Updating your theme

Information about updating to the newest version of the Palo Alto theme

Palo Alto 5 includes the Shopify section groups feature and focuses on general improvements to design/UX, accessibility, performance, and settings.

Using the Shopify theme update feature

When a new version of the theme becomes available, all licensed customers will have the option to update their theme right from the Shopify admin, under online store -> themes:

Click on the message to view the drop-down that contains details about the update:

Key information

  • The drop-down message box will display the current version of your theme and the updated version that is available to you.

  • The most important message, the update is added to your theme library and does not replace your live theme.

  • Any custom code will not be copied over. Most apps will have to be re-configured. Each app developer will have steps on their support site to help you with that. We are not able to assist with app installations.

View the release notes and add to theme library

  • View the release notes to see what's new since your version.

  • Use the add to theme library link to begin the update process.

What happens next

  • You'll see a copying your customizations message to indicate the update is in progress.

  • After the update has been completed, you'll see a green success message:

  • A new button will be added to review the new theme:

Reviewing the new theme

Use the review button to view your theme in the theme customizer. Here, you can check to see if your sections and settings have been copied over correctly. Some new versions of the theme will have new options and layout features. It's very important to check all areas of your theme.

Next, we recommend you make a duplicate of this version before adding any of your custom code and apps. Remember, for help with app installation - please visit each of the app Developers for instructions or assistance. Our support team cannot install or configure apps as that is not our code or software.

Remember: Always perform a comprehensive review before publishing a new theme.

Video overview

Watch this step-by-step video to preview the steps in using the theme update feature:

Alternate method - download from the theme store

We recommend you use the above method with the Shopify updater. If your store is not displaying the 'update available' feature, you can use this alternate method to update your theme.

Start by downloading a new version of the theme directly from the Shopify theme store:

Use this link below for the Shopify theme store. Be sure to 'log in' with the account that purchased the theme:

Click on the 'Add latest theme version button'. The download will be added to your theme library and will not affect your Live theme.

Next, you can open the code editor of your current copy by going into your online store > themes and clicking on actions (the 3 dots icon) > edit code.

Here, you should find the edited page templates with a small gray dot as an indication that they have changed.

Open up the edited page templates, we'll use index.json for our example, and copy the content to paste into the new theme.

To help select and copy all of the code here you can use command + a followed by command + c (or ctrl + a, ctrl + c for Windows).

The last step is to open the code editor for the new copy, open up the same file (in this case index.json), and paste in all of the code.

Note: you have to also delete all of the predefined code. Use command + a again to select it all (or ctrl + a for Windows) and click delete.

Finally, all that's left is to save the changes. If no build errors pop up, you have successfully transferred all of the settings that are still compatible with the new version.

Please note that it's possible not all settings will be compatible in which case you could run into a build error or just have missing sections.

Repeat this process for all templates.

Always check your progress through the theme editor and add in the missing sections before publishing the new copy.

If you run into a lot of build errors, then the best thing to do would be to manually redo all sections from the theme editor for the template.

Please note that if you're coming from version 4 or older, we do not recommend moving old settings.

The Shopify section groups update required us to make changes to section settings. The old schema may not be compatible with the new version.

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