Change my WP theme while my website is live

Hi,

i want to change my WP theme but my website is live.

how do i show my visitors the old theme yet at the same time, i am making changes to the website with my new theme ?

thanks for reading

1. Set up the new theme on a dummy site
2. Configure the theme how you want it to look.
3. FTP the theme to your computer
4. FTP the theme to your live site
5. Activate theme.

Nothing to it. If you are not going to do changes to the theme then just install it and activate.

Use the WP Plugin "Theme Test Drive".

I've used it before and it works great!
(sorry I can't post links yet)

Here's a description from the plugin homepage:

"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 transparent 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."

First make the changes on a local server and see if everything is OK and there are no errors. After a period of extensive testing make the site live and remove the old one. Simple.

If your using a cache plugin, it wont matter if you change it when its live. it would show the old theme.