DMS Website - Local to Live

[mattdettmar 0]

Hi.

 

I'm trying to move my DMS website from my local host to live server... The WP database and all of the website files transfer without any problem. However, when I go to view the site itself, all of my styling (templates, site images, sliders etc.) have dropped out, having reverted back to the basic DMS template. Please could you tell me what I am doing wrong.

 

Many thanks.

[Simon 248]

The hidden support url in your profile shows an iblogpro site, is that the one in question?

[mattdettmar 0]

That's my current live site, which I've temporarily put back.

 

I've attached screen grabs of how the DMS site looks once I've set it live, and how it should look like when hosted locally.

 

 

[James Giroux+ 2]

A couple of questions to follow up:

 

1. Are you using a child theme?

2. have you used the export settings to child theme button in your local setup?

3. have you pressed the import your settings from child theme button on the import/export page in your live setup?

 

If you answer 'no' to any of these questions that would explain why things probably don't look the same.  Using a child theme is the best way to customize your dms site and is where DMS wants to store your settings.  You don't HAVE to do it that way but it is the recommended way.  Alternately you should get a downloaded pl-config.json file that you will need to import in and then potentially update each page with the template you want to use.

 

Hope that helps you get on your way!

 

James.

[mattdettmar 0]

Thanks for your reply, James.

 

In answer to all of your questions... No! Being a complete newbie, I didn't realise that creating a child theme was the recommended way forward. I just assumed that as you could adjust the templates and stylings of the main DMS theme, that once those changes were published and saved, then that would be it - you could simply upload the files and make the site live. Obviously not! Though, having now had a more thorough read about parent and child themes, I can understand why you should create a child theme in the first instance - which should make life easier in future!

 

To sort out my current predicament, is there any way at all to export the local site exactly as it is without having to go in and rebuild everything once live? You mention the pl-config.json file, which I now know is obtained via the Import + Export option. I've quickly tried this, but, as you say, although the templates are all exported, I would still have to go through each page and apply the relevant template, as well as make any link/image changes specific to that page - which isn't something that I really want to do all over again, if I can possibly avoid it!

 

When I view my site locally, where does DMS look to find the styling adjustments that I've made to each page (including slider images etc.)? I'm assuming that those settings are saved somewhere? If so, is it possible to export those so that they can be used by the live version of the site?

 

If there's anything that you can suggest to get the site live as it is just as a temporary measure, that would be great. I'll then look to rebuild the site as a child theme as a permanent measure. However, if the only viable solution right now is to go with the child theme approach, then I guess I'll have to do that!

 

Thanks again for your help. And apologies for my ignorance. Though, my understanding of themes is starting to fall slowly into place now!

 

Matt

[Danny+ 1,327]

Hi,

 

You can export all your Theme settings by going to your local site and navigating to DMS Toolbar > Global Options > Import/Export. You will also want to export all your Wordpress created content i.e. blog posts, pages, categories etc...

 

You can do this by following the instructions here:

 

Export - http://codex.wordpress.org/Tools_Export_Screen

Import - http://codex.wordpress.org/Tools_Import_Screen

 

Once you have all your theme and Wordpress settings exported, you can then login to your Live site, make sure you have DMS installed and active, then import your Wordpress content first, then process to import your DMS settings.
 

Also, no need to apologise, if you're unsure, ask us that's what we're here for :D

[mattdettmar 0]

Thanks, Danny.

 

I've just tried what you've suggested. However, although the DMS templates import fine to my live server, all of the pages lose the template settings (RevSlider images etc.) that were assigned to them locally... For example, one of my templates is applied to a dozen or so pages - each with its own specific RevSlider images, which are all stripped out on the live site. Is there any way to export all of the pages exactly as they appear locally, or will I have to go through and reapply the relevant template and image links for each and every page? (Naturally, I'd rather not have to do that!) Or is the only way of being able to export the complete site, without losing any template settings to any page, to create a child theme?

 

On a separate issue - when I had the DMS site live briefly and I had reapplied the homepage template, out of curiosity, I checked to see how things looked on my iPhone and iPad. However, none of the images (site logo or RevSlider images etc.) were displaying... Would there be a reason for this?

[mattdettmar 0]

PS. I have realised why the images were not loading on the live site... When reapplying the DMS homepage template, I forgot that the links for the template (as well as logo) images were still pointing to my localhost - which was obviously why everything was displaying happily in Safari & Chrome on my Mac, but not online via my iPhone & iPad. So, that's question's answered!

[Simon 248]

Use the shortcodes ;)

 

[pl_child_url] for example is relative to a child theme folder, so if your image is in wp-content/themes/my-child/img/banana.png just put this in the image box:

[pl_child_url]/img/banana.png

[mattdettmar 0]

Yep - the live image link issue I've already figured out. Thanks, Simon.

 

The only problem that I'm still trying to solve relates to my replies above to both James and Danny. Specifically:

 

"... Although the DMS templates import fine to my live server, all of the pages lose the template settings (RevSlider images etc.) that were assigned to them locally... For example, one of my templates is applied to a dozen or so pages - each with its own specific RevSlider images, which are all stripped out on the live site. Is there any way to export all of the pages exactly as they appear locally, or will I have to go through and reapply the relevant template and image links for each and every page? (Naturally, I'd rather not have to do that!) Or is the only way of being able to export the complete site, without losing any template settings to any page, to create a child theme?"

[Danny+ 1,327]

Naturally, the importer should do this for you. Therefore, I think it could well be a bug, I will try and recreate it and if I do, I will post an issue on our tracker. In the meantime, as much of a pain as it will be, you will probably want to assign these templates to your pages individually, while I test this.

[mattdettmar 0]

OK. Thanks, Danny. Much appreciated. It could be something that I'm doing wrong my end, but I believe I've followed all of the Export/Import instructions for both WP and DMS to the letter.

 

Regarding the DMS live image link problem that I managed to figure out - is there a way to bulk change all of the links (for RevSlider images etc.) from my 'localhost:8888' to live 'www' URL (in a similar way to exporting MySQL tables, then doing a Find and Replace on all the links)? If not, would that mean that I'd have to go through each live page and relink all of the DMS images again anyway?

 

And just to confirm - I'm exporting my local WP content via phpMyAdmin, rather than using the WP export tool. I did try going the WP route, but when importing the file again I just got a whole list of Failed Imports. Using the phpMyAdmin method seems to import the WP content fine, so I'm assuming that's not affecting things in any way?