Display Current WordPress Site While Updating Theme

  • I am currently using WordPress for our company website. I want to update to a new theme and redesign the site. However, I don’t want to take down the current site while I work on updating the new theme.

    I already uploaded the new theme to my host and to WordPress. The problem for me is that I need to be able to update and view the files via WordPress as I’m not an experienced programmer. Is this possible?

    For example, I want to create a new homepage, but in order to create a new page via WordPress I have to have activated the new theme and choose the homepage template from the right.

    Thanks for your help!

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  • My suggestion is do a second WordPress install and use it as a development site. You can load in the entire existing site, so you are working with real data. Then you can do as you need to without worrying about whether you are affecting the live site. My suggestion is use a second database also. Thus requiring an additional wp-config.php file.

    Create the dev site in a different folder. Follow the instructions for moving WordPress except you will be copying not moving.
    https://codex.www.ads-software.com/Moving_WordPress

    I’ve done it before too. Just create a subdomain of your main site. Just make sure to set the privacy to PRIVATE so you arent pinging the search engines with test posts.

    For example, make https://dev.yourdomain.com

    Then just use that area as your sandbox. You can then move files around pretty easily when you are ready to deploy.

    Another option is to simply work on a copy of the site offline on your local computer…much faster and easier, in my opinion.

    See the following videos for installing XAMPP and WP on your local machine, then copying your active site down to your XAMPP install.

    https://educhalk.org/blog/?tag=xampp

Viewing 3 replies - 1 through 3 (of 3 total)
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