Is Horizon the new Dawn?

Ask Me Anything Q&A Horizons AMA Questions
, , ,

Topic summary

Horizon has replaced Dawn as Shopify’s default free theme for new merchants at signup.

Key Pain Points Raised:

  • Custom code must be manually migrated when updating or switching themes
  • Often requires paying developers again to transfer previously installed customizations
  • No built-in way to identify or highlight custom code in existing themes

Feature Requests:

  • Automatic transfer of custom code to updated theme versions
  • Ability to copy specific sections/blocks between themes (e.g., branding colors, announcement bar content)
  • “Import from other theme” option for individual components

Shopify’s Response:
The team is actively working on solutions to simplify theme updates when custom code is present. Theme migration improvements are also being explored but are further out on the roadmap.

Summarized with AI on October 25. AI used: claude-sonnet-4-5-20250929.
1

Hi

Is Horizon the new Dawn? Is it now the “standard” free theme?

Also, a pain point for all themes has been the need to move over custom code over to a new/updated theme manually or even requiring a developer to assist with that - possibly the same developer who was already paid to install the code on the current theme will now have to be paid again to move it. These custom codes should be carried over to the updated theme or, at the very least, be highlighted to us when looking at the code of the old theme so we can identify the custom code which we can try to copy and move over to the updated theme by ourselves.

By the way, it would be great if themes had certain sections/blocks which we can choose to copy over from a previously used theme. For example, I must have the option to copy my branding colours or my announcement bar texts from the previous theme over to the new theme with an option on the new theme announcement bar section/block saying “import from other theme”. This will make changing to a new theme very convenient.

2

Horizon is “the new Dawn” in a way. It’s the theme new merchants are getting at signup.

We’re currently working on ways to make it easier to update your theme to the latest version when you’ve added custom code. It’s definitely a big pain point we’re looking to alleviate. Stay tuned!

Migrating from one theme to another can also be time consuming. We’re exploring how we can make this easier. But this is still further out on our roadmap.

2 Likes
3

Thank you, looking forward to seeing both improvements.