Canvas Docs

How To Update Canvas

Canvas updates travel through the pipeline you already know: the theme and the Canvas Core plugin announce new versions on the normal WordPress Dashboard > Updates screen, and install with the same one click as anything else there. This page covers what the license changes about that, which updates install themselves, and the one follow up a theme update sometimes asks of you.

How Updates Arrive

Starting screenDashboardUpdates.

When a new Canvas release exists, the theme appears in the themes list and Canvas Core in the plugins list, each with its version and changelog link. Select them and update as you would any other theme or plugin; WordPress performs the download and the install, with its usual maintenance mode and rollback on failure.

Version information is public, but the package itself is the licensed part. On a site without an active license the new version still shows, and the Canvas Core row carries the message "Activate your Canvas license to enable one-click updates." beside it, so an unlicensed site is never unknowingly out of date, it is only unable to fetch the fix.

Update checks are cached for up to twelve hours. If you know a release has shipped and it is not showing, use Check again on the Updates screen, which forces a fresh check.

Automatic Patch Updates

Patch releases, the small fix only updates within a version, can install themselves. The behaviour is controlled by Automatic Patch Updates on the General tab of Canvas > Theme Options; see General for the setting. Feature releases always wait for you, because anything that changes behaviour deserves a human deciding when. Canvas only ever opts in to what WordPress allows: your own per theme auto update choices and any site wide update switches your host or configuration sets are respected.

After A Theme Update: The Template Review Notice

If you have customised templates in the Site Editor, watch for a notice after a theme update naming the templates that release changed. Your customised versions are kept, and that is exactly why the notice exists: a template customised in the Site Editor permanently shadows the theme's file, so an improvement to that template never reaches your copy on its own. Open each named template in the Site Editor and decide whether to fold the change in or keep yours as it is.

Pitfalls

An update is visible but will not install. The license on this site is missing or expired, so the package is withheld while the version information still shows. Renew or activate on Canvas > License and the same row becomes installable.

A template fix from the changelog did not appear on your site. You customised that template in the Site Editor, and your copy shadows the theme's. This is the case the review notice announces; the fix is waiting in the theme's version of the template.

A release shipped but the Updates screen does not list it. The last check is cached. Check again on Dashboard > Updates refreshes it immediately.

Canvas Core shows no update while it is deactivated. The plugin answers its own update check, so nothing reports a new version for it until you activate it again. Theme updates are unaffected and keep arriving whether or not Canvas Core is installed.

Was this page helpful?