Theme Trials
Recently I’ve been trying out a few new themes on my blog. I’ve been looking for a clean layout and a simple design. I stumbled across quite a few nice themes and I was trying them on my blog to see how the page appears.
I installed a theme called Renegade II. And as soon as I clicked on activate the page went blank. (I’ve tried this again today and it happened again. I suspect some compatibility issue here.) I initially thought that there was an issue with the server so I left it for some time. But even after an hour the page was still blank. 
I contacted Live Chat support and they pointed me to this page. Thats when I realised that the theme I installed could be the cause of the problem. But I was not even able to get to the wordpress admin to change the theme. I used SICFTP(ftp manager) to access the themes folder and deleted the newly installed themes and at once the page was available.
I’m still in the process of trying out new themes, so you may see a different theme the next time you visit my blog. I’m currently trying out the K2 theme as I’ve stumbled across tutorials to help easily modify the theme here. I don’t know much css but I’m learning it, and who knows I might be developing themes in the future. 
Tags: Blog, K2, Theme, Wordpress
This entry was posted on Thursday, March 11th, 2010 at 1:03 am and is filed under Wordpress. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
March 12th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Ah, yes, the white screen of death. Don’t you just love themes (and plugins) that throw your site into oblivion?
You’ve got a great start here! Looks good!
Alison Moore Smith´s last blog ..Thesis Theme: #1 WordPress Theme
[Reply]
selurus Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 4:33 pm
Trying themes and plugins is like experimenting with the unknown. I was lucky I found good advice, else I would have probably reinstalled everything.
[Reply]
March 12th, 2010 at 11:22 pm
I love trying out new themes! I usually upload several and quickly enough reject a bunch too.
Anne Moss´s last blog ..Would You Try Human Milk Dairy Products?
[Reply]
selurus Reply:
March 12th, 2010 at 11:37 pm
I browse through a lot of themes and then try a couple of them. I often end up switching back to the previous theme, unless I find something thats really cool.
[Reply]
March 13th, 2010 at 1:27 am
Blog Engage Weekly Word Challenge Wrap Up March 12th | Blog Engage Blog says:[...] 1. Theme trials [...]
March 13th, 2010 at 6:44 am
This is why always test the theme in my blog lab before apply it to my blog.
Dana @ Blogging Update´s last blog ..HostNexus: A Cheap Web Hosting
[Reply]
March 15th, 2010 at 2:41 am
Blog Lab?
Do you have an offline installation of wordpress on your PC or have you set up another blog for testing?
selurus´s last blog ..Plant a seed – Create Buzz
[Reply]
March 15th, 2010 at 7:31 pm
Hi selurus, I just added a new theme to my website and I also got a blank white screen. Just so you know it’s usually an issue with a plugin you have installed. I sugested removing all your plugins and then trying to add the template.
If you cannot access the admin simply rename the plugins folder and you will be good to go. Rename it something easy to remember like plugins2
If that works then add each plugin at a time until you find the one that’s causing the issue.
This is what I did and it worked perfect.
bbrian017´s last blog ..How to make money from blogging
[Reply]
selurus Reply:
March 16th, 2010 at 12:29 am
Ok. I’ll try that theme again then, probably tomorrow.
[Reply]
March 16th, 2010 at 12:40 am
If you need help selurus just post inside our blog forum I would be willing to help out!
bbrian017´s last blog ..How to make money from blogging
[Reply]
March 21st, 2010 at 8:03 pm
To tell the truth.. I think, that this theme isn’t the best variant. My intuition can’t lie
)
It’s, probably, because I can’t see any unique personality here nor something, that says “Hey, it’s Selurus here!” – I hope you know what I mean
iWoodpecker´s last blog ..Most Influential Commenter: February 2010 Roundup
[Reply]
selurus Reply:
March 22nd, 2010 at 12:35 am
I’ve had similar feedback about the K2 theme from Dennis too. Honestly I intended that to be just the base and work on modifying it, but I just haven’t had much time this month.
I’m switching themes for now and I’ll probably come back to theme modification when I’ve got more time to spare.
[Reply]
March 26th, 2010 at 5:44 am
Thesis is an awesome theme, it really changes the way everything works in wordpress in a way, for the better. But still, you gotta skin it, if you are looking for design, rather than extra functionality + seo friendliness.
The thing is, it is a little steeper learning curve as everything is done using “hooks”. It helps to be familiar with a bit of PHP + HTML, but definitely worth it if you want to take your blog to the next level.
[Reply]
selurus Reply:
March 27th, 2010 at 3:16 am
I’ve heard a lot about Thesis, but I’m sticking to free themes for now. I’ll probably try Thesis when I can .
[Reply]
March 26th, 2010 at 11:56 am
Recently gone through the template change. I had to test for new theme because I was finding my blog load slower than was acceptable. Tried couple of them and finally settled with current one. I hope current theme is great though I still need to change that header image.
I had not many options since I was looking for free themes, anyway I can’t believe FREE might mean GREAT THEME?
Suresh Khanal´s last blog ..How to add related posts in my blog?
[Reply]
selurus Reply:
March 27th, 2010 at 3:14 am
Yes. There are a lot of free themes out there. And If you know some coding, you can easily modify them to suit you needs.
[Reply]