I have tested three sites now on ClassicPress, including one using Weaver Xtreme theme, and all seem fine - the other two use Twenty Sixteen 1.7 and Weaver II Pro 2.2.4 (earlier version of Weaver Xtreme)
Since most of my 20 sites use Weaver Xtreme (and it is great for customising from within these sites), I’ve just added my voice to a thread on the forums there requesting ClassicPress support.
Following up here as latest version of Weaver Xtreme seems to have (partially) withdrawn support for WP 4.9.x (and therefore ClassicPress 1.x). The theme still functions but with reduced capability. Support and backup requests for supporting ClassicPress at
appreciated. The author did say, albeit some time ago, that he’d be open to producing a Gutenberg free version of his theme - in my opinion. a very good idea for theme authors as ClassicPress support grows and WordPress moves more to blocks instead of themes!
I used to answer a LOT of questions on the Weaver forums, but when Bruce did not like that I wrote a Weaver converter, he banned me, and wrote his own. I recently reviewed the code of his attempt at yet another version of Weaver that he submitted to the WP repository. It was the same old thing with a different name. The reviewer of his theme submission did not let him get away with all the things he has been doing wrong for years and years, so the theme was not approved. He wrote a long comment on the ticket to justify why he was leaving the WP repo, and had his themes removed.
My advice for Weaver users is to find a better theme. There are many that are way better in design, efficiency, and ease of use. This comes from someone who is thoroughly familiar with the code and used to build all sites with it.
Unfortunately, I have 19 sites using Weaver II and Xtreme themes and as a (semi-retired) sole trader changing them to other themes isn’t really an option, and I’d prefer to stick with Weaver if possible.
I’d be prepared to experiment with one of my less used sites though.
Is your own Weaver converter available and are you using an alternative you’d recommend with similar functionality to Weaver (ability to customise all aspects of theme within WP/CP admin)?
Can anyone else recommend a decent (preferably free) theme engine or is anyone developing one specifically for ClassicPress?
Something with all of Weaver’s functionality but developed for ClassicPress would be a real winner I’m sure, and boost usage…
Well, it is an option. Weaver isn’t doing anything that special. And you prefer to stick with it because you haven’t read the code.
I wrote a converter to convert between Aspen, Weaver, Weaver II, and Weaver Xtreme. It doesn’t convert to some other format. I suppose I could extend it to output the CSS separately, that you could massage it and put it into Additional CSS, but the selectors would be different for any other theme, so it’s not that helpful.
I did write a plugin that lets you merge options from two different sets.
I moved most of my sites to my own theme, which is quite flexible, but in different ways than Weaver. The sites look similar to how they looked before, but more cohesive because the theme is doing the work of being consistent, instead of the user having to make all the options match.
That is the biggest problem with Weaver. It contains plugin functionality which doesn’t belong in a theme. And having so many options makes it more difficult to get them all set consistently.
Thanks for your reply. I appreciate your perspective, but we’ll have to agree to disagree - I prefer to stick with it because currently I have a lot of other (very stressful) things to deal with, am not a coder, and my clients are used to the sites as they are.
Thanks for the link to your own theme - I may well check that out when I have more time.
However, I am still looking for other suggestions for a viable alternative. A theme engine that, like Weaver, would work through the appearance/themes menu (without the Gutenberg additions) would encourage take-up by those who don’t want to delve into theme code.
Also, my request for support from Weaver is now showing up at
if anyone here would like to back me up and see Weaver supporting ClassicPress going forward. (I posted there over 6 hrs ago but their forums were having serious issues)
I am using a personal fork I made of GeneratePress, and I have switched over to using this on all my sites. It has quite a few options that can be tweaked in the customizer, though I tend to mostly use css in a child theme.
I must stress though this is my own personal project so I’m not offering any guarantees and only limited support (ie happy to help but I’m certainly no expert).
I’m not sure what features your theme currently offers, so it may not even match that.
The theme author has now replied and given a workaround (which works on both wp4.9.13 and ClassicPress), quoted here as Wordpress’s “only 2 versions back” requirement for themes will certainly break other themes running under ClassicPress:
This is Bruce’s misinterpretation of the WP Theme Requirements. I told him years ago, but he insists on this view. Most themes do not check this the way Weaver does.
The WP theme requirements actually state
Themes may be backward compatible , but only for 3 major WordPress versions (version 5.0 if 5.3 is latest)
That does not mean that there must be a check that the user is on one of the latest 3 versions, as Weaver does.
I usually tell theme authors to drop their zip onto Plugin Doctor - WPSeek.com and let it tell you what version is needed for the functions called.
This still could be read as “you have to break your theme for version $current - 3” (or at least, “you can’t add any code to support old versions”). This seems like a strange thing to have in the requirements.