Test new theme?

[cattie]

Hi all,
I am planning to switch theme on a blog (the one linked to here) but after having tried the same thing on my personal blog and having it down for months, I need to be able to get everything to where I want it to be separate from the blog. I know there is a plugin you can use so that only you see the changes you make in your new theme while the old one is still what the public sees, but it sounds like you can't set up everything in the new theme and still have it hidden that way and I want it to be in perfect shape when it goes live.

I was thinking of instead setting everything up on a separate URL (and copy over everything from the current URL to the "test site" so I can work on it there. It needs a lot of cleaning up) and then move the whole thing to the current URL and activate the theme - is that possible? If so, how hard is it if you have a very vague idea of how a blog is constructed (code-wise) and don't know how to edit code? Or is there a much easier way to do this that I don't know about?

Any advice is greatly appreciated!

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[AnitaC]

Instead of doing that - why don't you try ServerPress - http://serverpress.com/. I used it on my desktop. It's pretty easy to set up and you can test it all out in a local environment, then move everything when you are ready.

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Need help with customization or troubleshooting? Reach out to me.

[nutsandbolts]

You can do this in a couple of ways. One would be to set up a clone on a test site, customize the theme, wipe out your existing site and replace all the files, then change the home and site URLs in the database. I've done this many times but I wouldn't recommend it unless you're very comfortable with the process.

What I usually do is customize the theme on a test domain (I don't bother importing content - I just use a blank WP install), then download the theme folder via FTP. I can then zip it and upload it to the live site like any other child theme, but all my customizations are there. About 20 minutes in maintenance mode to move any widgets into the right place and it's good to go.

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Andrea Whitmer, Owner/Developer, Nuts and Bolts Media
I provide development and training services for designers • Find me on Twitter and Google+

[cattie]

Thanks for the tips, anitac and nutsandbolts! I took a look at ServerPress and I'm concerned that it's a bit over my head.

nutsandbolts, it sounds like the second option you mention is what I was thinking - setting everything up on a different domain and then moving it, or am I getting that wrong? The reason I wanted to import the content is that it needs extensive cleaning up, there are lots of categories that need to be removed and changed so that I can set up menus that make sense to people, etc. So you can't set up widgets on the test site? I was hoping to get it 100% ready to go before activating it on the "real" blog, because I suspect that something that takes you 20 minutes might take me 2 weeks.

To give you an idea of my incompetence with css, I probably spent a total of 3-4 entire weekends trying to change the color of the in-text links on my personal blog, and it took me forever to figure out how menus work when I switched from atahualpa to the genesis framework. I even hired someone to help me make the main column wider but she flaked out on me and after a month, I gave up on her.

[nutsandbolts]

If you need to do some significant restructuring to the site, it would make the most sense to go with the first option I mentioned. Set up a subdomain, clone your files and change the URLs in the database, get everything the way you want it, then erase the old version of the site and clone the test site back over. You'd essentially be replacing the entire site. (The second option was just moving over the theme files.)

The potential for breaking something is huge with something like this, so I don't recommend it at all unless you know what you're doing. I offer test site creation and cloning if you need help - you can contact me through my site if that's something you want to talk more about (link is in my signature).

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Andrea Whitmer, Owner/Developer, Nuts and Bolts Media
I provide development and training services for designers • Find me on Twitter and Google+

[AnitaC]

It's really not hard at all. Good luck!

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Need help with customization or troubleshooting? Reach out to me.

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