Summary

Before 2024, Uscreen websites used "Themes" and "Pages".
You picked 1 of many "Themes" and may have created additional theme pages.
In 2024, Uscreen introduced a new website editor
This "New Website Editor" offers a single, standard, robust, easily extendable, user-friendly, modernized website and visual editor.
It allows us at Uscreen to deliver new features faster
It offers the same level of capabilities, settings, and customizations, plus many more options
It will include new features like a visual editor, vertical thumbnails, video notes, etc.
You should upgrade your website to the new website editor by the end of 2025. That's over a year from now! We are letting you know super early, to plan and complete the upgrade.
The upgrade process is fast and easy in some situations
The upgrade process is slower and will take time and effort if you have fancy theme customizations or advanced custom code.

This help article will have frequent changes, as Uscreen improves the new website editor upgrade process.

New Website Editor Explained 🎬

Improved and modern interface
Faster, real-time website editing while viewing
Uscreen focus on ongoing maintenance, stability, and extensibility
The same level of advanced custom code customization (just in a different place)
Many new website-only features

If you created your Uscreen account in July 2024 or afterwards... You do not need to upgrade. You are already on the latest and greatest. No action is needed! 🎉
If you are using a website theme... you will need to upgrade in the future. This is likely if you created your Uscreen account before July 2024.

Right now, the upgrade process is manual
Contact your Customer Success Manager (CSM) or Uscreen Support
You will manually follow the steps in this article, to upgrade.
There is no way “try it” ☹️ right now...
The upgrade is currently a manual switch (or easy switch back to your old theme) by the Uscreen team
In 2025, we will have a more helpful "wizard" process, to step through the process
But we want to give you the optional, manual process now, especially if you want the new features, as soon as possible

Rebuild your theme homepage as a Landing Page (if needed). This step is not necessary if you use a website like Shopify or WordPress for your homepage. Or if you are already using a Landing Page as your home page (which many Uscreen customers already do!)
Rebuild any theme pages as a Landing Page. Since themes are going away, you must rebuild any additional theme pages (like contact, about, information, FAQ, etc.) as a landing pages.
Make note of your header, footer, all associated links, social links, and URLs. You will need to recreate your header and footer, as part of the upgrade process.
Review your custom liquid code. Make a list of what you changed. You need to reimplement custom liquid code using landing page custom HTML blocks, head code, or CSS. Skip this step if you do not have custom code.
Review other custom code, in the head and CSS snippets. If this code affects themes, you will need to reimplement without a theme. Skip this step if you do not have custom code.

Select your home page. This may be a Landing Page, a 3rd party website like Shopify or WordPress, or you can keep the catalog as your home page (which is the default setting)
Recreate your header and footer. Review and adjust your navigation as needed. Some pages carry over, like community and calendar. Other pages must be recreated in the editor.
Add Social links in the new website About page. Even if you choose to hide the default About page, you must enter your footer social icons there.
Set up or hide About page (/about) This is a great place to summarize your membership, explain your business, and form a personable connection with your audience
Review your Terms and Conditions page (/terms)
Review your Privacy page (/privacy)

Website branding settings like primary color, logo, favicon, etc.
Catalog settings like Featured Category, My Library, Continue Watching, Mark As Watched, playlist position, etc.
Advanced settings like domain, language, and SEO
Landing pages
Head code
Custom CSS code
Checkout code
Checkout custom fields
New member signup
Existing member sign in
Access to watching videos on web, mobile apps, and tv apps

No theme homepage. If you use this, you need to rebuild as a Landing Page.
No theme sub-pages. If you use subpages, rebuild each as a Landing Page.
No theme templates and no theme liquid code customization. These go away.
Custom pages with heavy custom code might be broken.
Navigation and Footer. The new website editor uses a new and improved header and footer navigation, which you need to review and adjust.
No Assets. The Assets feature is not available in the new website. Please use a different file storage solution, like Dropbox, AWS S3, Netlify, Google Drive, etc.

Contact Uscreen Support or your friendly Customer Success Manager
Uscreen plans to improve this upgrade process, in later 2024, and through 2025
It is easy to switch back to the old theme, if needed. The settings are all independent. But remember, you should upgrade before the end of 2025.

We hope you upgrade before the end of 2025 to have the latest and greatest.
But in 2026, we will stop support of themes. We will not take them away. We are not monsters. But the Uscreen focus will be the new website editor.
You can still use your existing theme, but realize they will be a legacy and unsupported, and you will lack several key features. Uscreen might eventually fully deprecate sometime in the far future, so again, we hope you upgrade in 2025.

Yes, you may need to rebuild parts of your website, especially if you made many theme customizations. You will have 3rd party development costs.
Though these extra costs are not ideal, and not a Uscreen intention... it is the nature of software to need frequent upgrades and maintenance costs.
The intention of the new website editor is a long-term, more sustainable, website, with more build options than the previous themes.