CSS editing and upgrading wordpress

  • First of all my apologies for being a complete novice at this!

    I’ve had my website for a couple of years now and have never updated it. I created the whole thing using the Brunelleschi template and editing the code, which I know nothing about but googled each thing I wanted to fix and gradually made it look the way I want.

    I have just read something saying you shouldn’t do this, as when the template is updated it will all be lost. So I have a couple of questions..

    1) If I don’t update the template, will it remain the same?
    2) Is there a way of exporting all of my style sheets so I can use them if something goes wrong?
    3) If I update wordpress will it all be lost?

    I’ve been too scared to update wordpress as my host isn’t very good at doing things I ask, and I’m worried about whether things will get lost if he doesn’t back up properly. Is there a way I can back up and update myself and not have to rely on him? I just pay to use the server, not really his time.

    I think that’s about it..
    unless anyone can also let me know how to change the padding between my social media icons!

    my website is https://www.buttonsandbeeswax.com

    Thanks ??

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)

  • 1. Yes but you will miss out on any bug fixes and/or improvements. There’s also the possibility that your older version of the theme may not be compatible with future versions of WordPress.

    2. You could download a copy of your theme to your computer using FTP.

    3. No. Updates of WordPress itself (ie core updates) do not touch your theme. Or your plugins, for that matter.

    I’ve been too scared to update wordpress as my host isn’t very good at doing things I ask

    Were you aware that your site is currently running a very real risk of being hacked? Cleaning up after a hack is time-consuming, complicated and potentially very expensive. As you have such an old version of WordPress, you will now need to carry out a series of smaller manual upgrades. See Upgrading_WordPress_Extended for the full details. None of this is dependant upon your hosts and you should really learn how to backup your database and update WordPress yourself.

    unless anyone can also let me know how to change the padding between my social media icons!

    Try using Firefox with the Firebug add-on for this kind of CSS troubleshooting. Or use whatever developer tool is available in your web browser.

    Thread Starter fapp

    (@fapp)

    Thank you for your speedy reply. I’m currently trying to get my head around the back up documentation, as I’m aware I need to upgrade soon. I have tried to download phpmyadmin to do it that way as suggested in the link, but it just seems to be a folder full of php files.

    Thread Starter fapp

    (@fapp)

    Also I’ll add that I don’t have access to any of the files, so I can only use my own computer and the wordpress dashboard to upload to the website.

    I have tried to download phpmyadmin to do it

    No – your hosts have to have Phpmyadmin or a similar tool installed on the server.

    Thread Starter fapp

    (@fapp)

    Thanks

    So is there a way I can do it without the host? I’d like to sort it out and he’s usually hard to get hold of!

    For a good solid first database backup, you really need to use whatever database management tool your host provides. There are backup plugins out there but I couldn’t endorse any specific one.

Viewing 6 replies - 1 through 6 (of 6 total)
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