So we’ve learned how to browse for themes and install them. We’ve also learned how to Network Activate a theme and then make it active on our website.
We’ve also how learned how to delete themes from our WordPress installation.
But so far, I haven’t found a theme that I absolutely love. Perhaps browsing the latest or most popular themes is just not effective enough in finding what I’m looking for.
How about we try searching for relevant themes by keyword.
Yes! Let’s do this.
First of all, let’s log back into our WordPress Dashboard by typing in www.hotelamazonasgy.com/wp-admin, typing in our username and password and clicking “Log In.”
Once inside the Dashboard, click on “My Sites >> Network Admin >> Themes.”
This will bring us back to the Themes Dashboard with the handy “Add New” Button right there.
So I go ahead and click the “Add New” button and the themes directory load. But this time, instead of browsing by , Featured, Popular or Latest themes, I’ll try a different approach.
I’ll look towards the other side of the screen for the search bar.
There it is. So I’ll type in some keywords there. But what keyword or keywords should I type in? Let me think….
Since I’m a build a hotel website, why don’t I type in the keyword “hotel” to pull some themes that were designed for building a hotel website? Yes. I think this is a great idea. Let’s do this.
Once I type in “hotel” into the search bar, all relevant themes will start to load. I do not need to click a “search” or “go” button or anything like that. It happens automatically.
Wow. I can see that scores of hotel themes are loading.
So here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to install about 10 to 20 of these hotel themes and then go test them out on my website to see which I like best.
To install them, I just hover my mouse over the theme and the “Install” button will appear. After that, I just click on “Install.”
As you can see, after I click the “Install” button which appears when you hover your mouse over the theme, it installs. Then an “Installed” notice appears at the top and the “Network Enable” button appears on the theme.
However, I won’t click on “Network Enable” for now. If I do that, I’ll be taken away from this search results and the entire themes repository in fact.
So for now, I’ll just click Install on about 10 to 20 themes and then later I’ll do “Mass Network Enabling.”
OK Great! So I’ve installed about 10 to 20 themes on average – more or less.
Time to go test these themes. So the first thing to do is to Network Enable them. I have the option of Network Enabling one by one, but I also have the option of Network Enabling up to 20 themes or so at one time.
How? Let’s do this.
Go back to see a list of all themes I’ve just installed by clicking My Sites >> Network Admin >> Themes.
This will open up a list of all themes I have installed so far.
And the list goes on.
As you can see, most of themes need network enabling. Only one theme is already network enabled, and that is the one that I am presently using on the site.
So let’s go ahead and enable all themes with a few clicks.
First thing to do is scroll to the top and hit the “Select All” button right under the “Bulk Actions” Menu.
That will select all themes on the list. But remember, the “Bard” is what we’re currently using and it is already Network Enabled.
So we need to go ahead and deselect that theme.
So I’ve deselected the Bard Theme because it was already Network Enabled, but the other themes that were not Network Enabled remain selected.
So now I’m going to do some bulk actions. I’ll click on that arrow right next to the Bulk Actions menu and select “Network Enable.”
Then I’ll just click the apply button right next to it. And tada! All these themes are now Network Enabled.
Great. So now that these themes are network enabled, I can go test them out and see what they look like on my website,or should I say, what my website looks like on them?
I’ve already covered how to test themes out in a previous lesson. So for now, I’ll go try out these themes until I find one that comes as closest to my vision for this website as possible.Then I’l customize.
To make it short, I go to My Sites >> The Amazonas Hotel in Lethem >> Dashboard, then Appearances >> Themes.
As you can see, the theme that is active shows the “Customize” button which gives the option of customizing the theme.
Take a closer look.
To active another theme, I just hover over it and the “Activate” button will appear.
After I activate a theme, I load a new browser window and type in the website, or refresh if I already have the site loaded, to see what it looks like with the new theme.
So see you in the next lesson: Customizing a Theme.
