Its a good idea to use the latest version of the theme you are using. This ensures that you are not vulnerable to any security issue and you have up to date code that works in all web browsers.
But automatic updates are not supported by Elegant Themes. If you try to automatically update an Elegant Themes’ theme from WordPress dashboard, you will get an error message like this,
An error occurred while updating the theme: Update package not available.
This is actually good because if automatic updates were available, you may accidentally erase all the customization that you have done on the theme.
Here’s the procedure to update a WordPress theme from Elegant Themes:
First make sure that you really need to update the theme. To check that, find out what’s the latest version of the theme you want to update. Login to your Elegant Themes members area to see the changelog of the theme you want to update. You’ll find the information about the latest version available here.
Now go to Appearance > Themes on your WordPress dashboard to check the version of theme you have.
(You can also find the theme’s version by checking the header of style.css file)
If the versions match, then you already have the latest version of theme. However, if you have a older version, then you need to update the theme.
To update, first download the latest version of the theme from members area. Now, the exact procedure to update the theme depends upon whether you have edited any of your theme files.
Updating The Theme When You Have Edited The Theme Files
• Login to your web server via FTP, go to wp-content/themes folder and an ‘old’ prefix to the existing version to make it yourtheme-old. In my case here, it will be chameleon-old.
• Now upload the latest version of the theme from Appearance > Themes or via FTP.
• Create a child theme for the latest version of the theme and move all your custom changes from the old version of the theme to the child theme.
• Activate the child theme.
If something goes wrong, you have the backup of your old version in yourtheme-old folder on your web server. You can start again from scratch in this case.
Updating When You Have Not Edited Any Theme Files Or If You Are Using a Child Theme
If you have not modified any theme files in any way, or if you are using a child theme to store all your custom changes to the theme, then you can simply delete the existing version of the theme and upload the new one. Make sure that you have actually not edited any theme files, not even style.css file, before doing this, otherwise all your changes will be lost.
Update: You can use the Elegant Updater Plugin to update the theme instantly if you have not edited it or if you are using a child theme.
A quick question I hope… so when I upgrade, I am going to need to set up all the colors, logos and navigation all over again? Isn’t there an easier way so that I don’t have to start from scratch? I didn’t edit any files manually (no php, html or css editing) I only used the ePanel… but still… that was some time that was put into it?
Do we really need to re-do all the changes within the code of the new theme?
I am going to upgrade the Aggregate theme. I will follow the instructions above, renaming the Aggregate folder to Aggregate-old.
Question: Can I copy the old styles.css to the new one if I have made changes? Or are the .css files tailored to the new theme and thus the new theme might be messed up or some new features might not be available?
I am not a CSS expert.
Many thanks,
Kim
@Lon
If you have not edited any theme files, you can simply delete the old theme folder and upload the new version.
@Justin
Yes, if you have edited any theme files.
@Kim
The best way would be to copy all the custom CSS that you have added at the end of style.css file, and paste it at the end of style.css file of the new version of the theme.
i thought there was other more tricky tips to update it. Now i know this kind of manual and simple method is actually the best way.
@Lon
they saved epanel settings into the database, so no need to worries. just installed the updated one like what this post said. All your setting will just remain like before.
Hi, thanks for your advice! I have inherited the site from a previous provider and I don’t know if the template has any changes or not. Is there an easy way to tell (or can you tell?) before I attempt to replace?
@Belle Baker
Unfortunately there is no easy way to tell. If you have a copy of same older version of theme, you can use a file comparison tool to find out what changes have been made. Otherwise, you must hire a WordPress developer to take a closer look.
I cannot update when I don’t have a subscription with elegantthemes anymore?
@henk
Once your ElegantThemes’ membership expires, you will not be able to download updated themes, and hence you can’t update.