoCraft.

This could be your backup plan, even if things work out with my plugin.

Hi jonradio,

Thanks for looking into this… The people at GeoCraft /Inkthemes.com seem to be quite receptive with their products. Hopefully I can use your plugin, I’m quite the newbie with regards to WordPress so I go for what looks like to be the easiest to handle.

If all works, I would assume your plug in is quite similar in setup compared to the “Page Theme” plugin setup? I watched this tutorial how to using “Page Theme” plugin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRJV_TSvti0

Thanks for the alternative method suggestion. Hopefully we can just go with plugin ??

BTW, I have been speaking with

Harmeet Singh – [email protected]
InkThemes.com

He is quite good in responding to all my questions regarding their themes.

Just an update: I have received a response showing me how to obtain a trial version of the Theme.

I just fired up one of my test systems and will begin testing immediately.

I was only able to do testing on the Trial Version of an old version of the Theme, Version 1.0, as that is all that is offered on their Trial page:
https://www.inkthemes.com/trial/

I came away from the experience believing that you would be a lot better off running a separate WordPress just for GeoCraft. Rather than using the jonradio Multiple Themes plugin.

Among other reasons, including the possibility that the Theme needs to be Activated to do some necessary Initialization, the biggest issue you will find is the frequent access you will undoubtedly need to GeoCraft’s many Options that ONLY appear in the left sidebar of the Admin panels when GeoCraft is the Active Theme.

The extra work of building a second WordPress, either by doing a second install, or by using WordPress MultiSite/Network, will be more than compensated for by the lack of frustration at your inability to easily access the GeoCraft options.

Again, this is my opinion. And I’m still willing to explore the issue further. Just let me know.

FYI, my first guess as to how best to use jonradio Multiple Themes in this case would involve making GeoCraft the Active Theme and Twenty Ten the secondary theme. We’d have to work through how to get Twenty Ten to appear everywhere but the one GeoCraft page, which I haven’t tried before, but it “should” work.

I’m game trying to use your Plugin, do you want to do some more investigation before we proceed?

After my last post, I got to thinking about it, and realized that it would be better to specifically add this functionality (default theme to be something other than the WordPress Current Theme) to the plugin.

Last night, I wrote the code to actually do it. Over the next 24-36 hours, I hope to complete the Settings page changes necessary to allow the option to be set. After I test it, I’ll release it as a new version of the plugin.

I will also update here, and discuss how best to give it a try.

Thanks again for your patience. As I said, not a situation that I had considered previously.

Cool, just let me know whey you are ready to rock

This is something easy to roll back from just in case it does not work?

I have created back ups through the WordPress Admin panel already

Thanks again for your help!

The plugin can just be deactivated, to return to normal, though you will also be changing your Current Theme in WordPress, in your situation, so you’ll have to change it back.

The GeoCraft theme, however, does create Pages when you first use it. Or, at least, the older trial version did. The Pages stay even after you remove the GeoCraft theme.

Version 4.2 of the plugin has now been released and is available in the WordPress Plugin Repository/Directory. It includes a new Advanced Setting called “Theme for Everything”.

My idea is to:

1. Install and Activate the new 4.2 version of the Plugin
2. Set Twenty Ten as “Theme for Everything”
3. Install GeoCraft Theme but do NOT select as Current Theme
4. In the plugin, set GeoCraft as your Theme for whatever specific Page you want to use it on
5. select GeoCraft as your Current Theme in WordPress admin Appearance-Themes

Based on my observations about the GeoCraft demo version creating pages and other things, I would strongly recommend doing a backup just before installing it. As I said above, I know that my plugin installs and uninstalls cleanly, but GeoCraft does seem to leaves things behind when you delete it.

I leave the testing of GeoCraft up to you. Mainly, because I don’t know exactly how you plan to use it. But also because that goes well beyond what is necessary to support the plugin.

Hi Jonradio,

OK.

1.) Backup site
2.) Install your plug in
3.) Set Twenty Ten as “Theme for Everything”
4.) Install GeoCraft Theme but do NOT select as Current Theme
5.) In the plugin, set GeoCraft as your Theme for whatever specific Page you want to use it on
6.) select GeoCraft as your Current Theme in WordPress admin Appearance-Themes
7.) Test and report

Hey Jonradio,

Sorry for the delay, was sidetracked with another project. OK, so I did all steps up to #5. I have some questions regarding #6 elect GeoCraft as your Current Theme in WordPress admin Appearance-Themes. Do I need to activate this theme to be current theme in order to edit the theme? and once I’m done, revert to “Twenty-Ten” theme?

Also, is there a way to “embed” the GeoCraft theme into the twenty-ten theme?

To clarify, my intention was that GeoCraft should be defined to WordPress “forever” as the Current Theme. Because I can see you frequently wanting to change its Options.

The new “Theme for Everything” setting in my plugin lets you have Twenty Ten as the theme everywhere except the specific page(s) where you want GeoCraft.

Hopefully, you don’t need to change Twenty Ten options, including Menus and Widgets and such. The main “risk” is that you might lose Twenty Ten option settings.

As for “embed”, merging Themes ranges from difficult to impossible, in my experience.

Shoot, its not working correctly.. Information from the Twenty ten theme is leaking over to the Geocraft theme as soon as I created a business listing, ugh!