Is theme Sela retired? Or only for WordPress.com?

Hi there,

This theme was recently retired from WordPress.com, yes. For now it’s still available in the www.ads-software.com theme directory for use on self-hosted sites, but it will be retired here soon as well, at which point we’ll also end support for the theme via this forum.

Were you trying to see this theme’s instructions to help you set it up on your site? If you can provide a link to your site and tell me what you want to do, I’ll be happy to help with that.

I wasn’t aware of using a retired theme. In fact, I’m not even running theme Sela that long.

Theme retirements are not related to how long you’ve been using a theme, but to how long the theme has been around. Sela was launched in 2015, and has since become dated both in terms of the features it supports, and the coding technologies and practices used on the web in general, and on WordPress specifically.

It is being replaced by an updated version of the theme called Stow, which has been created specifically for the block editor:

https://wordpress.com/theme/stow

Stow is not available in the www.ads-software.com theme showcase, but you can download it from the WordPress.com showcase page for use on a self-hosted site, or if your site is connected to WordPress.com via the Jetpack plugin you can install it from My Site ->Design ->Themes

Thanks, I understand the theme was around for a longer time than I’m using it. I just switched from WooThemes Canvas to Sela because WooThemes deprecated their former flagship theme. Unlucky I guess but I’ll look into stow.

Regarding documentation I was looking for a way to include specific testimonials on a page. Turned out I’m using JetPack for this and there is no support for either taxonomy or specific id’s on testimonials. So the “solution”/conclusion was not related to theme Sela in the end.

I was looking for a way to include specific testimonials on a page.

Sela includes a Testimonials area on the front page if you use the theme’s Front Page Template. If you have testimonials published on the site, up to two of them will automatically appear there.

You can also add testimonials to any page using the [testimonials] shortcode included in Jetpack Testimonials.

https://en.support.wordpress.com/testimonials/testimonials-shortcode/

But they don’t support taxonomies, no, so you can’t force only specific testimonials to appear.

It is possible to declare your own support for taxonomies for Jetpack testimonials, but you’ll have to create your own shortcode to display testimonials according to those taxonomies, and that still won’t work with Sela’s front page template.

If you want to give that a try you can find some information here:

https://github.com/Automattic/jetpack/issues/7222

We’re not able to help you with this type of custom work, though.

Yep, thanks. I found that issue earlier and subscribed to keep track of it. Needed the shortcode/taxonomy for a page, not the front page.

Anyway, this issue was to confirm Sela’s end of life and you helped to confirm that so I’mm mark this as resolved.

Thanks for the extra effort in helping out!

Are there any plans to bring Stow, which is mentioned above as a replacement for the retired Sela, to www.ads-software.com for self-hosted sites?
I’ve just started developing a site using Sela and like much about it – so I’m not that keen on starting all over again…

@intertwingled84

There are no plans at present for submitting Stow to the www.ads-software.com theme directory, but you can download the self-hosted version of this theme from the WordPress.com theme showcase page, or if you use Jetpack, install it directly from My Site ->Design ->Themes on WordPress.com.

You can find the download links for Stow, and for its parent theme, Varia (Stow is a child theme, so you need to install both) at the bottom of the page, here:

https://wordpress.com/theme/stow

Of course – that’s great thank you.

Presumably, since Stow is a child theme, the idea is that any edits to it are made within the Customization area, rather than trying to create a child-child-theme (which I guess is impossible) and edit *that*.

I have no idea if grandchild themes are possible ??

But for CSS changes I’d suggest you just use the Customizer, yes. The other most common theme customizations I’ve come across are to header.php or footer.php, and of course functions.php, and those you can all modify using plugins.

If you do want to make changes that work better in a child theme, making a new child of Varia would probably be the better option, though. You can always copy the files you want from Stow into your own child theme. That means you won’t receive future updates of Stow, but the important stuff, like security patches, would happen via Varia in any case.

Hello there,

Can anyone tell me when Sela theme will be discontinued? Hoping on good news (that it won’t). Because I like it a lot.

Anothe question, after chamging the menu bar colour, when using it, the menu bar sometimes turns to pink. Like your are scrolling over it, bus you aren’t. How can I fix this?

If Sela is discontinued, for how long will Stow be availabe? What is the expectancy of this theme? I’m not sure how that works.

Thanks!

@costaricamans,

You are posting to a very old, resolved thread.

Please start a new thread at https://www.ads-software.com/support/theme/sela/#new-post and include a link to the site you need help with, and someone will reply to you there.