WordPress 3.9 Theme Search is Crap

I just want a list of options to pick from

See the check out our new filter and tag interface on the front page of https://www.ads-software.com/themes/

You can use the same filters when searching for a theme from your own site.

Sorry, but defaulting to the “Popular Themes” problem isn’t solved by the availability of the filter.

Is there any way to change the default behavior without hacking the code?

For pete’s sake, stop typing and start looking!

https://www.ads-software.com/themes/tag-filter/ has a whole lost of tags that you can filter on. The same list of tags is also available in Appearance -> Themes -> Add New -> Feature Filter

I’ve BEEN looking. I maintain over 70 installations and have to make themes available for my users. Taking time away from theme research to try and figure out how to make this new version usable is not a really good choice for me.

The more I use 3.9 the more I want to revert.

ON EDIT: And what makes this search for themes even more annoying is that the search function doesn’t even return about 1/3 of the themes I look for when I search by name. I have a window open for a www.ads-software.com search to find the themes but when I want to install them from the dashboard installer it can’t find some of them.

I am guessing these are newer themes are not yet indexed or something but this is REALLY annoying.

What’s the problem? Why can you not use the tag/feature filter?

“What’s the problem?”

THE PROBLEM: The dashboard defaults to loading “popular” themes, which causes my computer to overheat.

I want to disable that “functionality” by making the filter come up FIRST by default.

ON EDIT: And then I could point out that you can’t even search on a lot of the standard tags, like “Left Sidebar”. (SUBSEQUENT EDIT: Ok, I see the option…)

As I said: this is a total piece of crap.

The dashboard defaults to loading “popular” themes

Well, that’s not right. It should default to Featured themes and there should never be more than about 8-10 of those.

“It should default to Featured themes and there should never be more than about 8-10 of those.”

My mistake. It’s defaulting to displaying 8-10 “Featured Themes” and causing my computer to overheat.

It’s a pretty decent computer. It shouldn’t have to ask for more power like this.

So, basically, you don’t know of any way to change this behavior, right? I have given up on any actual useful capabilities in the search filters.

I admit that I am pretty steamed right now so yes I have missed a couple of obvious things. I am REALLY disappointed in this horrible UI design. Searching for themes should not be this hard.

It’s defaulting to displaying 8-10 “Featured Themes” and causing my computer to overheat.

Really? What else are you running? I can have about 3 or 4 sites running locally pulling those featured themes simultaneously without so much as batting an eyelid. And this machine is a few years old now.

Have you tried using another computer? Or another network? Just wondering if this is a local problem. There’s no way you should be having these problems just displaying those themes.

I maintain over 70 installations

Hang on a minute! Are you talking about the machine that is running these 70 sites?

No, I am talking about the computer I use to connect to the Web hosting accounts. The servers are doing fine. My computer is overheating when I try to search for themes.

So I log into a Website and switch to the Network dashboard and then click on ADD THEME. Immediately the “Featured” themes start loading and MY computer (not the Web server) begins overheating.

Having to click away from that immediately is annoying.

The search filter doesn’t find all the themes even when I type in their names. I am having to click on all the tag options that the theme designers specify on www.ads-software.com so that I can at least browse a group of themes (again causing the computer to overheat).

If I am lucky I will find the theme that way.

Just to find candidates for evaluation, though, I have to run a search on www.ads-software.com and look at the theme profile pages.

Once I have a new list of 3.9-compatible themes to work with I can start uploading them to the various sites that need new themes.

After I install a theme, though, I cannot get back to the Network dashboard in 1 click. I have to go up to the navigation bar/menu and get back to the Network dashboard and the themes page there.

MY computer (not the Web server) begins overheating.

I’m sorry if I’m stating the obvious but this sounds like a local issue to me. There’s absolutely no way that the subsequent page with about 8 theme screenshots should cause your system to overheat.

Just to chime in: I’m on Mac Air that is a couple years old that likes to run the fan just for giggles at random.

Loading the Add Themes page on my own network does not give the same issue. I’d be checking the installation for random extra scripts from plugins you might have installed. I;d also deactivate any browser extensions to rule those out, because I’ve had issues with a few of those lately too.

New features do get throughly tested, and if something like this was happening to a lot of people, it would have been caught. I cannot reproduce it.

Well, funny you should say that because apparently a lot of other people ARE upset.

https://www.google.com/#q=wordpress+3.9+so+slow

Anyway, I’m going to assume there is no way to fix this. I’ll have to try to catch the next version in beta and lodge a ticket or something I guess.