How can I show various Theme Customizer settings on the demo's front-end?

Envato Authors Theme Authors
1

Hey all,

So I’m setting up the demo site for our first theme and I’m wondering what the trick is to showing various Theme Customizer combinations on the front-end? For example, our theme’s front-page uses the default index.php file, and the posts layout that this file uses depends on the option chosen in the Customizer. Now obviously I can’t show two different pages that both use the index.php file, so how would I show the different posts layouts so that potential customers know what their options will be when they purchase?

If you take a look at SoloPine’s Redwood, this is where I became aware that this must be possible without setting up 10+ different demos. Navigate through the menu and you can preview a few different post layouts under the “Home” menu item, and what I’ve noticed is that the URL seems to reflect what is being shown like so…

?home_layout=full_list

Is this a simple bit of trickery or is there a bit of work behind showing different Customizer options this way?

Cheers!

2

Definitely can be done but personally I wouldn’t reinvent the wheel when someone has made a plugin that does it for you… it’s called Yellow Pencil and is on Codecanyon… not used it myself but saw the demo when it was in beta and it’s pretty awesome.

3

Hey Gareth,

Does that plugin work with the WordPress Theme Customizer? At first glance it seems to be for creating & managing the options themselves?

4

it lets you build options but also display them on the front end, it works purely with the customizer so should display your options without building anymore.

5

Check out “Open House Theme Options” by tommusrhodus http://codecanyon.net/item/open-house-theme-options-test-drive-options/5415075

It is super easy to use and you can control which panels to show/hide.