Help exporting staging site design/layout to a live site

  • Hello, I was wondering what is the process required (and if it’s even possible) to take a layout and design that I create on a staging site using a block theme, and then export it to a live site (from where the staging site files originated)?
    In my case, the live site is an old site designed on WordPress using the Genesis theme along with a child theme, so this would NOT be going from Block theme to another Block theme. In my mind, at minimum, prior to importing the layout of the staging site onto the live site, I will have to also install and activate the new block theme on the live site. This means temporarily limiting access to the site while this change takes place. I’m sure there is a lot that I’m missing, but hopefully someone here can help me make sense of it all.

    What I’m hoping to do is clone the live site to create the staging site and use a new block theme (such as Twenty Twenty Four) as the new theme on the staging site. Since the original site was built using a classic theme, a lot of the plugins and widgets that are in use will be turned off. Once I get the staging site to look the way I want using the new block theme, I would like to take that new layout/design and apply it to the live site.
    From the brief info I’ve found about this new block theme, it sounds like it’s possible to export the site design and apply it to another site. Since I’m new to all of this, I don’t know if I’m misunderstanding the concept. But I’m hopeful that someone here will clear things up for me and guide me on how to make these changes (if possible). I’m aware that while working on the staging site, the live site will continue to grow since there is a weekly blog and an WooCommerce store making sales daily. For this reason, simply going live with the staging site won’t be possible since I don’t want to lose any of the data that was added to the live site after the staging site was created.

    To summarize it all, I’d like to do the following:

    1. Clone my live site and create a staging site (on Siteground hosting).
    2. Install the new block theme on the staging site which will completely change the look and layout of the staging site.
    3. Fix the staging site so that it looks the way I want.
    4. Take that new look/design over to the live site, to avoid having to redesign it from scratch after installing the new block theme.

    BTW, if this process is actually possible, what happens when an update to the theme takes place, would WordPress recognize this exported version as the original version?

    Thanks in advance,
    Wells.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
  • Moderator jordesign

    (@jordesign)

    Hi @@welldun1

    From what you’re saying – it sounds like the best approach would be to export out the customizer version of Twenty Twenty-Four (or whichever theme you use) so you can use it on the original site.

    The good news is that is possible using the Create Block Theme plugin.
    https://www.ads-software.com/plugins/create-block-theme/

    It will let you export out a brand new theme which includes the customizations you made. You can then install and activate that new customized theme on the original site.

    Thread Starter welldun1

    (@welldun1)

    That sounds great, thanks for the reply! Do you know if after doing this, the customized version would still be recognized as a version of the original Twenty Twenty-Four theme so that any updates to the original version would still apply to the customized version?

    For example, if I do this using the Twenty Twenty-Four theme, and at some point, there is an update to the Twenty Twenty-Four theme itself. Would the WordPress update process recognize my customized version as Twenty Twenty-Four and notify me that there is an update available, or would it think that it is some other theme all together?

    Moderator jordesign

    (@jordesign)

    Hi @welldun1 – The Create Block Theme plugin has a few ways that you can ‘create’ the new theme. One of those is to create a child theme – which means it will save your customizations in the new theme – but still reference Twenty Twenty-Four as the parent theme. That means as updates get made to Twenty Twenty-Four you would still get any improvements, but it would keep your customizations in place.

    Thread Starter welldun1

    (@welldun1)

    Ok thank you for the help, much appreciated! I will look into these suggestions and report back.

Viewing 4 replies - 1 through 4 (of 4 total)
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