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WordPress

Posted by Kei Emb
Kei Emb
3,929 Points

Merging or using multiple Wordpress themes together

Hello everyone,

I am using Wordpress to create a dynamic website along with buddypress.

I was looking at a few themes and saw some features that I like for a recipe form and a profile page that I would like to use, however I have found another theme that I think will go great for the entire site other than those two pages.

So my question is, will Wordpress allow you to use a few pages from one theme in conjunction with another theme?

Thanks!

-KeiEmb

Zac Gordon

2 Answers

Sue Dough
Sue Dough
35,800 Points
Sue Dough
Sue Dough
35,800 Points

Using another theme because of two pages doesn't sound like a good idea. You can certainly do it and there is plugins for it as someone mentioned. This seems like a bad idea for a few reasons.

  1. Your visitors speed. They will have to download both themes if they visit both themes. This is not good for either of your bandwidth.

  2. Its 2 pages. That can be done very quickly. Take a few weekends to learn about basic theme development and you can make those two templates yourself.

  3. You now have 2 code bases. They are both written differently and you will eventually have to learn both code bases if you plan to do anything.

  4. Compatibility issues. Now you will need to make sure both themes work with a plugin instead of 1 theme. You will have to do double the testing.

Do whatever you want. I strongly encourage you to reconsider and just use one theme.

Jeff Lemay
Jeff Lemay
14,268 Points
Jeff Lemay
Jeff Lemay
14,268 Points

Totally agree with you, ghost.

Kei Emb
Kei Emb
3,929 Points

Hey Ghost!

I appreciate your insight and will follow it wisely. Initially my plan was to create the site using Ruby and Rails along with other languages.

Wordpress and Buddypress seemed like a good option to get something in user's hands until the full version of the site is built, for feedback purposes.

Since I'm pretty new to Wordpress and the plugins I wasn't sure if pages could be created and implemented into the premium themes. From your post, it sounds like they are and I much rather create something more custom to work with the themes instead of sacrificing efficiency and overall vision.

Thanks for your help!

Sue Dough
Sue Dough
35,800 Points
Sue Dough
Sue Dough
35,800 Points

Yes you can create your own custom templates in WordPress regardless if the theme is premium. You can even copy some of the template code already in your theme templates for a good base to get started. Check out https://codex.wordpress.org/Stepping_Into_Templates and the theme development course on Treehouse to learn more. You will end up spending more time/money in the long run doing it with two themes.

Kei Emb
Kei Emb
3,929 Points

Great, I appreciate that Ghost!

I'm going to check that out and focus on building a custom temp. for the site.

Thanks for your advice and the direction to the resources!

Jeff Lemay
Jeff Lemay
14,268 Points
Jeff Lemay
Jeff Lemay
14,268 Points

Someone built a plugin for this: https://wordpress.org/plugins/jonradio-multiple-themes/

This does not seem like default functionality or anything that could be accomplished without extensive customizing of your WP files.

Kei Emb
Kei Emb
3,929 Points

NICE!!! Thanks Jeff Lemay. I appreciate the help. I'm going to try this out and see how it works!