Retired Themes
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Hi there,
Just curious as I’ve been using a retired theme for while now, will WordPress.com ever ask me to stop using it? Also, I’m considering experimenting with some other themes, and there is one which I like. If I use it, but a few weeks later regret my decision, will I ever be able to revert back to my current theme (which is retired)?
Lastly, is there any support documentation for retired themes (specifically Harmonic)? The Blogging University email mentioned to read it, but it seems I can’t as its sadly retired.
Thank you
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It’s not a good idea to use or keep a retired theme. Themes are retired because they can no longer support the majority of new WordPress features or they are no longer compatible. WordPress.com has over 290 themes, I’m sure you’ll find one you like.
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Sadly, I really can’t. Harmonic has served me well, and when I see a theme that I like, I realise that too is either retired or unaffordable. :(
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You have 91 free themed to choose from, so there must be a few that can do what you are looking for or that have a look you like; e.g. https://wordpress.org/themes/lodestar/
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Sadly, as I’ve stated, there isn’t, but would it please be possible to share an answer to the initial questions? Thanks! :)
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Hi there, let me try:
will WordPress.com ever ask me to stop using it?
If there was a replacement for the theme, then you’d see a notice in your dashboard that there was a newer version of you theme available. Sadly, this doesn’t seem to be the case with Harmonic. What can happen over time is that things may get broken or stop working on your site and they won’t be fixed.
will I ever be able to revert back to my current theme (which is retired)?
Once you actually switch away from your retired theme (and not merely preview a new theme) you might be able to return to the theme in the WP Admin dashboard.
is there any support documentation for retired themes (specifically Harmonic)?
Not here on WordPress.com, but you might be able to find it either by looking at Google’s cache of the theme’s showcase page, or by searching the Internet Archive’s Wayback Machine.
Hope that helps.
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@everyone. I should have bookmarked a thread about retired themes I saw a few months ago. Someone was complaining that their site wasn’t working well with search engines. A member of staff explained that it was due to the old theme being used and that many older retired themes were coded differently to the current batch and were no longer search engine friendly.
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Thanks for prompting my memory @themagicrobot – Many older/retired themes were not responsive so didn’t adjust to the device the site was being viewed on. I can try to find that thread later.
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Yes, but it wasn’t just that the theme didn’t adapt for different screen sizes. There was something different in the code of the title/header of the old themes that gave an error or some other issue in Google.
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Are we talking about ad coding and “blocked resources”? I see a thread where you mentioned something last March, but so far I didn’t find the original thread you referred to with the Staff reply.
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That’s interesting, I’ll be honest, from my brief SEO testing results, my SEO seems fine (not sure how accurate they are though), but I’m not exactly certain for how long Harmonic has been retired. If memory serves correctly, it was a year and a bit.
I notice that my header doesn’t adjust to devices well, but other than that, I don’t think there’s been too significant an issue, and at least not one major enough that I can see justifies retiring it. It’s even still available on self-hosted, which is quite confusing.
@justjennifer Thanks for the help.Once you actually switch away from your retired theme (and not merely preview a new theme) you might be able to return to the theme in the WP Admin dashboard.
Could you please just clarify if I definitely will be able to switch back, or if it depends on the theme (or something like that)?
Thanks all.
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Have you checked in the wp-admin dashboard? I have access to 534 themes there compared with 289 via Calypso/My Sites so I presume those 245 extra themes are all retired ones (some more retired than others…) and all still available for me to use. Some really basic themes from ten years ago must eventually go away forever I assume if they haven’t already.
PS: I’ve just activated Harmonic on an old test site. Then changed themes and changed back to Harmonic without problems. I can’t guarantee it will work for you but I can’t see why not. -
Now that I can, I’ll go test on one of my early test sites as well and see what happens there. (Updating that I could also switch to a new theme in Calypso and then switch back to Harmonic in the WP Admin Themes dashboard.)
Please take this with a grain of salt as there’s no guarantee that what is correct today will be correct tomorrow. Things change here all the time.
I notice that my header doesn’t adjust to devices well, but other than that, I don’t think there’s been too significant an issue, and at least not one major enough that I can see justifies retiring it. It’s even still available on self-hosted, which is quite confusing.
You may not see a reason, but that doesn’t mean that a theme won’t be retired.
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And adding that because the same theme is available on ORG doesn’t mean a thing here. :)
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Thank you – is there ever a specific public reason released on why a specific theme was retired?
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Not that I can recall. Theme retirements are generally not announced. If the theme was updated/refreshed with a newer version, like Button 2, Radcliffe 2, Toujours, then it was announced on the WPcom Blog.
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