Vladimir Prelovac

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.
You can also preview any theme by adding “?theme=xxx” to your blog URL. For example http://www.myblog.com/?theme=Default
Plugin by Vladimir Prelovac. Managing more than one WordPress sites? Check out <a href="https://managewp.com" rel="nofollow ugc">ManageWP</a>.
<h3>Credits</h3>
Some of the functions of Theme Test Drive plugin came from other plugins. So I can at least thank these people:
<ul>
<li><a href="http://boren.nu/" title="Ryan Boren" rel="nofollow ugc">Ryan Boren</a> for his <a href="http://dev.wp-plugins.org/wiki/ThemeSwitcher" title="Theme Switcher" rel="nofollow ugc">Theme Switcher</a> plugin</li>
<li><a href="http://andufo.com" title="Andres Santos" rel="nofollow ugc">Andres Santos</a> for his <a href="http://andufo.com/proyectos/plugins/wp-websnapr"" title="wp-websnapr" rel="nofollow ugc">wp-websnapr</a> plugin</li>
<li><a href="http://www.deliciousdays.com/" title="Oliver" rel="nofollow ugc">Oliver</a> for his <a href="http://www.deliciousdays.com/cforms-plugin" title="cforms II" rel="nofollow ugc">cforms II</a> plugin</li>
<li><a href="http://www.plaintxt.org/" title="Scott" rel="nofollow ugc">Scott</a> for his excellent readme.txt file</li>
<li><a href="http://www.websnapr.com" title="WebSnapr" rel="nofollow ugc">WebSnapr</a> folks for their service</li>
</ul>
Thanks.
<h3>License</h3>
This file is part of Theme Test Drive.
Theme Test Drive is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or (at your option) any later version.
Theme Test Drive is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.
You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with Theme Test Drive. If not, see <a href="http://www.gnu.org/licenses/" rel="nofollow ugc">http://www.gnu.org/licenses/</a>.

Theme Test Drive

Safely test drive any theme as an administrator, while visitors use the default one.

barteled

Have you ever stared at the upgrade button of your favorite plugin with a deep foreboding feeling of what lies ahead? Will this bring your live site to its knees? Or have you wanted to test your new exciting theme without prematurely showing it to the world?
Enter the Sandbox plugin. With two simple clicks an entire testing site is created using your existing hosting provider. No more copying down to a complex local test setup or living dangerously on a live site. A complete independent sandbox, unavailable to the general public and search engines, can be created quickly and simply. You can even create multiple sandboxes to test different iterations of your site.
There is not that much more to say, it’s that easy!
What can I test with this?
Pretty much anything, but here are some examples:
<ul>
<li>Plugin upgrades</li>
<li>Theme changes</li>
<li>Setting changes</li>
<li>Even full, WordPress upgrades</li>
<li>Plugin conflicts? Create a sandbox and disable one at a time.</li>
</ul>
Ok, but how does it work?
When you add a new sandbox, a couple simple parameters are required to differentiate it from other sandboxes. A status is displayed as the sandbox is being created. This can take some time depending on the size of your WordPress install.
Basic steps to creating the sandbox:
<ol>
<li>Copy the tables 
Database tables are copied to new tables with a different prefix and various data within the tables is updated to reflect the sandbox prefix.</li>
<li>Copy the files 
All files are copied to a new folder under the sandbox folder.</li>
<li>Update the configuration 
The configuration file within the sandbox is updated to support the unique sandbox database prefix.</li>
</ol>
Once activated, only your browser can get to the sandbox installation. You can return the live site at anytime by clicking the link in the notice at the top of the admin interface.
Can I use my existing developer tools to edit the sandbox?
Sure. Tools such as Dreamweaver can update the files located in the sandbox directory. A full path is available on the edit screen of the sandbox. Database files can be modified as well. All sandbox tables will have the prefix displayed on the edit screen of the sandbox.
Another beer and coffee fueled creation of <a href="http://think-bowl.com/" title="It's less of a tank and more of a bowl." rel="nofollow ugc">Think Bowl</a>

Sandbox

Create a completely independent test site using existing hosting that is only available to administrators.

Theme Test Drive vs Sandbox