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Due to my early experiences with Ubuntu Linux, I have a healthy fear of upgrades.  Whenever I updated Ubuntu, it would often break the functionality of video, audio, and cause other headaches.  Belatedly, I figured out how to turn off the kernel updates, and only get the security patches.  Smooth sailing ever since.

 

In some ways, WordPress is more complicated.  You have upgrades to WordPress core, the plugins, and premium themes (if you buy themes like I do).

 

Updating WordPress core is easy, if you do it automatically within the WP dashboard.

 

Plugins are a little more complex, but rarely a problem for me. Some tips:

1) Install as few plugins as possible.  Not only are there fewer things that can break, it will also speed up your website.  Every plugin consumes some resources, like bandwidth and queries to the database.

 

2) Stick with well-known plugins that are actively developed and have high ratings.  Always look long and hard at a plugin before installing it.

 

It's the theme that causes me the most worry.  I spend a lot of time making customizations, like tweaking the CSS and arranging the menu navigation.  The worst case scenario is that upgrading the theme will restore my website to default settings, overriding all my precious customizations.

 

I've been reading the version history documentation of my theme very carefully, to see what's been changed in the upgrade. 

 

My current plan is to manually FTP to my web host, only transferring the theme files that were updated.  Not upload the entire theme again from within WordPress.  And I'll definitely avoid touching the "style.css" file.

 

Do you guys have any tips on upgrading?

Views: 42

Replies to This Discussion

Thanks Marcus! 

If you are worried about loosing changes made to the theme (when upgrading WordPress) consider creating a child theme where you store all of your custom changes, that way the parent theme can be upgraded but you keep all your tweaks.

 

I wrote an article about it here:

http://code.bertholf.com/wordpress/creating-a-child-theme-in-twenty...

 

 

Rob,


Thanks for the advice and that great article.  I'll definitely look at TwentyTen in the future to learn how customize themes and create child themes. 


Rob Bertholf said:

Thanks Marcus! 

If you are worried about loosing changes made to the theme (when upgrading WordPress) consider creating a child theme where you store all of your custom changes, that way the parent theme can be upgraded but you keep all your tweaks.

 

I wrote an article about it here:

http://code.bertholf.com/wordpress/creating-a-child-theme-in-twenty...

 

 

You can use a custom.css file for any changes you make to the themes css. If your theme didn't provide one you can easily create one and include it in the header. That way you can always  just upgrade the theme, including the styles.css and all your custom styles are intact. I use custom.css files for other  paltforms and  projects as well, where it isn't convenient to  tweak an existing  css file for whatever reasons.

//edit Oh and what Rob said , didn't see that ;-)

Thanks for the tip on a custom.css file.  That sounds like a great solution.  Just copy the style.css that came with the theme into a custom.css file.  Then make my changes.

 

How would the code in the header look?  Would I have both the style.css and custom.css in the header, or only my custom.css?



Marcus Sortijas said:

Thanks for the tip on a custom.css file.  That sounds like a great solution.  Just copy the style.css that came with the theme into a custom.css file.  Then make my changes.

 

How would the code in the header look?  Would I have both the style.css and custom.css in the header, or only my custom.css?

 

You don't  need to copy the default (style.css)  styles there, you just  add the new styles to custom.css and they will override the style.css styles. You include the custom.css styles after the style.css. i.e.

<link href="http://www.domain.com/wp-content/themes/headlines/style.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

<link href="http://www.domain.com/wp-content/themes/headlines/custom.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" />

and where you have a style in style.css like

.item_image a {

display: block;

height: 96px;

width: 96px;

}
in custom.css you have
.item_image a {

display: block;

height: 150px;

width: 150px;

}

 

 

as well as any new styles you make that aren't in styles.css

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