Changing themes.

[OlderAussieGuy]

Hi all,

This copy of mail I sent to support. Hoping if I post here I may get a reply. Not being critical of support as I know they are busy. I just need to find a resolution quickly.

"I am trying to change themes and have chosen the one called Darin Smalls-Birdseye.
When I choose it, it tells me that it is loading and when it has loaded, the finished product has absolutely no resemblance whatsoever to the theme I have chosen.
If you go to the designer platform you will see what I mean.
I seem to be having this problem all the time and have tried to change themes on a number of practice sites and it just continues to happen.
Also I thought there was a function to change backgrounds, but that seems to have been removed. Is that the case?
This is the only account that I have.
When I have tried to get answers to this question in the past I haven't had a response.
I have deleted those practice accounts and now need to get on and build this site for my client and am really frustrated at this point in time.
I really would appreciate your help.
Cheers
Neale Banks"

[Queso]

Hello Neale, and welcome!

Just to clarify, can you tell us a bit more about what's missing that you'd like included on the site? You do seem to have Birdseye in place, but there may be other options within the theme that could be changed to suit your needs.

[OlderAussieGuy]

Obviously you can see the theme but my confusion is that what I see has no resemblence to the theme. All I see is a header that looks like a scene from a desert location.

A mountain in the background, an earthen ware pot and a building in the foreground.

As to what I want, I don't really know until I have the theme installed. Obviously things like a home, about and privacy pages and a whole bunch of other pages for various topics that I want to appear on my site.

I hope this helps make things clearer.

Cheers

Neale

P.S. Thanks for the welcome.

P.P.S. I am very much a newbie to this whole web site building thing, so please be gentle.    :-))

[goldenpenguins]

I had a similar problem today. I chose a theme layout initially, then changed my mind and tried to switch to another theme. Every single time I tried with multiple themes, it still used the layout of the original theme. The only element that changed was the header and navigation menu.

[Adam7]

Content, header, and background images will all transfer from one theme to another so depending on what theme you choose you might only see changes with the navigation or footer.  Did you make any changes to your site yet, or is it just the default stuff you see after first picking a theme?

It might actually be simpler to just delete the site and make a new one choosing a different theme. If you do that it'll use the content and background images you see in the theme preview instead.

[Wave_1623]

I am having the same problem, except it won't even let me choose a new theme. The page won't open at all, I only get a white screen.

[Pat11]

Hi Neale! 

I realize you posted a couple wks ago, but I'm just now looking through the community to find a solution to my own issue when I saw your note.  I thought I'd throw in my 2 cents to see if I can clarify things I discovered about the new themes.  Perhaps this info will help you or others.

The other day I decided to update my site using a new responsive theme.  However, as I clicked each theme to preview it "within the change theme section of the editor" I noticed that the images of the sample themes looked very different, but when I clicked "to review" them, many looked the same once they loaded. 

I then realized what Weebly has done.   (I'm guessing this is to give the illusion that they have far more themes then they actually do-- but I don't know that for certain.)  

In the editor, if one clicks on the button to change your theme, several different 'looks'—or samples, (along with the categories at the top of the page-- business, blog, personal, other, etc.) will appear.  No matter what category one selects, there will be samples of what appears to be "different themes" to review. 

NOTE:  If you simply hover your mouse over each of those sample site themes (without actually clicking on them--just hover your mouse) you will see a name, followed by a dash and then the theme name.  Theme names will be things like:  Birdseye, Unitie, Venue, Paper, etc.  Hover your mouse over several of these themes and you can see what Weebly has done using the same few themes but showing us different "Home Page designs" for each particular theme.  For instance.... Birdseye is a theme, but it's used multiple times under various categories showing different "designs" for a Home Page.  That's why people are mistakingly thinking they have access to loads of different themes, but upon loading a new theme they see the same default images which they saw after clicking other samples. 

Once you decide on a particular 'theme' (like Birdseye, for instance) then you must add or delete the various elements you wish to use to create your own "look and feel" for your website.  You will need to change all design elements to include those things you want or do not want within your layout for each page, change images in the headers (if you wish to even use headers, whether a large or short header, etc.), and change the fonts (site-wide) by selecting the button "change fonts" under the "theme" header within your editor, etc. 

Lots of info.... but I hope it makes sense!!!  - Pat

[rgomg]

I can't change my theme either. I click on my new chosen theme.. but the old one just pos up. So How do i delete and start again, please?

[Bernadette3]

The old one is popping up, @rgomg because once you choose a theme the content of the theme becomes a part of your website. In order to start over from the very beginning and choose a new theme completely, you would need to create a brand new website. We can help you move over any service you have related to the site. Keep in mind as well that you can build any site/template you would like by using the elements within the editor.