Updating your theme

Keep your site's built-in pages and foundations current with one click. What an update changes, what it leaves alone, and how to undo it.

Your website is built on a set of ready-made TribeNest building blocks, plus the built-in pages every site needs: checkout, the account area, memberships, courses, the blog, and so on. We improve those over time with new features, fixes, and things like installable-app support. Updating your theme brings your site up to the latest version in one step, without touching the pages you have made your own.

Only for AI-built websites

This applies to AI-built websites. If your site came from the older drag-and-drop editor, you do not need it. See The older visual editor.

What an update does

When you update your theme, TribeNest:

Updates the foundations your site is built on to the latest version.
Refreshes the built-in pages (checkout, the account area, memberships, courses, the blog, and the rest), so your site serves the current ones.
Adds any brand-new pieces the latest version ships that your site does not have yet.

Just as importantly, here is what it leaves alone:

Your own pages. Your home page, your marketing pages, and anything you or the AI builder created stays exactly as it is.
Your content. Text, images, products, and settings are untouched.

The built-in pages then look after themselves

Once your site has been brought up to date, the built-in pages stay current on their own. Improvements and fixes to checkout, the account area, the members area and the rest reach your visitors without you rebuilding or publishing anything. Updating is what gets your site onto that footing, and what brings in any brand-new pieces afterwards.

A restore point is taken first

Every theme update saves a restore point before it changes anything, so you can go back from the builder's History menu whenever you want. Your live site is not affected until you preview and publish.

When to update

You will know an update is available in two ways:

A notification appears in your dashboard (the bell in the top bar, and the "What's New" list) whenever your live site is behind the latest theme.
In the builder, the menu button (three dots) in the toolbar carries a small dot.

There is no rush. Your site keeps working. Update when you want the newest built-in pages and improvements.

Updating from your dashboard

This is the easiest way.

Go to My Website then Home and click Edit website version to open the builder.
Click the menu button (three dots) in the toolbar and choose Update Theme. When you are already on the latest, the item is greyed out and the menu says so.
Confirm. TribeNest runs the update for you in the background, which can take a moment on a large site.
When it finishes, click Preview to rebuild your site, check it looks right, then Publish.

One at a time

If an update is already running for your site, TribeNest asks you to wait until it finishes before starting another, so an update can never collide with itself. The toolbar tells you what is holding the site while it runs.

Or just ask Mira

You can also ask Mira, in chat, to bring your site up to the latest version. She runs the same update, tells you when it has finished, and reminds you to restart the preview and publish. While it is running your site is held, so editing and previewing wait until it is done. See Chatting with Mira.

Updating is not restyling

An update does not change your colours, fonts or layout. If what you want is a different look, that is a job for the builder or for Mira's website editing, not an update.

Updating from the command line

If you work on your site locally with the tribenest CLI, run:

tribenest update theme

This does the same thing as the dashboard, then pulls the changes down to your local copy. When it is done:

tribenest dev        # check it locally
tribenest publish    # go live

Save your work first

The CLI will not run a theme update over local changes you have not pushed. It asks you to run tribenest push (or discard them) first, so nothing you have edited is lost.

Rolling back

If you want to undo a theme update, open the builder's menu button (three dots), then History, and restore the point taken just before it. It is labelled "Before theme update". Then preview and publish to put your site back.