Title: Developing\Testing Themes
Last modified: August 18, 2016

---

# Developing\Testing Themes

 *  [marky](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marky/)
 * (@marky)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/)
 * I’d like to re-design my site, so I’m implementing a new theme. Does WordPress
   support the testing of my theme without actually making it appear on my “live”
   site?
 * That is, is there a way to view and test my theme so I can explore my site, while
   all visitors see the old one?

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

 *  [Mark (podz)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/podz/)
 * (@podz)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204108)
 * No.
    You are best to install WP again into a test directory. Better still, install
   it onto your machine – cuts out all the ftp nonsense while you perfect things.
 *  Thread Starter [marky](https://wordpress.org/support/users/marky/)
 * (@marky)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204111)
 * That’s disappointing; to develop a new theme you’d either have to install a web
   server, database, and PHP on your local computer or set up a new remote installation(
   including setting up a temporary mySQL database)…
 * Strikes me as a little ridiculous, when it shouldn’t be too difficult to implement
   user-specific theme displays for this purpose. (You could display the “test” 
   theme for whatever registered user is developing the theme, and the selected “
   live” theme for everyone else).
 * Any chance of this feature making it into a future version?
 *  [Mark (podz)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/podz/)
 * (@podz)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204112)
 * Download xampp.
    Run Install Install WP
 * all that takes what ? less than 10 minutes ?
 * And I doubt it.
 *  [vkaryl](https://wordpress.org/support/users/vkaryl/)
 * (@vkaryl)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204113)
 * Isn’t this going to be covered by the “status” selector at some point?
 *  [Mark (podz)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/podz/)
 * (@podz)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204114)
 * No idea, but having xampp on your machine is (1) very easy to do (2) very useful
   for all things WP (3) useful for all php / mysql apps
 *  [iand](https://wordpress.org/support/users/iand/)
 * (@iand)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204116)
 * Maybe this?
    [http://boren.nu/archives/2005/03/08/preview-theme-plugin/](http://boren.nu/archives/2005/03/08/preview-theme-plugin/)
   Though the link came from here, suggesting possible problems: [http://wordpress.org/support/topic/28270](http://wordpress.org/support/topic/28270)
   I vote for local development too though 🙂
 *  [notthatugly](https://wordpress.org/support/users/notthatugly/)
 * (@notthatugly)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204117)
 * Actually, you could install the theme-switcher plugin, but leave the theme-switching
   tag out of your templates and call the test theme with `http://yourdomainname.
   com/index.php?wptheme=nameoftesttheme`. Your readers will continue to see the
   theme selected in the admin panel, but you can view the new theme.
 *  [Mark (podz)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/podz/)
 * (@podz)
 * [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204118)
 * I got that wrong then – my apologies.
 * Xampp is cool though.

Viewing 8 replies - 1 through 8 (of 8 total)

The topic ‘Developing\Testing Themes’ is closed to new replies.

## Tags

 * [develop](https://wordpress.org/support/topic-tag/develop/)

 * 8 replies
 * 5 participants
 * Last reply from: [Mark (podz)](https://wordpress.org/support/users/podz/)
 * Last activity: [21 years ago](https://wordpress.org/support/topic/developingtesting-themes/#post-204118)
 * Status: not resolved

## Topics

### Topics with no replies

### Non-support topics

### Resolved topics

### Unresolved topics

### All topics