Some blog plugins are used to enhance the look, feel and functionality of a blog. Other blog plugins work behind the scenes to assist with administrative tasks. This blog plugin does both.
One of the recommendations I frequently hear is that blogs need regular face lifts. Change or update the theme, introduce new colors, new header image – really give your blog a new life. I wont go into the rights or wrongs of this theory in this post, however, should you decide to give your blog a face lift, how are you going to accomplish it?
The normal process is to find a theme or three that you like and upload them into the theme folder. From there you can go to the Theme tab in the administration panel and with one click you have changed theme.
The problem is, themes often look good until you actually load them with your content and your widgets. If you don’t like the look, one click and you have changed to another theme; and another. Finally back to your original theme while you go hunting for more themes.
This is all fine, except for one issue. Your visitors to your site are watching all of this. It certainly doesn’t look to professional. Not only that, it can send visitors away. I had the humorous (at least I thought so at the time) experience of a visitor emailing me and apologizing for any ‘damage’ they had done to my blog. “I don’t know what I did but when I changed pages your blog went all weird” was the email. Of course that was me changing the theme.
This is where the blog plugin ‘Theme Test Drive” comes in. It allows you to change your theme, tweak it, change colors and really play around with a theme all behind the scenes. Your visitors continue to see the old theme until you make the permanent switch. This blog plugin has the added benefit of protecting your blog. You can make all the changes you like in a theme to the point of crashing the theme – your visitors continue on totally unaware and your blog has come to no harm.
To quote the theme’s author:
[source] Theme Test Drive WordPress plugin allows you to safely test drive any theme on your blog as administrator, while visitors still use the default one. It happens completely transparently and they will not even notice you run a different theme for yourself. Best part is you can even set the testing theme options (if it has them) in the Admin panel while you are testing the theme.
Blog plugins can be very useful. This is one blog plugin that is worth have in your tool chest ready for the day you decide to update your theme.
