[Lynne]

Originally Posted by NashChristian

Hello Lynne,

So just to make sure I understand, say you are upgrading your site to the latest and greatest version, after you get your test site setup, hacks and mods to your happiness, everything running smoothe, how then do you move these changes onto your live site? You said that you did it all with just a couple of hours of downtime, which is impressive! Do you delete your live site folder and then recreate it by copying your test environment via FTP?

Then you would just have to reconfigure the database to use your live data. And you would likely have to redo any changes done in your test environment which were stored in the database.

Or do you simply run the upgrade script on your live site, import the templates from your test site, individually import each plug-in from your test site, and manually make any other changes that you've made where the settings are stored in the database? You manually write these in your notebook as you implement them on your test site, then you manually implement them on your live site as well during this process?

Basically, once I have my test site running how I want it, I export my styles and my modifications from the test site to my computer and then shut down the main site, replace all files with copies of the ones from my test site (that I keep on my computer), run the upgrade script, import all the hacks and the styles (I only have one main template edit style, the others are just css, so I don't need them imported) and then turn back on my main site. Of course, nothing is quite that simple, but I've done it a couple of times now and I've learned what needs to be done. I've also done test runs before - gotten the test site set up how I wanted, exported all modifications and styles and then completely replaced the test site with a copy of the live database and done the upgrade all over again.