Workflow to apply a new theme to existing blog

[slingr 0]

I've had a Wordpress blog for about 18 months and currently use a free theme. I have about 150 posts and 5 static pages, pretty basic stuff although I also have 20-25 videos that show using Flowplayer. I'm using White House Pro to develop a new design, but I assume this question applies to all new themes. I know I'm getting ahead of myself because I've got lots of work left to go, but looking ahead ... is there a "best practices" in terms of workflow for applying a new theme to an existing site? I'll have a new/different menu, additional/different static pages, plus the new WHP features, banners, etc. I've read through some of the relevant articles in the WP Codex but I guess one of my concerns is, as I make all the setup and selections within the Pagelines WHP theme, does all that get transferred and applied when I add the WHP theme to my live WP installation? Or will I have to go through and make some of the same settings/changes after it's active?

[kastelic 6]

It might be a good idea to set up a test server for yourself. 1.Setup WAMP or MAMP on you computer. 2. Install wordpress on your local server. 3. Download all your files within WP-content and copy them to your new installation. This will include all plugins, uploads, and themes. 4.Use PHPmyAdmin in your hosting server to export your database. Then go to PHPmyAdmin on your local server and import that database into your wp installation. 5. Find the 2 fields in wp-options in your database which give the blog url, and change them to your local blog url. 6. If necessary do a search and replace, searching for the live url and replacing with the local url, as you will probably have broken image links etc. 7. At this point you should have an identical copy of your site on you home computer which you can then activate the new theme and make whatever changes you need to it. 8. When your done you can go into the whitehousepro settings and backup the settings, and then when you move to your live installation you can use this to import them. Or you can just export the entire database from the local installation and import it inot the live installation, making sure to do the opposite search and replace you did before.

[slingr 0]

Thanks, Jimmy. I have a local setup on my PC with BitNami and on my Mac with Mamp since I'll eventually be working on two different site. So I'm with you up through step 7. I don't understand your Step 8, so let me take some time and try to digest it. What's confusing is that my current live site has a full and complete database. I'm just changing the theme. So I don't understand the purpose of exporting the database from my local install back to the online server. It looks like the XML file has everything I need (pages, posts, etc.) to work on the new design. And I can't find anything on my Dashboard that refers to backing up WHP settings. Do you mean the Backup Options at the bottom of the Theme Options page? Thanks, Steve

[slingr 0]

Jimmy, thanks for the information. I'll know better next time, but I was in such a rush to get going with WHP I didn't plan very well. I imported the WHP demo content and added a page to it just to see if I could get the feature slider to work. Then I moved on to the boxes and imported my logo placeholder and ended up spending the day getting that 'practice' page just like I want my new home page. After I read over your message a few times and thought about it, I think I may have over-thought the problem. I really only have three types of setups - the home page, another page, and the posts. So tomorrow I think I'll go ahead and install the WHP theme on my site and recreate my new home page from scratch. It shouldn't take very long and will probably be less risky than dealing with the whole database and such. Plus I figure if I get in trouble I can always activate my current theme. I'll let you know how it goes. BTW, kudos to the Forum for helping me with about a dozen questions/problems ... especially whoever provided the very simple CSS for removing the footer. Wish I would've acknowledged that at the time.