Download previous versions of themes by Shopify

Ricardo_Amorim
Shopify Partner
6 0 8

Hi,

I'm one of the developers of the Back in Stock app and we're looking for a way to download or install previous versions of the free themes created by Shopify (Debut, Minimal, Simple, etc). Our goal is to test our storefront code with as many themes/versions as possible. Anyway this would be possible?

Also, how would Shopify feel it those themes were available in a public Git repository? I could come up with something that would monitor for new versions, download the theme files and commit to Git.

Thanks!

Replies 5 (5)

Trevor
Community Moderator
3391 459 977

Hey, Ricardo!

 

I checked in with our Themes team, as well as our Partners team, however, they both informed me that this wouldn't be something we're able to provide. I can understand why you're looking to test your app with a variety of themes/versions, however, as it stands we only require apps to work with the current version of Shopify themes. 

 

Let me know if you have any questions!

Trevor | Community Moderator @ Shopify
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Ricardo_Amorim
Shopify Partner
6 0 8

Thanks for the reply, Peter.

 

I understand that Shopify require apps to work with the current version, however, as you know, not all shops use the latest and greatest and we can't ask them to upgrade their theme as we don't support older versions.  Most changes to themes are probably irrelevant for app devs, but major releases might introduce breaking changes so would be nice to test those. 

Would Shopify be OK with having the Shopify theme files in a public Github repository? I'm thinking it would be a valuable resource for other developers and I could make that happen by downloading theme files from a test store.

Also, is there a CHANGELOG for each theme that we can have access to?

ncerelli
Tourist
7 0 5

Did anything ever come of this? I'd also like to get a hold of a clean copy of some older Debut themes.

yogodoshi
Shopify Partner
7 0 6

I also have the same need. Too many users of my app with old theme versions that I have to support.

PaulNewton
Shopify Partner
6274 573 1319

In addition to testability, another need for accessing previous theme versions is generating real version historys.

When a merchant hasn't done any version control, or even at minimum an export of the initial theme install before making changes that means going through the theme with a fine toothed comb to spot changes.

 

Currently the main ways are

  • hope there is an original unmodified duplicate of that version in the theme admin.
  • Dig through the code editors version dropdowns; accepting that it is may not be the full history due to duplicates and deletions of either files or themes; and that the contents of the  /assets folder is excluded from that history system and to get an old asset means trying to get it from the CDN urls.
  • Get the next/latest forward version of the theme and hope there hasn't been drastic structural changes that doing a diff between the old current theme and a fresh installed theme version easily highlights relevant changes.

 

Because the process to get that information has a high amount of effort this is another factor that leads to merchants shrugging about not knowing what changes a theme has actually undergone. This type of uncertainty drives issues like "why is my theme slow now" , increases theme lock-in, cost of developers for migrations ,etc. Because it's easy to have zero idea of what customizations a theme has undergone that my be impacting performance, or what features will be lost when switching themes.

Except by the tedious process of going back and forth between every page template/condition between two or three+ themes: published, newest version of published from theme store, theme interested in switching too.

+ Not including variants of the published themes used for things like holiday events,etc.

 

With access to the original version it makes it drastically easier for theme developers, and savvy merchants, to identity customizations and create changelogs the businesses documentation of it's themes with some simple diffing and git'ing.

Which can then be used to identify what an app has done to a theme, or any business logic that needs to persist across any new themes used, etc.

 

An ideal process for accessing old theme version would just use the github integration, create a private repo of the old version unmodified theme with a clear usage license. Then add the current/selected theme as as branch; or ask to just merge it. Then just leverage the github diff to be used quickly by merchants to peruse the changes looking for whatever is relevant.

 

 

For non-shopify themes some developers will aid you in getting an old version of a third-party theme to use on the merchants store.

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