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[infovasciaveo Friend infovasciaveoJoin date: October 2010Posts: 92Downloads:1Uploads:36 Thanks: 33 Thanked: 1 times in 1 posts]

#158236

I want to use TelineIV at a site already published. If you install the quickstart I think all content should be deleted, but if you install only the templates will not have the settings as are visible on your site.
Is there a solution that will enable me to have the same settings as you see on your site, but without erasing the contents of the old site?
Can I install the quickstart and then import the contents of the sections, categories and articles previously exported from the old site?
It would be really expensive to install the template and then just reset everything as you see on your site!
Thanks

[Phill Moderator PhillJoin date: February 2014Posts: 7013Downloads:40Uploads:77 Thanks: 917 Thanked: 2206 times in 1818 posts]

#369869

Upgrading or changing a template is always a complex job. Positions and settings will all innevitably be different and there really is no simple way to do the job without a lot of hard work. I have upgraded a few recently so the experience is still fresh in my mind.

The last one I did was changing a sited using JA_ZinC to now using JA Community Plus. Everything about the templates was very different and it took about 14hrs to do the complete (though part of that was debugging a coppermine install for JS compatibility).

I started by installing Wamp (http://www.wampserver.com/en/) on my PC and installing a quickstart of my new template there so I could compare settings.

The next step was to take a babkup of my old site using Akeeba Backup, the free version (http://www.akeebabackup.com/) and installing the backup on my PC.

That whole process took less than half an hout (with the exception of downloading the backup). I then had an exact copy of my live site working on localhost. I then uploaded all the extensions along with the new template to the copy of my old site on my PC.

The the debug process begins, you first have to get all the settings in place to allow content to display correctly. You may also have classes or formatting applied to text or images in your articles that you already have. This may or may not be compatible with your new template and you may have a lot of articles to edit.

You then have you menu structure to work on. That is usually quite simple but given the new features of the Mega Menu I had plenty of new ideas to implement and comparrison to the quickstart was essential.

Another sometimes complex part is getting all your modules in their right places and adjusting dat inside them (especially the custom ones) to look good in your new template. Always check for module class suffixes that might cause problems.

The list of little jobs goes on and it is impossible to tell what hurdles you may need to leap in the upgrade process. In some cases it is better to migrate all your data directly into the quickstart then adjust as required. It depends on so many things you need to decide what is best for you. Fortunatley by working on localhos as per above you will not affect your live site in any way. You also get to try things a lot faster and if it goes wrong it is easir to recover.

Once you have your site as it should be on your localhost you can then upload it to your hosting (again, using akeeba) but take backups first so you can revert if need be.

1 user says Thank You to Phill for this useful post

1. infovasciaveo

[infovasciaveo Friend infovasciaveoJoin date: October 2010Posts: 92Downloads:1Uploads:36 Thanks: 33 Thanked: 1 times in 1 posts]

#369897

Thank you for fast reply.
I understand that is very difficult to arrange old site with new template!
But, following your suggestions, I would like to upload in the new template only the content of the articles and not the modules or other settings, only articles. Clearly then these may require some adjustments, as you indicated. To do so, would I simply export the tables of sections, categories and articles and import the new template?
Thanks

[Phill Moderator PhillJoin date: February 2014Posts: 7013Downloads:40Uploads:77 Thanks: 917 Thanked: 2206 times in 1818 posts]

#369899

You could give it a go by exporting the tables but I am not sure how it will work out. You cannot do any harm by giving it a go on locakhost.

You couls also try one of the following componente – http://extensions.joomla.org/extensions/migration-a-conversion/joomla-migration

1 user says Thank You to Phill for this useful post

1. infovasciaveo

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