How publishing works

Draft-theme by default, managed files only, reversible always.

Draft-theme publishing

Publishing never targets your live theme. When you click Publish, ConvertCanvas compiles your design into native Online Store 2.0 theme files and syncs them to a draft copy of your theme — a theme named ConvertCanvas Draft that the app creates and keeps up to date in your theme library. Your customers see nothing until you decide to go live.

After publishing you get a preview link that renders the page on the real draft theme, exactly as customers will see it. When you're happy, assign the template in Shopify admin (Online Store → Themes → Customize) or publish the draft theme itself.

What files the app writes

Every file ConvertCanvas creates is prefixed with oxa-, so it's instantly recognizable in the theme code editor. For each published page you'll see some combination of:

Templates — JSON templates like templates/page.oxa-spring-launch.json (or product.oxa-*, collection.oxa-*, cart.oxa-* for other surfaces).
Sections — Liquid sections like sections/oxa-buy-box.liquid, one per widget stack on the page.
Assets — small CSS and vanilla-JS files like assets/oxa-page-spring-launch.css, shared across pages where possible.

ConvertCanvas only ever creates or updates its own managed oxa- files and refuses to touch reserved template names. Your existing theme files are never overwritten. All managed files are plain Liquid, JSON, CSS, and JS — fully readable and editable in Shopify's code editor.

Versions & rollback

Every publish creates a new page version (available on Basic and Plus). Open a page's version history to preview any earlier version, and click Restore to roll back — ConvertCanvas recompiles that version and republishes it to the draft theme. Rolling back is safe: it only rewrites managed files.

Republishing

If a published page ever looks out of sync — for example after switching themes or editing managed files by hand — open the page and click Republish. This recompiles the current design and re-syncs all of its oxa- files.

Uninstall cleanliness

Because pages compile to native theme files, everything you've published keeps working after uninstall — no callbacks to our servers, no broken pages. If you want a spotless theme, delete the oxa- templates, sections, and assets from the theme code editor (they're all prefixed, so they're easy to find), and delete the ConvertCanvas Draft theme. Nothing else was ever touched.