I installed 3.5.1 on a site where 3.4.6 had been running. I had one new widget area. I didn't notice at first, but the new widget area was lost in the process. I had to put it in the Above the Loop area of the center column, visit the front page, and then it showed up in the New Widget Area creation section, as well as in Appearance/Widgets. The text widget inside it was also there at that point.

Odd, I can't recreate this

I've tested this again. Using 3.4.6, I create a new widget area in the center column with a text widget. It's fine. Then I switch to 3.5.1, and the new widget area is gone. The widget itself no longer appears in the widgets list in dashboard. If you'd like to troubleshoot, I'll PM you the login info.

please send me the login info in a PM, I just tried again and can not cause it, the widget area works fine. Did you go back to 3.4.6 and then get into phpMyAdmin and delete teh bfa_ata4.. record so it is fresh when you switch to 3.5.1?

The reason you lost the new widget area is that after upgrading, you must have imported one of the new styles.

When you use the import styles, it wipes out all the previous options. Since the new widget areas is an option you put in The LOOP, it got wiped out.

I deleted th bfa_ata4 record so it would rebuild it from the 3.4.6 settings and the widget area is now back.

So for a site with a lot of new widget areas, what would be the proper way to upgrade from 3.4.6 to 3.5.1 so as not to lose the widget areas? Let's assume I'd want to import the rounded style. Perhaps a step-by-step 'best practices' would be helpful to me and others.

So, I have a site running Atahualpa 3.4.6, with many new widget areas containing several kinds of widgets, most of them added to the center column/Loop area of the Atahulapa theme options.

I want to upgrade to Atahualpa 3.5.1, use the rounded style, and preserve those new widget areas. How do I go about this, step by step? (Also assume I'll be running Wordpress 3.0, either now or soon.)

You're on, Juggledad!

there is no easy way to merge the style of an existing site with the rounded style, they are two different styles. It's like aksing how to mearg the style of my website onto yours, but you have two sidebars and I have one, your backfround is blue and mine is a image, you have an logo then an image that's 250px, I don't have a logo and my image is 50 px high. It just won't work

You could however, setup a second site and then look at the various options and see which makes sence to move over. Maybe copying all the CSS is enough.

The new styles are meant to be a starting point for a new site. Once you have made a change to any option, you have customize the starting point and are on your way, but you can't change your mind and start over without wiping away YOUR customizations.

I'm mainly worried about losing the new widget areas. I suppose it would be OK to just make a copy of any new widget areas inserted wherever, then paste them back into the new theme options of 3.5.1? It would be great if that were somehow separate from styles, and were something that would survive upgrades.

Paula, if you just do a straight upgrade you won't lose the new widget areas. Check your test site.
go back to 3.4.6
go into phpmyadmin and delete teh bfa_ata4 record
upgrade to 3.5.1
go look at the site - the widget area is there.

If you now import the rounded.txt it WILL wipe out any new widget areas and ever other option you had set n 3.4.6 as it is designed to. But if you just upgrade your site (no import) the widget areas will be tthere - at least I haven't seen a case where they're not.

Right, I knew that, JD. But I do want the rounded style. Let me ask it this way: what if the rounded style CSS was simply added to the HTML/CSS inserts before or after the upgrade?

I'll try it, anyway. I just want to find a way to upgrade to 3.5.1 (and later versions), get the rounded style, and not lose the customizations.

EDIT: Oh, I just realized the rounded styles are not in plain text. What about making them available as text so we could just pop them into the CSS insert area?

What I did was to upgrade to 3.5.1 then do an export of the style from 3.4.6.
Next I imported the rounded.txt style, and copied the CSS Inserts. I then re-imported the 3.4.6 style and added the CSS Inserts from the rounded.txt and took a look at the page.

It was partly there, but not complete because some of the styling is done in the CSS Inserts and other parts are done in different theme options.

The styles ate in base 64 but even if you convert them, it's not going to be usable. They are not in copy/paste format, more of an internal syntax