Choosing or Changing Themes
If you selected a Cadenza Theme during sign-up, then your site was customized based on your color scheme selections. If you did not select a Theme, then a Cadenza Theme was selected for you as a starter Theme.
You may change your Theme at any time to another Theme, however, there are some important considerations and steps that must be followed.
Selecting a New theme will erase many style customizations that have been made to your site! Changing Themes will require new customizations in order to preserve your color and brand selections!
Home Page Content will be replaced! Instructions for preserving Home page content are provided below.
Switching Themes is a PROCESS. We recommend performing this operation when site traffic is low, or before you publish your Cadenza website using your own domain name.
Your Customizations
If you selected a Theme during sign-up and your Theme has already been customized for you, this it is important to make note of some of these customization. Most notable, you will want to copy your color scheme values. These may be based on a team or college color scheme or it may be custom color selections. You should access your Customizer and make note of these hexadecimal color values so that you can reselect them later when you choose a new Theme.
Preserving Home Page Content
Before changing Themes, you will want to preserve your custom home page content. If you haven’t added anything yet (you just signed up and want to now choose your Theme) you can skip this step. Otherwise, do the following:
- From your Dashboard, navigate to Pages > All Pages
- Locate Home – Front Page
- Hover over the page title and click the Clone link.
- This action will create a COPY of your Home page. You will find this new page listed immediately beneath your current Home page, but without the ” – Front Page” identifier.
- You will switch your Theme by editing the newly cloned Home page
Selecting a New Home Page Theme
All Cadenza Home pages are built with the Page Builder modules. To change your Home Page Theme, do the following:
- From your Dashboard, navigate to Pages > All Pages
- Locate the page named simply: Home (Remember, this is your recently cloned Home page. DO NOT select “Home – Front Page”!, otherwise you will erase your home page content prematurely and your changes will affect your live site!)
- Hover over the page title and click the Page Builder link
- Your page will look exactly like your current Home page, but should be your recently cloned home page, if you are unsure, go back and reselect the page named “Home”, NOT the page named “Home – Front Page”!
- In the Page Builder, click the Templates link at the top
- Under the Group selector, choose Saved Templates
- Select a new Theme from the list
- Your live preview will display your new Home Page Theme
- Choose other selections to see a live preview of other Home Page Themes
- The Page Builder will ask if you want to Replace Existing Layout or Append New Layout. Choose: Replace Existing Layout.
- Click OK to the warning that changing the template will replace your existing layout
- Click Done when you are finished
- Click Publish to make these changes live. Since you are working with a clone of your Front Page, your current home page will still display. You have not fully switched Themes just yet! You just have two versions of your homepage; one live, and your new cloned and edited page, which is not live (as your home page) just yet.
Customize your Home Page Design
When you select an new Theme, you’ll get the default Cadenza color selections for that design. You will need to use the Page Builder to modify background colors or images. Use your color scheme options to make any color changes to match your organization’s colors and brand.
Moving Home Page Content to the new Theme
You now have two versions of your Home page: your current live version with your old theme and your cloned version with your new Theme. If you have custom content and images on your current theme, you will need to copy that content over into the new page. Here are some suggested methods for doing this:
- If your screen size allows, open your site in two windows or tabs with each page open in the Page Builder. Copy from your current page into the new page
- Copy home page content to a Word or Google document, than paste the copied content into the new page
Depending on either Theme choice, you may not have corresponding content blocks between Themes. If not, then you may skip some of these steps or add or remove Content Modules to or from your new Theme as needed.
Designating the New Front Page
Once your cloned home page is in order, you can use this page as your live Home page.
To make your new home page live, do the following:
- From your Dashboard, navigate to Appearance > Customize
- Click on the Settings menu option
- Click on the Homepage Settings link
- A Home link will be preselected. This link is your current Home page.
- Select the second Home option. This will be your new Home page.
- Your live preview will display the changes based on your new Home page selection
- Click Publish to make your changes live
Theme Customizer Presets
Every Cadenza Theme has a corresponding Customizer Preset, which is a collection of Customizer settings that match each Cadenza Theme. These Presets set foreground and background colors, font families, sizes and colors and certain layout options.
When a Theme is selected, a set of corresponding Customizer Presets are applied, then these settings are modified just for your organization, based on your color scheme and branding.
When you want to change Themes, you must apply the corresponding default Customizer Preset to match, which means that any customizations are reset to the original Cadenza Theme designs. You will want to make note of your color scheme choices so that you can reapply your customizations for the new theme.
To apply a corresponding Customizer Preset, do the following:
- In the Dashboard, navigate to Appearance > Customize
- Click on the Presets menu option
- From the drop down menu, select the same Preset Name as your chosen Theme.
- Your live preview will display the changes based on your selected Preset
- Click Publish to make your changes live.