Make new WP homepage while website is active?

[wallofiron]

I want to totally redesign the homepage of my website and use a totally different template from wordpress. How to I go about keeping my homepage exactly the way it is while I make a new one?

 

[joolez]

Hi Wallofiron

Your best bet is to upload the theme that you are going to use as the foundation of your new design and install and run this plugin

http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/theme-test-drive/ I don't know if it works on the latest version of wordpress, but it worked to 2.8.4

Hope that helps
Joolez

 

[wallofiron]

thanks, but it seems you cannot edit pages/posts/plugins etc without altering the original design as well.

I am looking to make a totally revamped website while the other one is still active.

thanks!

 

[ssellers]

Use a subdomain, and then move it all when you are done?

 

[moserw]

Make a subdomain and work on that. That's what I do. When its all ready migrate to the original one.

 

[account77]

I used Wampserver and installed wordpress locally, I always test the new themes locally before putting them on my live site

 

[MLMGUROO]

I used Wampserver and installed wordpress locally, I always test the new themes locally before putting them on my live site

I do exactly the same. Don't forget, of course, to get your sql server up and running too.

Hier you can get both ones (apache + sql server ) for free:

http://www.easyphp.org/download.php

 

[Rajthepositivelife]

yeah, you can try it on a subdomain.

If u want, u can also install another wordpress on any of your subdirectories, example - yourdomain.com/testserver

and then you can install plugins and themes on that testserver or new subdomain. Once you are done testing, you can install the final plugins and theme on your original domain

If you need any help in doing so, send me a pm. I can help u out

 

[wallofiron]

Do you make a separate database for your subfolder install?

thanks all for the help!

 

[CyberGlitch]

I also use a local WAMP server for all my testing. Even better then easyphp, Uniform Server. Nothing to install or configure, just start it when you need to use it.

Yes, setup a new db and everything.

 

[wallofiron]

Ok, now I installed the NEW version of the WP blog I want to use into a subfolder of the original website.

I tried to move all the files into the root folder and it doesnt load templates now. I cant figure out the right way to move the old WP from the root folder and the NEW WP install into the root folder.

:-(

 

[MLMGUROO]

Try to edit the the 'site_url' field in the 'options' table of your sql database, according to the setup that you have chosen to run your WP environment in.

To do that you must first start your phpMyAdmin console - see also screenshot below:

I hope it helps.

Cheers,

M.

 

[insider]

The problem. Although it is not recommended, you may want at some point to change your domain name while keeping your blog and its data. Because WordPress records your domain name in the database, you have to change the database in order to connect your new domain name to your WordPress blog.

The solution.

1. You guessed it: the first thing to do is log in to your phpMyAdmin and select your WordPress database.
2. Click the "SQL" button to open the SQL command window. In order to change your WordPress URL, execute this first command:
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1 UPDATE wp_options SET option_value = replace(option_value, 'http://www.oldsite.com', 'http://www.newsite.com') WHERE option_name = 'home' OR option_name = 'siteurl';
3. Then, we have to replace the relative URL (guid) of each post. The following command will do that job:
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1 UPDATE wp_posts SET guid = replace(guid, 'http://www.oldsite.com','http://www.newsite.com');
4. We're almost done. The last thing to do is a search and replace in the wp_posts table to make sure that no absolute URL is still here:
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1 UPDATE wp_posts SET post_content = replace(post_content, 'http://www.oldsite.com', 'http://www.newsite.com');
5. You're done. You should be able to log in to your WordPress dashboard using your new URL.

Explanation. To easily change our WordPress domain name, I took advantage of the super-useful MySQL function "replace," which allows you to replace one term by another.

http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2008/12/18/8-useful-wordpress-sql-hacks/

 

[wallofiron]

thanks all..!!

got it done!! whoo hoo