Restore home page outreach child theme

[Herman]

Does anyone know how to fix the home page on http://www.washdcfamilyfed.org? I want to restore it back to the design I started with before another designer messed it up with another theme. I'm using the outreach child theme. Here's a screen capture video of the admin panel http://screencast-o-matic.com/watch/cohl37firw

http://www.washdcfamilyfed.org

[MoodyRiviera]

I'm sure someone will come along with a great answer for you, but (as a non-expert) if I were in this position, I would probably start by going into the Widgets section of the Dashboard, and (after consulting the theme setup instructions) try rebuilding the home page by deleting what's currently in the widgets and starting over with new content in the widgets...assuming the Outreach theme is based on widgets as is the case with many StudioPress themes.

Not sure this will help, but maybe you can try it while waiting for a better answer.

P.S. I really like your idea of showing your Dashboard stuff in a video the way you did.

*MoodyRiviera*

[coralseait]

Do you have a backup solution or does your host take backups that you can use to restore from your previous version before the dev applied changes?

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Coral Sea IT

[dareadel]

Site restore option will be the best if your host has that feature. If your site is backed up often, you can restore from the day before you made the mistake. My other option is to delete the theme and do a fresh installation and follow the install directions. To my understanding, you will not lose your database content.

Ask your host to be sure. But if I am in your position, I will simply activate the WordPress theme or another theme, delete both the outreach child theme and Genesis them and do a fresh install. I am very sure the WordPress theme or any other "place holder" theme will preserve your database content.

[Herman]

Thanks for your suggestions. The original design I created was done in 2014 so unfortunately my host has no backups going that far back and I didn't make any myself. Removing the widgets made no diff so I'm leaning towards deleting all themes then reinstalling the original theme (fortunately I kept the css, functions.php edits).

[coralseait]

That's a bummer, but another way to look at is this an opportunity. Do any of the newer themes strike your fancy?

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Coral Sea IT

[coralseait]

Note, check in Appearances --> Widgets near the bottom for any Inactive Widgets. Your old theme widgets may be there (often happens when you switch themes, as new theme doesn't have the same widget locations so they are moved to inactive area).

Note also, if you switched (or dev / then you) to a theme with any kind of widgetized areas and you did not put any widgets in the area(s) that may be why the theme falls back to more of a blog / default presentation (many of the themes require at least one widget to be added to the widget areas to 'activate' and switch to the widgetized rendering so to speak).

In the future, we recommend you use a good backup plugin; we're fond of http://updraftplus.com/ <-- no affiliation, we've just been very well supported by the dev. UpdraftPlus can take nightly backups as well as auto backups for core, plugin and theme updates - with a Google account you can have 15 gigs free cloud storage to store your site. Very worth it in a long run for peace of mind and ease of recovery without involving the host.

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Coral Sea IT

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