Custom Theme Loading Very Old Version of jQuery

  • I’m now the web designer for a website built using a custom theme back in 2016. I’d like to create a tabbed timetable using jQuery following this codepen demo as a guide. The demo is created using jQuery 3.4.1, & my site is only loading jQuery 1.11.3 – so the Javascript from the Codepen won’t work on my site. Any suggestions as to workarounds?

    Is it an issue that we’re using such an old version of jQuery? WordPress & our plugins are all up to date – do none of them use jQuery? How is everything not breaking? Is this something we should be worried about now or in the future? I looked up jQuery backwards compatibility & it sounds like people have had very mixed experiences. How long are custom themes generally good for?

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  • you can use multiple versions of jQuery on the same page. To avoid any kind of conflict, use the jQuery.noConflict() method. jQuery.noConflict() method allows you to use multiple frameworks, while using jQuery. Other JavaScript frameworks include Ember, Angular, Backbone, etc.

    You can use wp_dequeue_script() and wp_enqueue_script() to remove the existing jQuery reference and add your own.

    The biggewt issue that you might face is something in your theme breaking. If you’re using a custom theme you’ll need to check with the authro to see if they know if any potential issues.

    I have had similar problems with commercial themes which dropped out of their author’s catalogue, hence even repurchasing the theme was not an option. I have not seen this as such a problem with free themes for some reason. Overall I feel this discourages me from using commercial themes.

    On one occasion a site went weird because a WordPress update changed the javascript version, previously innocent errors now mucked up the accessibility, I had to revert to the older WordPress version and block auto updates. I then fixed the js errors.

    Another variation of this problem I have had is when the minimum PHP version changed, had to debug and update some code of obsolete plugins and theme files.

    Thread Starter megseoh

    (@megseoh)

    Thanks for all of your replies. The theme is linking to the old version of jquery in header.php, & I commented it out on my development site & it didn’t break it. So now I’ll try it out on my live site. At least if I run into issues it’s an easy fix.

    If your theme was purchased from a 3rd party, try contacting the developers of that theme.

Viewing 5 replies - 1 through 5 (of 5 total)
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