Weebly Theme Upgrades
May 4, 2012 Tags: New Weebly Themes, Social Icons, Updates, Upgrades, Weebly Themes
Category: Elements & Features, Site Management 24 Comments 
New Landing Pages For Weebly Themes
New Weebly Themes are being rolled out. All current Weebly themes have already been upgraded and released. You need to Activate The Beta to avail them. Though in Beta, these are pretty stable.
Twenty more brand new themes with even more functionality are expected to be released soon.
[Update: Beta Activation no more required. All new themes are released for every one]
Later in this article we will go over the aspects you should watch out while switching to new themes.
Here is a quick overview of the new features currently available with upgraded themes.
1. A Very Effective Landing Page
Up until now, Weebly Themes came only with one page type (index.html). So, all your pages had the same look and feel. But now, the upgraded themes come with Four Basic types, most important and effective of which is The Landing Page (landing.html). This is critical for your SEO. This is critical for your Business. Though not obvious to many people, Weebly has nailed the landing page. Take a quick look at Landing page of Free Weebly Themes.
Analyzing the aspects of Weebly Landing Page Type. Click the image to see it in full size.
The landing page of every Weebly theme has more or less the same layout. It has exactly what is needed for a landing page: A Logo/Site Title, Contact Info, Social Icons, Graphic, Headline, Caption/Coverline, and a Call To Action Button.
The beauty of the new landing page is that it is all click and type. No need to touch CSS/HTML or no need to drag any thing either. It’s simple, yet very very effective.
The other three page types are Large Header, Short Header, and No-Header pages. These are pages with different header banner size. They are useful for your inner pages depending on your situation.
2. Built In Social Icons for all Weebly Themes
You no more need to squander to get the Social Icons to the top right corner. They are now built into the theme. All you need to do is to click and type your Facebook or Twitter address.
Simply type in your Facebook and Twitter addresses in the corresponding fields
Currently there is provision for Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and RSS. You use what you want to use. If your business has no social presence, just leave the field blank and the icon does not show up in the published site. Don’t worry if these icons show in your Weebly Editor window. However, if you would like to Turn-Off these Social icons completely, you can do so by going to the “Design” tab and then choosing “Design Options –> Design Elements”. You will see On/Off switches for Social Media Icons and Phone Text. Simply Turn it off if they are not applicable for your site.
3. Contact Info Area (or) Phone Text Area
Right next to the Social media icons, is where you get to enter your Contact Informaion.
Ideally this is the place where you would put your Phone number or email address. Since this is a text area, you can pretty much use it for any thing. You can even have multiple lines. Enter Phone number on one line and email id on the other.
What you should know before switching to a New Weebly Theme
All well and good. But here is some thing you must absolutely be aware of. Though the future themes are expected to come with Flexible Footer, Sidebar, Search etc, the current upgrades to the themes does not include them. So what does that mean ? It means you still have no choice but to Edit HTML/CSS and add Flexible Footer or Side Bar to the new theme your self. Weebly does not automatically pick your current changes and apply them to new theme . So, if you are looking for Flexible Footer or Side Bar it is worth waiting until all new themes are released. However, if you do not have an immediate need for Flexible Footer or Side bar, you are going to like the switch.
Too bad they forgot to add the Google+ page button to the list social media icons…
Aw I was thinking the same thing.
Here is a quick workaround if you don’t nee all four of the icons. The current icons use the image names facebook-h.png, twitter-h.png, rss-h.png, linked-in-h.png. So, upload a G+ icon (23px x 23px) and name it as one of the icons that you do not need.
Still can’t change rss feed background colors!
Any way to import a feature to an existing custom template, namely the social links? I’d upgrade, but I’m just about to launch my site this week after 2 months in development, so I want to get a little mileage out of my version 1 before having to rebuild my template.
The Social Icons use the tag
{social}. If you know how to define the style and position the div, then you will be able to use the Social Icons, just like in the Weebly themes. I don’t think there will be any other easier way because each template is different. Even Weebly must have manually updated each theme to fit the social icons at appropriate place with their corresponding definitions. The{social}tag, like all other tags will push/pull the content, but the styling is local to the theme.Thank for your update
is the beta not available for designer platform?
Chris, did Raju respond to your question? I’m guessing the answer is NOT AVAILABLE for designer platform.
The Beta is not available for designer platform. That makes sense though. I would not try the Beta on my clients. Once switched, you can’t switch back and it effects all of your clients. But if you have a specific client who you would like to use the newer theme, all you need to do is to “Export the Theme” from your regular sites, and then import it for that particular client site. All Demos you see in Free Weebly Themes are done this way.
Hi. I am trying to use the new upgraded theme. I added the code to make the tables to it. The one from your article. And now it is messing all my title area. What am i suppose to do? Thanks.
When you switch a theme, changes done to your previous theme do not get propagated automatically. You will have to manually apply all the modifications to the new theme and add any css. If the new theme has the same IDs conflicting, then you have to rename the conflicting IDs.
Has anyone tried to create a beta weebly template as a new user and import it in to the business platform?
Check the themes demos here
http://freeweeblythemes.weebly.com/weebly-templates.html
All themes in designer platform.
I hope I can add StumbleUpon on social media icons.
You can add any icons there. You can even change them to Country Flags. Wait until the Beta is complete. We will put an article then.
hi
did they remove the social icone from the beta template?
i cant find it anymore… :S
ok i found it.
i just turn it off!
there is no “design elements” under my “design option” tab. Will anyone help me?
NICK
i have the same problem my site does not have design elements under design option tab i dont know why… also theres no uption for me to change the page layouts under “pages” tab! please help. i contacted weebly last week till now no reply yet. =(
i have the same problem my site does not have design elements under design option tab i dont know why… also theres no uption for me to change the page layouts under “pages” tab! please help. i contacted weebly last week till now no reply yet. =(
Please see my reply to your other post. New features do not automatically apply to custom themes, or third party themes or themes that have been edited via Theme Editor.
I’d like to add the social media icons to my edited theme. There’s no option in the interface, so I’m assuming I need to do some HTML. Can you guide me on what/where I should enter the HTML?
Thank you,
Brien
Alright. Will add a tutorial for it. Each theme is different. But I will describe it for one theme and may be folks can adopt the procedure for their theme.