Hi. I would love to upgrade from 7.4 to 8.0, but my WordPress expert says he’s struck snags (see below in bold). I know he’s customised 7.4 with a bit of code here and there, but is that enough to cause these issues? I’d love a second opinion on this please.
“Yesterday a number of challenges were thrown and the most common was that the look and feel of lot many components were distorted. The new version of theme didn’t take very well the present 7.4 look and feel code styles.
To upgrade the version, we have to take the long path. We now have to first make a copy of your website on somewhere our test server, upgrade it their, fix all the issues, which could take good amount of time, and then once all good upgrade on your live server along with those fixes.
In ideal world the theme new version would always ensure compatibility with old versions but there is no guarantee in the coding world as if that’s the case. Have they tested their version very well? Was it the same developers who wrote version 8 ? Hard to say. It could also be that they have changed the inside code architecture, while knowing that it may or may not break few things but have to do it to add more features in future. It’s very hard to say.”
Version 8 is a new version, not an update, so this is always possible with any major update to anything, whether it’s WP, WooCommerce, or themes. You don’t have to update theme if you don’t want to; it’s not mandatory.
The new theme has option of continuing use of Visual Composer page builder for custom home page or pages; or use new light-weight version the TD Composer. If using the TDC, yes, you will need to test and adjust any page using VC, as some modules are carried over but not all – so you would need to change the pages which have any VC element which TDC does not have.
Options
a) don’t upgrade if you have no compelling reason to do so
b) upgrade and use Visual Composer vs TDC — but yes, any custom code added to any core files always has to be moved to new version as new page templates over-ride old ones; this is common with any customization done to any theme
c) setup test area, with clone of site (such as sub-domain, or folder on existing site); switch to TDC, then adjust pages which have broken elements to alternative option from the TDC builder; then once done – copy the clone dbase into the original dbase and replace old theme with the dev theme. Anybody who knows what they are doing as webdev would know how to do all of that.
Hope that helped!
(I don’t work here; but accept tips of cookies and pies!)
Thanks Chris. That’s a huge help. I was just wanting a second opinion and you have allayed all concerns with your input. Next time you’re in Sydney, the pies are on me.
