Wordpress weirdness

syklops

I work for a small tech company and we have a corporate website. Before i joined they developed in house a website using wordpress. It looks OK, not fabulous but ok.

Bear with me here: the first guy set up the wordpress he then left the company. A second guy was given the job of improving the site and he improved a bit. I have now been given the job of fixing a few minor things wrong with the site. One of the things was install a different theme, change a few images in the carousel/slider, and move a few things around.

When I activate the new theme, I lose the general layout of the site, the carousel/slider disappears and the site looks terrible. My hunch is, that person B, when he made the changes to the site, he made the changes to the existing theme not to the underlying site. Is that possible? Anyone have any ideas for fixing this? If thats not the problem, what could it be?

I keep reading that installing a new theme in wordpress is so simple and just takes a couple of clicks.

When I was given this job I got SSH access to the server so I can log in and change code(Im more comfortable in a shell anyway).

Any help would be appreciated.

adrianshanahan

To be honest you sound like you are in over your head, if it's a company website it is not a place to learn how to use it. Hire a Wordpress developer.

IRE60

Sounds like there is a css file, or the likes, activated outside the theme that's conflicting with the theme

Tony_G

hi
If you wanna go deeper into this give more info theme ur using etc.
my advice is to make a backup of existing site download the files from server to your PC and start to work Offline before making changes on actual web page(as this could cost u job if failed...)
By working offline i mean Using Wamp server. http://www.wampserver.com/ after successful modification of site upload theme to server.
In other hand creating child theme is an good option too!

syklops

adrianshanahan wrote: »

To be honest you sound like you are in over your head, if it's a company website it is not a place to learn how to use it. Hire a Wordpress developer.

Id be the first to agree. Web design is not on my CV, I was just given this project because i am the least worst qualified. The problem with this company is they are unwilling to spend a red cent, and then wonder why everything is shoddy and only half works.

I asked a friend of mine who is familiar with wordpress and it turns out the previous developer hard coded a lot of links into template files themselves. Also, the template I apply is not fully compatible with Wordpress 3.6 and has bugs. I'm downgrading the version today.

IRE60

If you PM me a link I'll take a look at it and give you my 'red cent'!

adrianshanahan

Don't go downgrading the install of Wordpress, there is little to be gained from that apart from leaving your website less secure.

I'll stand by what I said above about being in over your head but if you must do this as a DIY project, back up everything you have now (Files and Database), upgrade everything and then go purchase a premium Wordpress Theme from the likes of Theme Forest that has the look and features you want. That will cost anything from €30 to €80 which is nothing and then configure it yourself. Most premium themes have good documentation and support from the developer and you should be able to manage it.

If you don;t want to take that option just talk to who ever your boss is and admit you aren't able to do what they want.

syklops

adrianshanahan wrote: »

Don't go downgrading the install of Wordpress, there is little to be gained from that apart from leaving your website less secure.

I'll stand by what I said above about being in over your head but if you must do this as a DIY project, back up everything you have now (Files and Database), upgrade everything and then go purchase a premium Wordpress Theme from the likes of Theme Forest that has the look and features you want. That will cost anything from €30 to €80 which is nothing and then configure it yourself. Most premium themes have good documentation and support from the developer and you should be able to manage it.

If you don;t want to take that option just talk to who ever your boss is and admit you aren't able to do what they want.

Well let me start off and agree with you again that I am in over my head, however short of paying a developer myself there is nothing I can do about it.

The theme that isnt working is one I purchased from theme forest. Im getting support from the developer but it isnt working yet. There is a known bug with the slider not working in 3.6, I've applied the patch but it hasnt resolved it yet. Thanks for the help anyway.

IRE60

Seriously, throw me a PM with the link and I'll take a pike - its free advice!

syklops

IRE60 wrote: »

Seriously, throw me a PM with the link and I'll take a pike - its free advice!

Let me create an account for you.

IRE60

Grand job - cant promise anything - but we'll take a peek.