Comments on: How To Make Old WordPress Themes Compatible With New Versions

By: Donald McIntyre

Donald McIntyre — Wed, 29 Jun 2011 19:20:40 +0000

Leland, I disagree completely. As a user of the GuruQ Theme since the 3.0 version of WP it doesn´t break, but it doesn´t work either. When visitors ask a question it takes them to a “page not found” So at least this theme was fundamentally turned useless.

Best, Donald.

PS: I came here because of the title, is there a way of making an old theme work with the new WP versions?

By: Leland

Leland — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 20:01:43 +0000

Danielle, it sounds like your WordPress site was hacked which seems to be a much more serious issue than the “top ads” part not showing up.

If that’s a widget area, you may just have to reload the widgets.

By: Danielle

Danielle — Tue, 10 Aug 2010 19:58:33 +0000

I’m working on a site, and the guy who own’s the server where the site is located upgraded to 3.0 just yesterday….. Now, the “top ads” part of the blog isn’t showing – Its the Beauty Magazine theme.

It has a Buy Cialis link at the top that I can’t get off (but that was on there at least a week prior). The error in the theme didn’t occur until the upgrade…..hhmmmm….

By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 03 Jul 2010 01:42:06 +0000

I upgraded to 3.0 and it won’t title my blog properly anymore. Not only will it not show the previous image it used to, it won’t even read the blog title – it simply is titled ‘liteword’ – the theme’s name. So to me, this upgrade seriously screwed up the theme I use!! Any idea how to get around this issue?

By: Beau

Beau — Mon, 03 May 2010 13:50:31 +0000

No need to fix it if ain’t broken!

By: Leland

Leland — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:20:25 +0000

Hey Matt, really good point. If a theme has a feature like post_thumbnails, and doesn't use a function_exists check, it will cause a fatal error in anything before 2.9. I guess we can hope that users keep their WordPress installations up-to-date.

By: Matt Bridges

Matt Bridges — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:49:02 +0000

I really think that the issue with theme development is making a theme compatible with OLD versions of WordPress. You may see, in plugins especially, function checks to see if the wanted function exists or uses a work-around otherwise. I have never seen a theme break or heard of a theme breaking after a new WordPress version release.

Good article. Definitely worth a thought!