upgrading from 2.5.7 to 2.6 wipes all custom settings?

[marcnyc]

I noticed that a new version is out and I wanted to upgrade but when I clicked on "upgrade automatically" WP warned me that upgrading would wipe out all the customizations one has done.
I just spent 3 days customizing my theme using all your powerful customization features and there is no way I want to loose all that work so I was wondering if you could please post detailed instructions on how to upgrade to a new version without loosing one's custom settings...
Are the settings saved in the database? in a flat text file? how come they get wiped during an upgrade? I thought the whole point was to make it easy to upgrade...

[sayontan]

Marc,
If you haven't edited the PHP / CSS files themselves you should be fine. The settings are all stored in your database, so short of your DB crashing you should be fine.

Sayontan.

[marcnyc]

so what is the ominous WP warning all about? is that only if I modified actual files?
will the custom CSS and JS that I added through the admin side also in the database and therefore safe for an upgrade?

[sayontan]

That warning is something WP provides - it applies only under these circumstances:

1. You have added new files under the "suffusion" folder
2. You have edited files under the "suffusion" folder

Basically the upgrade process wipes the folder clean and adds the contents of the new theme. The JS and CSS settings you make are safe.

[marcnyc]

great, upgrading now!

[WimScholtes]

Yep, I now know too what the warning means . I added some image files to my theme the last time and after the upgrade they are .... (yes indeed) gone. I can off course put them somewhere else but I would really like to keep things together, so if I change my Suffusion theme I want the images and icons put somewhere in a folder within the Suffusion theme folder.
Is there an elegant way to do so? Is it for example possible to create a custom folder in the Suffusion theme folder that will not be wiped with the next upgrade? Or is that against the WordPress policies?

Greetings...
Wim

PS I love the customizable widths in the new version. Now I can get rid of several changes I had to make in the css .

[sayontan]

Wim,
Unfortunately I haven't been able to figure out a way to do this. I have even posted a thread on the WP forums: http://wordpress.org/support/topic/318770 . As you can see, I haven't gotten any helpful answer. I even tried reverse engineering themes for which this doesn't happen (e.g. Atahualpa), and I failed to find a solution.

Regards,
Sayontan.

[marcnyc]

If I may suggest a workaround that I used to avoid the same problem and facilitate future theme upgrades:

put your images Ina folder in the root and then use the Suffusion custom CSS theme option field to call AND PLACE those images in your theme, this way there are NO altered files in the theme folder and upgrades are smooth and instant while all your custom CSS changes and image are safe.

Works like a charm.

[WimScholtes]

@marcnyc: what do you mean with "to call AND PLACE those images in your theme"?

For example I use a custom background that I set with the body background background image field in the body background settings part of the theme options.

Greetings...
Wim

[marcnyc]

here's what I mean, it's simple...
The Custom CSS code field offered by the theme options allows you to set things, even if they are already set (like the background). Since the custom code is fed to the page after the theme code, your (custom) code is the one the browser will listen to and therefore you can make adjustments to the CSS of the theme without altering any of the files of the themes...
For example, look at my website (http://www.marcurselli.com). EVERYTHING you see there, every color change, background, image etc is applied with the custom CSS code field. I didn't modify a single file of the theme so updating is a breeze! As you can see my website looks pretty different from the "default" Suffusion theme. It's the beauty of CSS.

In your case, wanting to change the background, please note that if you go to SUFFUSION THEME OPTIONS > BODY BACKGROUND SETTINGS you can actually change the background of the theme right there, by just adding a link to an image hosted anywhere on your server.

However, EVEN IF that option wasn't there for you, if you wanted to change the background, you could just add this in the custom CSS code field:

Code: Select all

body {
   background-image:  url(/my-images/background.jpg);
}

In the example above, if you add a slash at the beginning, the file is taken from the 'my-images' folder in the root of your website. So you can put all your images there and not have to add them to your theme files at all (hint hint to the developer of Suffusion: if you are trying to do what you said, you could just make mkdir a folder in the root, chmod it 777 and drop all custom files there, so that they are outside the theme files).

You can also use other CSS properties in the example above, like:

Code: Select all

body {
   background-image:  url(/my-images/background.jpg);
   background-repeat: repeat-x;
   background-attachment: fixed;
   background-position: top left;
}

In the same way you can add an image, or a border or anything else do ANY CSS element in the design, so all you'd have to do is look at the code, find the name (id) of the element you want to modify, leave the code alone and simply add the modifications you want to the custom CSS files.

Example, if you wanted to add a background the div element called 'wrapper' (which is the big <div> that contains ALL the content) you could just add this in the custom CSS code field:

Code: Select all

#wrapper {
   background-image:  url(/my-images/background1.jpg);
}

or if you wanted to change the line under the menu:

Code: Select all

#nav {
   border-bottom: 1px solid #FF0000;
}

Obviously you need to know what to look for when you look at the code, but ANY element can be found and changed via CSS without a single change in the theme files.

Long life to Sayontan for a well thought out theme!