Best practices for upgrading from WP 2.7 to 2.8?
 

I'm running ATA and WP 2.7 on several sites. My main site is my newspaper, and the theme has gotten a lot of customization. I'm afraid of upgrading to WP 2.8 and/or the next version of ATA. Since this question and answer might be useful to others, I've posted here instead of IM'ing Flynn.

Other than just doing a database backup, what would be the best way to approach such an upgrade?

As a beta tester for WP and a self hosted blogger, the "best practice" I follow is as follows:

1) Backup your site and, database
2) Download WP 2.8
3) Check for plugin compatibility
4) Deactivate known incompatible plugins
5) Backup any modified files in the WP-Admin and WP-Includes folder on your site, if any (I don't touch these files, some may)
6) Delete the WP-Admin and WP-Includes folders
7) Extract the WP-2.8 files to your site (My site is at the root, some my use a sub folder
8) Goto the WP-Admin page of your site, upgrade your database (this is automatic)
9) Check for Plugin upgrades
10) Activate upgraded plugins that were deactivated in step 4)

Doug
http://www.crazytrike.com

Stupid question here, but I've made loads and loads of changes to the wonderful theme and I'm not exactly sure where the changes reside now. Can I be confident that they are all in the WP-Admin and WP-Includes folders and that upgrading to 2.8 will keep the formatting changes? I'm a bit freaked out to do it, to be honest.

I've set up a test site, is there an easy way to import my changes from my real site to my test site so that my theme looks the same on both sites? That way I can upgrade WP on the test site first.

Thanks in advance for any help,
Tart ;)
http://love.apt6d.com

The theme changes made via the Atahualpa option screens are stored in the database and will be fine. If yu made changes to the Atahualpa code, you still should be fine until you upgrade Atahualpa in the future because you will have to make the changes to the code again.

The WP folder you want is wp_contents, This contains your plugins, themes, uploads etc. Read the Wordpress upgrade guide.

Thanks! Yep, just hitting the auto update button in Wordpress did the trick. I did go to the trouble of setting up my test site to make sure, but it was all fine, nonetheless. :)

@All,
I started my blog only recently and installed WP 2.7.1 and Atahualpa 3.2.

Now both are available in upgraded versions - WP2.8 and ATA 3.4

- What order would anyone of you recommend I upgrade them? WP-ATA or ATA-WP?
- Is there anything specific I should be aware of pending the order in which I do the upgrade?

(note - I have following plugins installed:
Akismet 2.3.3
Executable PHP widget 1.1
FeedBurner FeedSmith 2.3.1
Headspace 2 / 3.6.20
WP-Optimize 0.6.1
WP-Table 1.52)

Thanks for any suggestions!

Mamboe

I would upgrade to Atahualpa 3.3.3 and wait for the dust to settle on both WP 2.8 and Atahualpa 3.4.
remember you can install Atahualpa 3.3.3 and 3.4 along side 3.2 in the themes folder and switch back and forth. Just make sure to call the folders atahualpa333, atahualpa34

@Juggledad,
Thanks! Will do. Was offline for a while but will try this tonight. Sounds like the way to go. Am not convinced about WP2.8 yet. Too many people in forums report too many issues. Thanks again, Mamboe

@juggledad,
Upgraded to 333 and no problems. Now waiting for a while. Thanks again, Mamboe29